I went and saw Alice Cooper last night perform at the Barbara B. Mann Performance Hall in Fort Myers, Florida. It's the "Too Close For Comfort" tour and Alice is making his way through the area this week.
(I found the above image online, as part of the promotional material for the tour)
Back in October, I got an email that Alice Cooper was coming this way, and I figured I'd get a ticket because I know just a handful of songs, and had never seen him perform. One of us is probably going to die of old age before I'd get another opportunity.
So I bought a ticket. Row X, Seat 23, which is the back of the theatre, left orchestra section. There were 3 more rows behind me and then the door, so I had an easy way out if it got too much or when the concert was over, I'd be one of the few to leave first.
I told my friend Cat I was going, and she was excited for me, wishing me the best of time. I don't know much about Alice Cooper, so Cat being super positive means it is right in her wheelhouse.
One of the things I know, from first hand experience, is I had a co-worker who performed with Cooper back in the day. This woman said she was part of a 10 piece band (five married couples who were best friends) and they were Alice's opening act, one time, decades ago (the band disbanded in the late 1980s). Her band was so different from Alice's, that they (her and her friends) wondered what they were getting themselves in to because they were neat and clean - wore dressy (professional, cocktail type) outfits (all matching) and looked so innocent. They did a lot of cover songs and some of their own, but it was pop style music - positive, clean and fun. Easy to jive / bop your head to. Whereas Alice was dark and gloomy with themes not meant for the faint of heart. He's vaudeville, he's showy, he's scary. The opposite end of the spectrum my co-worker's band was being perceived as. They got the the club and saw all the fans of Alice Cooper and wondered what they got themselves in to. They were half tempted to back out, but didn't because that's not how they roll. The whole thing felt like a skeevy biker bar atmosphere, for being in straight (on the up and up / everyone's welcome) club. They were proven completely wrong and admitted that their perceptions got the best of them. They did what they did best - perform what they know and didn't let anyone talk them down. The woman said that the packed house loved hearing her band perform and they got to do quite a big set before Alice went on stage. It was a totally new experience for them and everyone got along swimmingly (even Alice's fans became this woman's band's fans). She said that Alice looks so scary and hard to talk to, but he's the most amazing guy. Easy to get along with / approachable and will tell you anything and everything once you get him talking. The person behind the gothic look is not the man represented behind the scenes. He leaves his character at the door (or on stage) and is a normal human being off stage / when you're just hanging out (or as normal as you can get, given the circumstances). Just because he legally changed his name to his stage name, doesn't mean he's as bad as you think he is. It's all an act for public consumption, much like a lot of the performance art rockers are of that generation (Iggy Pop comes to mind).
So my going last night, I knew I'd be getting into something different, and majority of the packed hall would be all old white men.
I'm sorry for it sounding like I'm profiling, because I'm really not. Having experienced the Dio Hologram Concert, I lumped Alice Cooper into the same category because he's a similar genre (70s alt-glam-metal-shock-rock). I mean no disrespect.
The Dio concert was all men and women over 55 who belong in a metal mosh pit rocking out in tattered jeans and long hair. Hangbangers unite! \m/ ( -_- ) \m/
The Alice Cooper concert was a little more death metal with the old men in guyliner and ponytails, black straight leg jeans and t shirts. The women in black dresses or jeans with cutoffs. There were just as many women at this concert as there were men, where at Dio, it was more men than women. I feel like majority of the people there were over 65 and if there was two dozen people under 45 (including myself), there was a lot for the younger generations. If the (older) fans weren't in gothic metal attire with full makeup (men included), they had full sleeve tattoos instead.
I saw plenty of folks with aged black and grey ink on their arms, and it wasn't aged due to too much sun. It was aged because, well, of their age. Like they got the permanent picture 40-50 years ago on their skin and it grew up with them. I saw plenty of fan shirts and old concert tees. Others had wild sayings (a guy in a cowboy hat, long scraggly salt and pepper beard with just as long greying hair, had a black tank top on saying "Crazy Bitch" in white lettering. He had black jeans with boots to finish the outfit. Another guy had a black shirt that said "Evil keeps me young" with black pants). One guy who sat in front of me, had a "Ozark Music Festival Survivor" t-shirt. I didn't see that it said that on the front until he turned around to face me. The back of the shirt had a giant list of performers on it, with "Guest Announcer Wolfman Jack".
I figured this shirt had to be at least 40, 45 years old because The Wolfman has been dead for 30 years. I remember being little and listening to him on the radio during the July 4th fireworks in New London Connecticut.
When the guy in front of me turned around and I read where the shirt was from, "Ozark Music Festival, July 19-21 1974 Sedalia MO", it solidified my wondering. There was maybe a handful of older adults there that were out of place in what they were wearing. They looked like they came for a dinner date night out - dressed fancy enough in "dinner and a show" attire, that I didn't feel so bad for looking like I didn't belong (I was wearing my Nightmare Before Christmas sneakers, plain cargo shorts and "Classically Trained NES" t-shirt).
There was no opening act, even though the show was supposed to start at 8pm. Alice didn't get on stage until 8:15, so the people getting a little smashed were getting a little antsy.
Once started, a pair of characters came out before the curtains went up. A pin light followed them as they walked back and forth (towards each other and passed each other). They were a pair of Plague Doctors (you can find a slew of stuff here. I don't know how informational the books are though).
I'm sorry I didn't get a picture of them while it was happening because it went by so quickly and the people in front of me felt like I was standing behind giants. I didn't realize I'd be having to submit to short world problems (I'm five foot five and a half) at the concert.
Once the characters did their cleansing thing (they walked the stage with lanterns and bells), the curtains opened to the band ready to play and another curtain that looked like it's supposed to be front page news - "Banned in Florida! Alice Cooper" with sub headlines. Music started with "Lock Me Up" (track 2 from 1987's Raise Your Fist And Yell) which segued into Welcome To The Show (track 2 from 2023's Road).
Again, I don't know a lot of the songs. I took several videos and pictures (as did everyone around me). When I edited the videos together, I needed to rely on the set list website from the night prior in Orlando, as the time of this writing, the Fort Myers set isn't up yet.
The videos were taken with an iPhone 11 and edited in Pinnacle Studio.
Due to my being short, it's a bit of a stretch for me to have gotten really good shots. I was standing on my toes for the entire evening, and was trying not to block the people behind me while filming because they too were filming (one of the women kept her flash on on her camera). You can see in the videos, as well as some of the photos, how far I was sitting standing from the stage because I zoomed out for the crowd a few times, so don't think I have an all powerful camera in my pocket or ran up to row M or something. I stayed at my assigned seat (except once during the guitar solos so I could pee). Everything was done in zoom mode and all magic went through my phone while I edited basics on my computer. I did try to focus the images while recording though, so you'll see the light change a bit in the videos because stage lights affect the recordings differently.
As a side note, security was stopping people left and right, and asking them to turn the flash off the camera, but they didn't stop people from filming. Gone are the days when you got your camera taken away from you (or at least the film in the camera... I know from experience!). I'm glad we didn't get a Yondr pouch to put out stuff in, like Bob Dylan has fans to. It'll come one of these days, to all events. It's just going to take time.
The photos were stills taken as I was recording, as the iPhone lets you snap photos at the same time (it takes a screen shot). The only thing I did to the stills was put my name on it and sharpen them a little.
Each song melted into the next, and there was no intermission. It went straight through, unless you count the drum solo by Glen Sobel and the guitar solos by Tommy Henriksen and Ryan Roxie as a stopping point for Cooper, than that's it. The band played the entire hour and 30 minutes (8:15-9:45pm). Alice needed some wardrobe changes and they needed to reset the stage in some places.
Yes, the stage needed reset - there was a pair of tall stairs; one on the left and one on the right. They were used in the guitar solos as well as props for a couple of the songs, but since they're on wheels, stagehands needed to turn them at certain points in the night to face the audience or be turned to face the back of the stage.
There was a song "Snakebite" (track 3 from 1991's Hey Stoopid) where he performs with an actual snake. I think it's a boa constrictor. From the same album, Alice performed Hey Stoopid (title track, 1) and Feed My Frankenstein (track 7, performed as an encore). The Hey Stoopid song is part of the video montage and stills from Feed My Frankenstein are uploaded above (last 5 photos).
Throughout the 90 minute set, I couldn't help but watch the graphics play out on the big screens. Yes, a camera was following Alice Cooper around so you could see him from the back rows, but during certain segments, the screens were playing really nifty animations. During "Go To Hell" (track 1 from 1976's Alice Cooper Goes to Hell) was dancing skeletons in top hats with a fiery red backdrop. Even the lights were turned red to resemble flames. It was really cool the way things transitioned. There was another song (it might have been for the aforementioned Frankenstein, I can't remember), but it started with a rain scene. The way the ground was shifted into rolling fog and sounds of thunder with lightning clapping, you'd have thought it was pouring on the stage. Even the band looked around "pretending" they were getting wet. I was more interested in what was happening around everyone than seeing what Alice and his band were wearing at various points, truth be told.
There were lots of props and people (characters) happening during songs too. During one song (I don't know what), a girl came on stage with a coffee mug and swooned over everyone before Alice "sliced" her throat and she was dragged away, "dead". Another song had paparazzi take photos, and he met a similar end. Alice's wife Sheryl joined in the festivities, quite a few times, dressed not only as a Marie Antoinette / Rococo type of character (I googled this last bit so I can describe it), sending Alice to the Guillotine (during the Killer / I Love The Dead medley - track 8 from Killer / track 10 from Billion Dollar Babies respectively). She also dressed in a type of provocative outfit you'd see a "woman of the night" wear, during the Go To Hell performance. She also came around with a whip during this scene too. I could be wrong in my descriptions, as it was hard to try to adequately find proper search terms.
I guess Alice using his wife is a normal part of the show, as internet research says he does this frequently, all due in part to her being a performer (choreographer) in her past life. The articles I've read state that this is how they met - she auditioned to be a dancer for his 1975 Welcome To My Nightmare Tour. Other information includes the tidbit that their daughter Calico has been part of the family business a few times as well.
Speaking of clothing options, I bought a tour shirt for $50 and agree with one of the comments I heard in the lobby - "prices have gone way up and for what?".
Yeah, we all bought something, but we also don't want to pay such high prices for a shirt. The hoodies were $80! I've seen things online, where people comment they remember paying 25 dollars for front row tickets to a concert back in the late 1990s and early 2000s and they thought that was high even for that time. Now, you're paying three times that, for middle to back of orchestra. Only times I've seen anything less than 40 dollars, has been for the last 3 rows of the back of the balcony, where you have to squint to see something. It's crazy what we're doing to support a cause. But we do it and we do it begrudgingly. We're sticklers for punishment.
I think, overall, as nervous as I was to go, I had an okay time. Yeah, I get nervous about going to these things, and it doesn't match going to concerts in Boston, but this stuff is different. My mother said "at least you didn't have to fight traffic downtown. You made it home in 10 minutes. You had free parking. It's a small venue" and the list goes on. Yes, I didn't have to worry about paying for parking (meter, etc) or wonder if the concert will go on past the last train departure (which happened during the Elton John tour. If he went on for 30 more minutes, I'd have missed the last train out, completely). This facility is the size of the small halls I've been in to in Boston. The Orpheum, The Wang. It's all within rows of each other. It's the arenas (FleetCenter Suncoast) that are different.
I do like going to these things, not because I may or may not know the music, but because sometimes I like to see what's happening with the sound and vision. How the performer is using the screens and speakers. I hate feeling like my head is going to implode for half the night when I leave, due to how loud the music was, but at least I can sleep it off and by the time I wake up, my hearing is back to normal, whatever normal for my head is. If only I could see clearly enough to fully critique the stage, I would do that. But, if I focus on only that, is it really worth going? No. Just go and have a good time. People watch is part of the sociology / societal project / experiment. Go see what's changing and happening. Report back with positive and negative. Things will be different.
I hope I got everything. I'm sure I missed stuff. Check out the video and maybe try something new. You never know what you'll learn later today.
Cheers;
Great recap, and great reminder to go experience stuff! Thx
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