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Alice Toys with Nightmare Images

"It's suggesting images. It's just suggesting images and then letting the audience fantasize on that." Alice Cooper was relaxing after a day on the golf course and talking about the show which would appear as both a 90-minute TV special and a theatrical extravaganza in the arenas of America and the world.

"A nightmare never has a real definite story line," he explained. "At the time things seem logical — that you're walking around on the wall and things like that. Yet then, when you wake up, you say, 'How absurd that is!'" Alice, who likes to think of his shows as "rock 'n roll Busby Berkeley," was especially anticipating two aspects of the 'Welcome to My Nightmare' production.

"I get to play with all the new things," he said, licking his chops. The show carries four dancers, a nine-foot tall cyclops and huge black widow spiders, along with a few more nightmarish tidbits. "The stage is very mobile and does a lot of things," Alice said. "This thing will turn into this will turn into that will turn into this, just like a nightmare would. All of a sudden this thing that you saw will turn over and it's something else."

And this will be his first tour without the Alice Cooper Band. Replacing his former mates are guitar demons Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter (known for their work on previous Cooper albums and 'Rock and Roll Animal'), keyboardist Jozef Chirowski, bassist Prakash John and drummer Whitey Glan (Mandala and 'Berlin').

"You can't believe this band when you hear them play. Everything's so tight about them. I have to hold them back on the guitars 'cause they're so good." Alice remembered the 'Nightmare' recording sessions: "Wagner and all the guys would learn the song in one day, and the bed track would be done — in one day. I've never worked that fast. So I know the music's going to be right there."

Rock Rites of Spring

Rash of Rock Tours Make U.S. Bloom

The end of winter flushed out an amazing bevy of rock groups. It seemed as soon as you exited Jethro Tull at the War Memorial you had to stagger over to the Civic Auditorium to catch Led Zeppelin.

But by mid-February, 1975, the highways and airway were already filled and criss-crossed with tons of equipment, dozens of personnel and scores of satin skinned rockmen all on the way to one giant gig or another. The early months of 1975 saw Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, Alice Cooper (the solo artist), Rod Stewart and the Faces, Queen, Aerosmith, not to mention Nektar, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Humble Pie, Robin Trower, Grand Funk and others booking nights in venues of 10,000 seats and over. Roxy Music experienced their first overwhelming tour successes; Average White Band brought out all the interra­cial couples in urban areas.

It was a time of parties for the rock elite. Lennon and Bowie had lots of company during the evening as Rod Stewart and Ron Wood, Bryan Ferry, Jimmy and Robert, hung out in the back rooms of New York's most gilded restaurants. One of the biggest bashes of rock time took place in honor of Rod and the Faces at the Greenhouse, a water spot with each other inside, hundreds of fans watched from outside with their faces pressed against the tall glass wall of the fishtank building. Inside Dylan rapped to Ryan O'Neil while Tatum ran around. All of Led Zep attended as well as much of Deep Purple, members of America, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, Gregg Allman and Cher, Keith Moon (the ubiquitous), Alice, and of course Iggy Pop.

The rites of spring tours took a distinctly theatrical slant. Led Zeppelin used a four-pronged James Bond blue laser during "Dazed and Confused" at Madison Square Garden. Jethro Tull cavorted about with an array of human props the likes of which had not been seen since Alice Cooper's Billion Dollar Babies tour. Ian Anderson was careful not to run into any post Passion­Play depths and stuck to Tull's favorite tunes, primarily.

Madame Cooper, meanwhile, newly divorced from her men, took the experiment in stage theatrics begun with Billion Dollar Babies to unbelievable lengths in her Welcome To My Nightmare tour. Featuring six-foot black widow spiders and spider dancers pirouetting about in a 12' x 20' black gossamer web suspended across the stage by a couple of conical aluminum towers Alice howled like a banshee trapped in an elevator shaft. There was a chorus line dressed in skeleton costumes and a cyclops in a cave.

Aerosmith became the official Led Zeppelin substitutes, winning over heavy metal fans by the hundreds. The Faces sold out each date as fast, or faster, than ever before. It was their best American tour even though there was no new Faces album to coincide with the concert dates. Queen, on their first tour as headliners, were besieged by promoters' requests for a return engagement as soon as possible.