1/2As theatre:
1/2
Alice
Cooper/Paul Rodgers/Screaming Jets My night starts like this: I'm running late, much later than usual even. Then I check my ticket and see that it shows the starting time as 7:00pm, not 8:00pm as I had thought. Shit, now it's panic stations. Too late to go into town and catch the special train out to the wilds of Homebush (site of the recent Olympics in case you've forgotten already... I'm still trying to) so I have to cab it there direct as the car parking commandants insist on parking spots being purchased in advance to discourage traffic jams around the former Olympic precinct. When I get there, half the roads are blocked off so the cab has to make a wide detour around several former Olympic venues, adding a couple of bucks to the fare and taking me past a half empty parking station right behind tonight's venue, before sneaking up on the Superdome from the far side. Shit again, looks like I should have driven in after all. I'm left to wonder resentfully whether these road blocks are part of the aforementioned policy of traffic discouragement or whether it's just a sign of shithouse management.
Since I'm so late, I'm the only one going in and the three bouncers at the door are able to give me their complete and undivided attention. This includes searching my bag while one of them asks me for any drugs or alcohol. From his manner it isn't completely clear whether he's buying or selling, but then they find my camera and he loses interest in anything else. I am made to take my camera to the cloakroom and check it in. Hmm, since the search stopped as soon as they found something, if I'd had two cameras, then I probably could have gotten the second one in; a lesson learned. Alternatively, if I'd worn a jacket with big pockets, I probably could have got it in that way, without being searched in the first place. A third option would have been simply to arrive earlier when a lot of other people were going in as well, but now we're entering the realm of fantasy. To add insult to injury, about a minute after I take my seat (literally within sixty seconds of buttock touching chair), someone a couple of rows behind me takes a picture with a flash and none of the bouncers nearby bother to do anything about it.
By this time, the Screaming Jets have been and are long gone. Paul Rodgers is on stage and sounds like he's well into his set. While there are apparently many who despise the Screaming Jets, I've never been particularly offended by any of their radio friendly hits, although the only time I ever saw them live (supporting the Divinyls at Selina's many, many moons ago), their stage act was pretty limp and uninspiring. To be fair, that was pretty early in their career and I wouldn't have minded the chance to see how the years have treated them, especially since it's included in the considerable price of my ticket, but it's another lost opportunity.
I last saw Paul Rodgers here at this very same venue barely a year ago as part of the traveling nostalgia fest which was the "Ultimate Rock Symphony". Unfortunately on that night he was suffering from a near terminal cold and was only able to croak out a couple of his scheduled numbers (yes, I paid their exorbitant asking price for a souvenir program, so I knew exactly who was supposed to be singing what and when). As luck would have it, the rest of his set was then dropped, allowing Jimmy Barnes extra time for a few more songs (so there were two reasons not to be cheerful).
Tonight the still unnaturally youthful-looking Mr Rodgers is dressed all in white (singlet and trousers) and very much the star of this part of the show, which is practically a Bad Company greatest hits cabaret, though "Rock'n'Roll Fantasy" does turn into a Beatles medley before the set ends with "All Right Now", the only Free song to be played (unless he opened with a few that I missed due to my already documented late arrival). He even gets an encore, which turns out to be two more Bad Company songs in full "stadium mode" with heavy audience participation. During this encore, the two empty seats next to me are briefly occupied by a couple who are shown to their seats by the usher, sit through half a song and then immediately get up and leave. Obviously Mr Rodgers' arena anthems are not to their taste.
To be honest, I could be accused of being a little revisionist here. Free were on the bill (supporting Deep Purple) at the very first rock'n'roll show I ever went to and that was in a stadium, albeit a small one: the roughly 4,000 seat Apollo Stadium, "the home of basketball" in South Australia. It was probably the scene of some great basketball, but the acoustics sucked for any entertainment that didn't involve running around and grunting (actually that still doesn't sound too far removed from rock'n'roll, but I'm sure you get my drift). Nevertheless even way back then technically they were playing stadiums (stadia?), so don't let me give you the impression that it's something new. What has changed is Mr Rodgers level of showmanship. Then, they had the appearance and demeanor of a good small venue band suddenly thrust onto larger stages; now, he struts the stage as if to the manner born; next stop Las Vegas I guess.
At the break I take the opportunity to wander around the extended foyer and get a good gander at the audience, which is mainly middle-aged couples, although there are some old die hard rockers and a sprinkling of weekend Goths as well. Many of the oldies seem neurotically intent on recapturing a scrap of lost youth by dressing up for the occasion. For the blokes, this basically just entails dragging an old tee shirt out of the back of the cupboard, while for the women clearly it's been a major exercise in make up and wardrobe assembly. In particular, it involves a lot of leather, so much in fact that tonight it looks like there's enough former cow flesh on display to have required a very large herd, if not an entire bovine sub-species, to have been put to the sword.
I would have assumed that Mr Cooper's organisation knows a hell of lot about marketing, presentation and cross promotion. There's already a "Brutally Live" DVD from the original US leg of this tour on sale in the US, but surprisingly no attempt is being made to market it here tonight, the merchandise stand limiting itself to just a selection of tee shirts. It seems to be doing a roaring trade anyway.
Waiting in line in front of a food stall, the time passes much faster than I'm aware, so I'm still washing down my overpriced hot dog with a plastic cup of the house white (a cheeky chardonnay from Seppelts - actually I'm bullshitting now, the chardonnay is really very well behaved) when the lights in the stadium go dark and clearly the main event is about to start. Consequently there is a major stampede for the doors to get back in! The 10 & 5 minute warning signals at the Entertainment Centre have always annoyed the shit out of me, but boy am I now lamenting their absence as I shoulder my way into the crowd jamming entrance door number 11 and start making my tense descent down the stairs in the dark.
Despite being of roughly the same era and heritage as those favoured sons of Detroit, the Stooges and the MC5, Alice Cooper has always seemed to be treated by that family like the bastard son nobody wants to own up to. He's also copped a lot of shit from purists who reckon his theatrical shock rock antics just ain't rock'n'roll, so here's a little personal history to put the comments which follow into perspective: my introduction to Alice Cooper came via the first album "Pretties For You". This was bought by a mate who was into Zappa in major (some might say unhealthy) way. He was making a habit of buying anything ol' Frank put out on either of his labels (he even claimed to like the Wild Man Fischer record), so this was an inevitable purchase. It was pretty uneven but there were a couple of good tracks, especially "Reflected", which was so good in fact that the resourceful Mr Cooper reworked it as "Elected" on "School's Out". Subsequently, "Easy Action" was a bit of a disappointment, but "Love It To Death" and "Killer" both hit the target more often than they missed (Alice and Frank had long since parted company by then, but my mate was still buying the records for their own sake).
In comparison to its predecessors, "School's Out" was bloated and flaccid; it sounded like all the creativity must be going into the stage show rather than the music, despite which (or should that be "because of which"?) his radio popularity really took off. Theatrical antics had been very much a part of the, by then, greatly despised prog rock trend and any artist who attempted an obvious prepared stage show was quickly and roundly condemned as "unrock", even though the two main non-prog offenders were still managing to put out some pretty decent sounding records (Alice effectively playing Mr Hyde to David Bowie's Dr Jekyll in this field). Until "School's Out", he'd still been delivering the goods on record in my opinion, so any talk of theatrics had been irrelevant to me. However, when the quality of the music went west, so did my interest.
Of course any talk of stage shows was just hearsay during this period. I didn't get to see AC for myself until the "Welcome to My Nightmare" tour, by which time the stage show had become a very big production indeed. I thought the songs from this period were particularly weak, even if Lou Reed's backing band did almost manage to turn the sonic sow's ear into a silk purse. I doubt that any of this would worry Mr Cooper though. Unlike a great many in the rock'n'roll biz, he's always known it's all just make believe. Fifteen years later, the Trash tour came as a revelation to me: some sharp new songs, a kick arse backing band and a show at the Entertainment Centre which was a remorseless rawk event with minimal theatrical distraction. His recent inclusion in the "Ultimate Rock Symphony" line up remains an unfathomable mystery. Since he clearly still had it all and more importantly still could deliver it all on stage, what the fuck was he doing in this oldies parade, singing Pink Floyd and Rolling Stones covers wedged between Billy Thorpe and Peter Frampton?
What we get tonight is much more theatre than it is rock - nothing happens, vocally or visually, that doesn't look and sound like it's been scripted, choreographed and technical rehearsed to death; another rotation in the continuing cyclic reinvention of Alice Cooper, part new Brutal Planet, part same old shtick. The show kicks off with the title track of the new album, a rumbling bad tempered brute of a song that out rammsteins Rammstein. Like him or loathe him, one thing you have to admit is that the man knows how to remain sounding contemporary and in passing he shows up Marilyn Manson for the parvenu poseur (s)he is.
From there on, we get close to two hours of hits and memories, with murder, mayhem, multiple beheadings, lots of props and a goodly amount of stage craft thrown in. The couple who walked out on Paul Rodgers are back already when I get to my seat, go berserk the moment the music starts and stay that way for the whole show, singing along to every song as events grind on to their inevitable climax of "School's Out". As already indicated, for me it's never been much more than an okay song, marking the point at which the theatrics finally swamped the music (although the B side "Luney Tune" remains a personal favourite). Of the newies, I'd have to single out "Pick Up The Bones" as being an almost perfect match of music, lyrics and theatrics, although to my ears the musical component of the rest of the show doesn't come up to the mark set by the Trash tour.
The 'youth' theme of "School's Out" loosely carries through to the encores of "Billion Dollar Babies", a pretty good cover of "My Generation" (I wonder if he got to hear Daltrey sing this on the "Ultimate Rock Symphony" tour - I certainly didn't, though he could have dropped either of the Stones or Beatles covers he did sing to make room for it as far as I'm concerned) and "Department of Youth" (the old line about Donny Osmond now replaced by a reference to Britney Spears). The band leaves the stage a second time, but everyone around me is cheering wildly for more. Then the lights come up and recorded music starts coming over the PA and everyone around me stops cheering instantly in the most breathtaking display of Pavlovian response that I have ever seen. I'm not kidding you, the crowd response really is total and instantaneous. We all file out of the theatre quietly and politely.
As rock:
1/2
As theatre:
1/2
