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Alice Cooper

An Alice Cooper concert is no ordinary affair. Even portions of the audience emit a freakish aura for a rock concert: males wearing eye liner and feminine jewelry; females clothed in the bizarrest garments imaginable.

Air was scarce, hot and seasoned with "brush fire" fumes July 11th in the ancient Long Beach Auditorium as Black Oak Arkansas concluded an inaudibly loud but lively set. Tension mounted. Shouts permeated from the audience: "We want Alice!" and "We want the Spiders!" (the Alice Cooper group was once a local Phoenix group known as the Spiders). The stage lights darkened and there was a long pause. "Hey," someone commented: "maybe Alice Cooper is gonna do something really bizarre like not show up an make us sit here and look at a black stage for two hours." The audience clapped and stomped. "Where's Alice?!" Suddenly a set of shadowy figures crept onto the stage. "Ladies and gentlemen, the most glamorous group in the world, Alice Cooper!" A nervous, but loud, applause.

The lights brightened and there he stood; Alice Cooper. He wore black boots, black tights (pantyhose?) with holes ripped in the front, a black skin-tight leotard with a zipper all the way down to his waist (unzipped for most of the concert), and a shiny bullet belt. His eyes were surrounded by spidery patterns which glittered in the lights. Neal Smith (drums) wore a tight white feminine suit. Dennis Dunaway (bass guitar), Glen Buxton (lead Guitar) and Mike Bruce (rhythm guitar, piano and organ) each wore appropriately sparkly clothes, the kind high society girls often wear. These effeminate creatures, make no mistake, did not represent "gay power." The entire purpose of their appearance was to throw the identity (masculine/feminine) of the audience flat into its face.

Military personnel, who heavily populated the audience, and others who had come expecting a female folk singer or a gentle blues group gazed horrified at the stage. Only one person (known) actually walked out in disgust (quite a change from the days when all but 200 of a 2,000 person audience would walk out on AC).

Alice Cooper walked to the microphone stand, bent to his knees and slammed a hammer against its base with a steady rhythm. Holding a microphone in his other hand he opened his mouth ever so delicately and began shaking his vocal chords. Chills leaped through the spines of Alice's fans as they instantly recognized the tune to "Sun Arise:" "Sun arise/Come every morning/Bringin' back the warmth to the ground/Sun arise/ Filling up the hollow/Sun arise." The multiple chorus cascade and driving rhythm sounded even better than the record (impossible!); the audience was left enthralled.

They executed perfectly "Caught in a Dream," a song concerning middle class America, and rolled straight into "Eighteen," Alice raised his fist to proclaim: "I'm a boy and I'm a man/I'm 18 and I don't know what I want... I got a baby's brain and an old man's heart... 'Cause I'm 18/I get confused every day." He raised a beer can and added: "I've got to get out of here/Mom and Dad's got me drinking beer."

After a maniacal screaming, clapping, whistling session by the crowd, Alice appeared at the mike with a monstrous whip, slashing the stand to the ground and sang: "What is it that makes you want to love me?/Is it my body?" While a gigantic claw covered his stomach Alice swung around a sword, often holding it to his throat or running to through the hair of a female photographer near the stage. Alice bared one of his shoulders, stepped over the sound boxes and danced erotic poses (female) on the very edge of the stage. "Go Spiders!" someone yelled from the audience. Alice stepped back in astonishment and the group laughed. After a hearty applause, Alice said, (in the sexiest voice he could muster up), "I didn't know you cared."

"I only know hell is getting hotter/The devil's getting smarter all the time... It would be nice to walk upon the water," sang Alice as the group plunged through a perfect version of "Second Coming." A nurse walked onto the stage and led Alice away as he held his hands to the sides of his head (anti-Cooperians cheered)... a short piano solo... the mysterious voice of a four year old girl said: "Mommy, where's Daddy? He's been gone for so long. Do you think he'll ever come home?"... Alice returned to the stage in a straight jacket to sing "Ballad of Dwight Fry": "I was gone 14 days/I could have been gone for more/Held up in intensive care ward/Lyin' on the floor... I think I lost some weight there/And I'm sure I need some rest/Sleeping don't come very easy/In a straight white vest/Sure like to see them little children/She's only four years old/I'd give her back all of her playthings/Even the ones I stole." With eyes building from his head and a demented look on his face, Alice screamed: "I wanna get our a here! I wanna... get... out... of.... here! I gottagetoutahere!" He ripped the coat from his body and flung it straight into the face of a girl in the front row.

Neal began a very quiet drum sequence which slowly intensified and was joined by Mike's haunting organ. Alice appeared at the microphone with a pitchfork and a black robe: "Black Juju" time. As the group continued the witchy song, Alice unveiled a large object to reveal a dummy of a military officer in a space age chair. Grabbing the dummy by the neck, he swung it around and jabbed it with the pitchfork. Out walked a police officer who grabbed Alice and threw him into the chair. The stage lights dimmed and a ring of flashing lights encircled the chair as Alice quietly changed: "Bodies need rest. We all need our rest.... Rest. Rest. Rest." The lights completely dimmed to blackness, Alice jumped to the front and shone a floodlight into the eyes of the unexpecting audience while screaming: "Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!" As he grasped the light by its chord spinning it in an impossibly fast circle, huge clouds of colored smoke began to flood the stage. Out came the pillows and the fire extinguisher. Alice ejaculated pillow feathers into the air until not a trace of the stage could be seen as Mike frantically did in the stage and curtains with the fire extinguisher.

Meanwhile, the audience was beginning to filter into the aisles, prevented from reaching the stage only by a few motorcycle-gang types.

The group left the stage. The demand for an encore was more frenzied than at concerts twice this size. Neal returned to the stage and began "Wipe Out style solo. The song was "Return of the Spiders." Alice stepped out and signaled the audience to the stage. People hurled their bodies over rows of seats, ran through the aisles and literally trampled stage guards to reach Alice.

With posters in his hands, sometimes ripping them in half so more people could get them, Alice tossed group pictures to the audience.

The guards, however, were not so nice. They knocked girls to the ground for giving them dirty looks and, in general, slugged anyone that they didn't like the looks of. Hypocritically, their sweaters said "peace" on the back. They claimed they were trying to keep people off the stage, when in reality, the people only wanted to get next to the stage. The guards used it as an excuse to show off their "manhood." After the concert, one girl attempted to talk to a guard, was thrown to the floor and held down until she had to scream.

Alice held swords strung with one dollar bills over the edge of the stage, urging people to come up and pluck them off. By now the audience was frantic and a whale couldn't have held them back. With a baseball bat Alice smashed a fish-shaped pinata just as the song ended. Loud applause ensued. The entire crowd gazed motionlessly, silently at the empty stage for several seconds before they started to leave; they couldn't believe what they had witnessed.

Even those who had been slugged in the mouth by the stage thugs agreed; there had never been a better rock and roll concert. Ever.

(Originally published in Door, July 21st-August 3rd, 1971)