When I learnt that Alice Cooper was going to perform live in Athens I almost fell to sensory aphasia, which I should say is preferable than the heart attack I expected to happen to me. This lasted until I arrived at Petras Theatre last Wednesday, when it was abruptly substituted by other feelings that I will try to describe in this text without exaggerating too much. Almost impossible, I think.
The gig was supposed to start at 21:30 with Star Star, the support group. They played for about 35 to 40 minutes, but the crowd was not touched neither by their Sleaze Glam with many Punk features nor by Johhny Holiday, the frontman, with his mini-dress or Weeds' new haircut. It was only when they played Pizza Pattie, from their last album, that people woke up and this is quite unfair for them because this group has almost 20 years of experience behind them and certainly a unique style. Anyway, only a really famous band or artist would manage to attract the audience's attention in such a case. People were there to see Alice Cooper and anything else would be just a delay.
So, after a short break Alice Cooper was on stage, escorted by Ryan Roxie(Slash, Guns'n'Roses), Eric Dover(Jellyfish), Chuck Garrick(Dio, Brian May Band) on bass and a greek originated drummer instead of Eric Singer(Kiss) who is on tour with Kiss, at about 22:30.
Although the stage seemed less spacious than it should be for a typical Alice Cooper show, with the guillotines and all the rest, Alice left us speechless with his energy and his brightness. And the show he presented, for 1 hour and a half, was more than impressing. But we shall better deal with the musical part first.
Some of the monumental songs of the past were played in the beginning, like No More Mr. Niceguy, I'm Eighteen, School's Out, Muscle Of Love and Million Dollar Babies and were followed by compositions of his latest release, The Eyes Of Alice Cooper, which made a perfect combination with his Rock'n'Roll classics. The fans were enthusiased by Between Highschool And Old School, What Do You Want From Me and I'm So Angry but the real deragement was caused by Poison and Bed Of Nails. The gig closed with Under My Wheels. Alice's voice is always inalterable and the musicians satisfied our big expectations, including the drummer, who played an unbelievable solo, even though a piece of pizza had made him puke all the time in a bucket next to the drum set!
But I think that the game of impressions and the emotional communication that he established with the audience deserves to be praised even more. Alice appeared on stage with rodlets, swords, crooks and whips in his hands, wearing a strait jacket and having the usual boa on his shoulders. In the meantime, we watched short acts like a fight between him and a gang, dancers, a woman trying to avoid a molesting guy and, finally, Alice expelling them from the scene using his whip and slicing the chik's throat (which was quite impressive with all the fake blood). Later he informed the fans that his 23 years old daughter, Calico Cooper, who is a professional dancer and his 18 years old son participated in these acts. He also threw two of his rodlets and posters to the crowd and huge balloons were wandering over our heads. Unfortunately, they were not full of blood this time.
In the arena, everybody's response was enthusiastic and we experienced some unforgetable moments of hysteria, especially when people understood that Alice was now going to annihilate us with Poison… Many of us suffered various injuries during that song but we didn't realize it until much later-his thrill our pain! People were screaming, headbaging and singing and somebody tried to climb on the stage but has was literally kicked down by Chuck Garrick. Personally, I managed to restrain myself and I was only yelling We are not worthy!.
Tecnically, there were no problems at all. The standards were really high and ecpecially the sound was crystal clear, with emphasis on the bass. The lights and the smoke made it almost impossible to take good photos though (there was also a problem with the photo-pass and I had to shoot the photos outside the photo-pit).
To end this report I would like to thank God and Stereomatic Productions and Dimitris Boglis in particular, for this gig. One of my dreams just came true. But I hope it won't take Alice 13 more years to be around again.
