Rock critics showered the late David Bowie with praise for constantly reinventing himself to stay relevant.
By that metric, Alice Cooper deserves considerably more credit.
After all, the Godfather of Shock Rock one-upped Bowie by remaining relevant while making only slight tweaks to the same persona he started with: rock ‘n’ roll’s first villain. Playing the same role with only minor alterations to fit prevailing hard-rock trends, Cooper fronted a band of the same name that became one of the top arena draws of the ’70s. And his solo career has carried him forward for six decades, riding out myriad music industry cycles.
Cooper proved his adaptability and staying power Tuesday night when he launched his Alice’s Attic tour at San Antonio’s Majestic Theatre. The career-spanning set included 22 songs drawn from albums ranging from 1971’s career-defining Love It to Death to 2005’s solid return to form Dirty Diamonds.
All along the way, the surprisingly spry 78-year-old belted out the gritty but anthemic hard rock that’s become his stock-in-trade, pairing has sandpapery vocals and offbeat, often macabre lyrics with a live act drenched in horror-show visuals.
From onstage stabbings and a Frankenstein monster lumbering over the band to a decapitation by guillotine, the show delivered big on the spooky theatrics that have long been Cooper’s live trademark. A video backdrop interspersed closeups of the singer’s gaunt and angular face — a vaudeville devil in garish lipstick and corpse paint — with images ranging from eerily moving doll hands to vintage photos and video of himself.
Of course, none of the ghoulish stagecraft is as shocking as it was to 1970s audiences — too many social taboos have been broken since then, too much real blood has dripped down our TV screens. Even so, the Coop’s winking Grand Guignol endures, now as a brief escape from real-world horrors like school shootings and the clacking jackboots of authoritarianism.
While Cooper remains an impressive frontman, his long-running band deserves plenty of the credit. During Tuesday’s performance, they maintained the energy with a muscular triple-guitar attack and showed their versatility by pulling off the subtle tonal shifts between the decades-spanning material. The group’s newest addition, 22-year-old British guitarist Anna Cara — a fill-in for longtime member Nita Strauss while she’s on pregnancy leave — fired off fleet-fingered solos while bringing along a goth visual style.
The set’s tension-building “Billion Dollar Babies,” moodily disturbing “The Ballad of Dwight Frye” and necrophilia-with-a-cowbell shock rocker “Cold Ethyl” lit up older fans who relish Cooper’s early ’70s material as his creative zenith. No doubt, some were lamenting the set’s omission of “I Love the Dead” and “Welcome to My Nightmare.”
Still, there’s no denying that younger fans inside the Majestic — well, not that much younger — were on their feet and shouting along with “Feed My Frankenstein,” “Hey Stoopid” and “Poison” from the Coop’s hair-metal phase. While the singer’s late-’80s and early-’90s dalliance with hair metal may not stand up as a career high point, there’s no denying its highlights left an impact on fans.
As many hits as Cooper’s racked up over the years, he’s shown a consistent ability to mix up setlists and offer unexpected surprises. Tuesday was no exception. Those included brief and ripping set opener “Who Do You Think We Are” from 1981’s punk-informed Special Forces, the jangly garage rocker “Caught in a Dream” from Love It to Death and the delightfully sleazy title track from 1973’s Muscle of Love.
The night’s only misstep was the first of Cooper’s two encore numbers, a cover of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” While the band delivered capably, the move felt unnecessary and pandering, especially because Cooper failed to significantly rearrange the song or put his own stamp on it.
Fortunately, Cooper and company quickly followed the cover with a fierce take on his own 1971 classic “Under My Wheels,” a track that summed up his enduring ability to stir up an alluring cocktail that’s equal parts timeless hard rock and dark escapism.
All photos by Jaime Monzon.
Sign Up for SA Current newsletters.
Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed
