March 22, 2022 – NJPAC, Newark NJ
Review by Chris Yates // Photography by Estelle Massry
If you haven’t attended an Alice Cooper concert, you’re stuck in purgatory and need to find your nearest escalator down. His army of adoring fans will attest, it’s an experience unlike anything you’ve ever seen. I was early, so I meandered around the lobby of NJPAC and asked some concert goers one common question… Knowing he has a passionate, army of the dead, “zombie’sque” following, I was curious to learn how many Alice Cooper shows they have attended? It was no surprise that each answer were in the high double digits, and in some cases triple digits, with some fans having experienced over 100 shows since the mid 80’s. 100+ SHOWS!
LA based Buckcherry opened the show, warming the legions of Alice Cooper fans up for his one of a kind performance.
Alice and his all star cast of absolute rock superstars, (Nita Strauss/guitar, Ryan Roxie/guitar, Tommy Henriksen/guitar, Chuck Garric/bass and Glen Sobel/drums), put on not a just a great rock concert but a theatrical music performance, and as Alice would describe, “Vaudeville meets Cirque du Soleil, meets Rock & Roll!”
As I write this I truly don’t know where to begin. The show started with a large blue curtain backdrop (stage front) drawing of Alice’s dark eyes, and as a deep, haunting voice from the depths “welcomed us to our doom”, the pupils of the eyes on the curtain lit up. Then as “Feed My Frankenstein” began to play the curtain dropped to a stage design, representing a dark castle, as if straight out of a Bram Stoker & Mary Shelley novel. Alice then emerged from a smoke filled doorway and began to sing. Dressed in various prince of darkness top hats and jackets, with leather pants and killer skull and cross bone belt, the show launched into the stratosphere, and the army of followers in attendance became possessed. It was borderline overstimulation of all my senses, from the first song to the last, my eye’s remained hypnotized to the stage and the performance that encompassed it.
This is not a concert but a well choreographed experience. Fans erupted as giant character after character were introduced with each song. A larger than life Frankenstein walked the stage and messed with the musicians, giant babies, witches, zombie brides and demons were all parts of the show, appropriately complementing each song. Confetti filled giant balloons popped through the crowd, cannons shot streamers, and bubbles that filled the stage like haunted orbs, popped turning into smoke. It was quite a spectacle that allowed the audience to interact with the show.
Alices soldiers, Nita, Ryan, Tommy & Chuck shredded their guitars all night and worked the stage and played to the theme as if having an actors role in the script Alice wrote for the night, all as the rightfully anointed, #1 voted drummer in the world (Glen Sobel) banged away.
I addition to Feed My Frankenstein, everyone’s favorite songs were played from “Poison”, to “I’m Eighteen” and “Hey Stoopid”, to “Dead Babies”, “Bed of Nails” and many more. After two hours of rock joy, the show seemingly concluded, but the audience screamed “one more song” over and over, to the point where I felt they would sell their soul for one more tune. Their wish was granted as Alice closed the evening with a long version of “School’s Out”.
If Alice ever comes your way, don’t miss him. And hey… if you cant score a ticket, you might want to consider selling your soul. You may just get a front row seat.
For more info please visit http://www.alicecooper.com
