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Cooper in Bloody Good Form, Concert Makes Audience See Red

A woman's throat was slit at Dayton's Hara Arena on Tuesday. No, it was not a heinous murder, it was the Alice Cooper show and as usual the king of horror-rock had plenty of blood to spray around.

It was obvious that Alice has not lost his touch, although the low ticket sales might indicate that many people have lost interest after his numerous boring albums in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Well, Alice is back.

The last two albums, "Constrictor" and "Raise Your Fist and Yell" have redeemed him, if redemption is possible for a man who chops off the heads and legs of doll babies.

His top-notch band, featuring two guitar players, a bassist, a drummer and a keyboardist, provided a hard rocking back-up to Alice as he grabbed the audience's attention with a succession of hits from the past as well as many newer songs.

It was sing-along time for these fans as they joined Alice in singing the ultimate teen-age anthem, "Eighteen," as well as "Billion Dollar Babies," "School's Out," "Is It My Body," "No More Mr. Nice Guy" and "Teenage Frankenstein."

Alice did more than sing and leap about among the dripping entrails and body parts. He did battle with various whip-welding women, a giant black widow spider and several monsters. At one point he chopped off the head of a monster and blood spewed all over fans standing within 20 feet of the stage.

Evil women joined the monsters in the effort to do in poor Alice. Not that he did not deserve it. After dismembering several baby dolls, slitting the throat of a prostitute and chopping a woman's legs with a hatchet, Alice had enough sin on his soul to deserve to be hung. And he was.

But no hanging is going to kill Alice. Shortly after his lifeless body was carried from the stage, he returned clad in blood-splattered top hat and tails.

Opening bands Faster Pussycat and Ace Frehley's Comet were boring metal bands. Although there were a number of fans of Frehley, former guitarist for KISS, I was not impressed. Both opening bands played the same-old heavy metal noise that masquerades as rock and roll these days.

(Originally published in the Daily Gazette in Xenia, Ohio. Courtesy of Emil Ortenmark)