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After years of playing with death, Alice Cooper nearly treated himself to the real thing recently when he fell 17 feet to the cement floor during a sell-out concert in Vancouver, B.C. Some 18,000 fans at the Pacific National Exhibition Coliseum watched in horror as the king of shock rock tumbled from the top of a giant toy box — one of the props in his 'Welcome to My Nightmare' show — 15 minutes into the 90-minute show.

The improperly balanced box tipped over when Alice climbed on top of it, knocking him backward. He tripped over a footlight and fell over the front of the stage. As excited fans clutched his hair, he was lifted back onto the stage and staggered away. A doctor in the dressing room gave a diagnosis of six cracked ribs and a concussion.

Refusing to be rushed away on a stretcher, however, the hastily-bandaged master of the macabre headed back to his audience, where he was assaulted by enormous Black Widow spiders. As soon as the show ended a waiting ambulance rushed him to Burnaby General Hospital, where he received 12 stitches for scalp lacerations.

Five nights later, in Edmonton, Alta., Alice went onstage again, despite his injuries and despite attempts by the city council to have the show banned. As his band played around him, Alice was rolled onstage in an enormous cobweb-infested bed. Forty minutes late, groaning and clutching his ribs in obvious pain, he wandered offstage. The crowd loved it.