So you’ve been on the rock&roll scene since 1965-66. You’re now 62 years of age (and counting). You could very well retire, but no, there you are, not only on stage bouncing around like a 16 year-old pubescent rocker, but a rather well-known credit card company (MasterCard) decides to dig up one of your old famous songs (“School’s Out”, 1972), perhaps your most famous one, and uses it for its latest tv ad, and you end up still making a killing on royalties from that song, 38 years later! It probably can’t get any better for an “aged” rocker.
So who am I talking about? None other than Mr. Vincent Furnier, aka Alice Cooper! He played in front of about 4,000 souls in the small northern Italian town of Majano, located some 20 kms from Udine (his only Italian concert by the way). And what a great way to knock the socks off of even those 15 year-olds that were present by kicking off his “The Theatre of Death” show with “School’s Out” (now that brought back wonderful memories for yours truly who was 13 when that song came out, and could HARDLY wait that school would be over with, like permanently! Alice’s song was every school kids’ “national anthem” back then!).
The concert, a mere 75 minutes, was packed though with all of Alice’s main theatrical weapons (sans snakes!): guillotines, his “severed” head, baby dolls and large female ones too, flying money (for “Billion Dollar Babies”. I still have the original LP!), fake diamond necklaces (which he repeatedly flung into the audience), flying coloured balloons (which he proceeded to burst with a sword) and even the Italian flag at the end of the show. Indeed a nice touch Alice!
Backed by four great musicians, Cooper pounded the audience with other epic tunes such as “No More Mr. Nice Guy”, “I’m Eighteen”, “Poison” (he was promptly “stabbed” by a large syringe!) and “Elected”. A pity though he didn’t include one of his nicest (1975), “Only Women Bleed” or “Welcome To My Nightmare” and “Hey Stoopid”. Nevertheless, ‘twas certainly another great honour to see someone who no doubt influenced other big acts such as Kiss (and their great theatrical shows of the 1970s) and who also hung around with another fun-loving lunatic of rock&roll, Iggy Pop!
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