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House of Blues Concert Review

"Dragontown" being the third chapter in the trilogy which began back in 1994 with "The Last Temptation", the second chapter was the outrageous tour that we witnessed at the House of Blues in Las Vegas, NV back in Sept 22nd 2000 "Brutal Planet".

Brutal Planet was a great tour and it in my opinion was one of his best tours in years, but Saturday night, September 29th Alice Cooper topped the Brutal Planet tour by leaps and bounds. Dragontown is one of the best Alice Cooper shows I have seen. The Aladdin stage was set, the show opened with a new hard rock act "Lennon". They didn't seem to get a very warm welcome from the Las Vegas fans, but you have to understand the fans were there to see the King of Shock Rock "Alice Cooper".

After "Lennon" left the stage it was then prepared for the highlight of the evening. The stage looking like the Brutal Planet stage, laced with dead bodies, bones and what looked like the destroyed reminisce of a world gone wrong. His many outrageous stage props were a welcome sight as always, which included his famous guillotine, monster maker, along with many stage actors who help him with his twisted stage show we have all grown to love. Plus as he was sporting a shirt, which read "Britney Spears Wants Me" and on the back it said DEAD. He surprisingly was then joined by special guest star (Britney Spears) that was until he slugged her as she started to sing "Hit me baby one more time", then he chased her off stage to bring back only her bleeding head which was chopped off at the shoulders. He then placed the head at the top on the stage backdrop.

He also graced the stage with his sexy nurse during the song "Nurse Rozetta" from his 1978 release "From the Inside" then soon after the song she began to annoy Alice so she was soon stuffed in a car trunk that was on the stage. She reappeared a couple other times during the night to rain havoc on Alice, and to also try to help in the demise of Cooper but we all know who was the last one standing. Like the saying you can't kill rock-n-roll well you can't kill Alice Cooper either. Although they chopped his head off with the famous guillotine and his blood was thrown all over the front rows, Alice Cooper still prevailed.

Alice as always played his forever-classic favorites, along with a wide array of new material from the newest release "Dragontown", and "Brutal Planet". This show was great, and showed that Alice Cooper has only improved with time. They kept the unfortunately not sold out crowd on their feet for the majority of the show. Although the Aladdin has been recently remodeled, and the seats are the most comfortable in the entire town of Las Vegas (as far as rock venues go), that didn't even seem to be in the minds of the Alice Cooper fans in attendance. As the only portion of the show anyone seemed to be seated for was the new song from Dragontown "Every Woman Has A Name" which leads into the next song that was well received by the fans "Only Women Bleed". Then once again the whole venue rose and remained standing and chanting the words to all the memorial Alice Cooper Classics...

Alice Cooper bands have always been made up of the finest musicians in the business and this line up was no exception to the rules.

Ryan Roxie - Guitar
(w/Alice since 1996, also played with Slash and Tal Bachman)
Eric Dover - Guitar / Backing Vocals
(w/Alice since April, also played with Jellyfish, Imperial Drag and Slash)
Greg Smith - Bass / Backing Vocals
(w/Alice since 1991 except one stint w/Ritchie Blackmore)
Teddy Zigzag - Keyboards / Backing Vocals
(w/Alice since last year, also played with Guns N Roses, Carole King and Bruce Willis)
Eric Singer - Drums
(w/Alice since 1990 except 2 stints with KISS and a short one with Brian May)

I was very happy to see Eric Singer back with Alice; I really thought that he wouldn't be there. But there he was and man he helped put the show over the top.

This evening couldn't have been better, it seemed like Alice played almost all of the hits you would expect to hear. There were a few that I missed like "Cold Ethyl", "How You Gonna See Me Now". But all and all, Alice Cooper is hands down the best in the business. I really enjoyed this show and would rank it as one of the best shows I have ever seen. Along with some of the memorable moments like when I was at the stage snapping photos, and I had Alice's whip skimming the top of my head as he walked inches from my camera and myself. Plus the after show we were able to work out way backstage (Kathy AKA Kit Kat) and I had the chance to meet and speak with some of the members of the band. We met with Ryan Roxie, he spoke to us regarding a tour shirt I had worn to the show from the 1996 tour with the scorpions, as he commented "I remember that tour, it was a great tour and I was on it." We also talked with Eric Dover; we talked about this being the first show on the tour and how we thought it came off without a hitch... They both are really nice guys, down to earth. Didn't seem to be any egos at this show. We didn't get the chance to speak to Alice Cooper or Eric Singer but we hope to have the chance to meet them in the near future. This night wound up ending around 12:30-1:00am and it was worth every minute. Alice Cooper never has been better and this show gets one of the highest ratings we can give and 11 on a scale of 1-10 it goes off the chart!

I would like to thank the following people for making this all possible. Carol Kaye and Kayos Productions, the Aladdin Resort and Casino, Alice Cooper and all the band members that took the time to speak with us.

(Originally appeared in Maximum-Rock magazine, December 2001 - February 2002)