Alice Cooper Concert Review From Bloomington, Illinois August 21, 2008: Along Came Alice

“Told her that I came from Detroit city,
And I played guitar in a long haired rock and roll band.She asked me why the singer's name was ‘Alice…’
I said, ‘Listen baby you really wouldn't understand.’And I said, ‘Baby if you wanna be my lover,
You better take me home…'Cause it's a long long way to paradise
And I'm still on my own on my own.’”

--Alice Cooper from the song, “Be My Lover” from the LP Killer 1971.



Thursday evening was a coming home of sorts for me, as I saw the first artist I really “discovered” as a kid. Alice Cooper played the Bloomington, Illinois Cingular Colliseum for a two-hour and ten minute show.

In a word: fantastic.

Less supportive of the Along Came a Spider new CD, this was a greatest hits show. Alice performed two tracks from Along Came A Spider as the band plowed through two very refined versions of Wake the Dead and Vengeance is Mine, that sounded like they were in league with the Alice Cooper classics.

The band opened with No More Mr. Nice Guy, and the greatest grew from there. Hitting the high points of his career Alice Cooper performed Under My Wheels, Desperado, Is It My Body, Be My Lover, Dirty Diamonds, Lost In America, Raise Your Fist, I'm Eighteen, Hey Stoopid, Department of Youth, and so many more. It was almost like living through the seventies all over, skipping the eighties, and waking up in the late nineties and early part of the century.

The “theatrical” part of the show included almost the full version of the Welcome To My Nightmare album (and some nods to Billion Dollar Babies cuts), complete with the ghouls and demons on stage that have haunted Alice throughout his life. Along Came a Spider takes the character of Steven from the Welcome To My Nightmare album and shows him as a psychotic killer/mass murderer who acts as a Spider of sorts that spins a web of various colors of silks to store his women victims as he builds a macabre “spider” of the female victims’ remains: except he falls in love with one of the victims which leads him to the paths of fear, guilt, and ultimately redemption.

This portion of the show included such classics as Welcome To My Nightmare, Steven, Only Women Bleed, Cold Ethel, Sick Things, I Love The Dead, and others in the story. Too be honest, my date Jen thought this was a bit over the top, as the acting out of various “tortures” of mankind struck her as a bit unnecessary. I reminded her it was an Alice Cooper show, but unfamiliar folks “Just really wouldn’t understand” (see lyrics above).

The show concluded with classics like Billion Dollar Babies and School's Out and an encore that contained Poison, Elected and more. Highlight of the end of the show was the Obama vs. McCain vs. Bush “characters” battling it out for control for the country during the song Elected: none of which understood that on this stage, Alice Cooper is the President and he rules with an iron fist.

I really have not been to a pure rock show for years, so this was a healthy outlet for my missing-in-action pent-up aggression to witness a great classic band jam out with complete understanding of what the audience wanted to see.

For me, it was a return to form of the music I loved when I was fifteen and continue to love at forty-four. Thanks Alice, now go scare the Hell out of another town. You have always been the greatest shock rocker, and at sixty, you look better than ever.