Alice Cooper at the Silverdome 2007

Alice Cooper at the Silverdome, Australia 2007 - Psycho Drama Tour

 (photos by me with my phone)

Alice Cooper visited Australia in 2007 and played in Launceston at the Silverdome to a fair sized crowd of a few thousand for the small region. He brought with him the stage show that he is famous for. It was the �Psycho Drama Tour 2007� and the band was indeed a very cool bunch of guys that wore black and played some aggressive metal, revamping all the classic Cooper tracks making them heavier. Cooper�s voice was excellent, and he belted one amazing song after another. The merchandise consisted of his latest CDs at the time, �Brutal Planet� �The Best Of�, �Legends� box set, and �Dragontown� and �Dirty Diamonds� CDs plus the �Beast of Alice Cooper� DVD. But I had them all so was disappointed there were none of the classics there that I did not have. The T Shirts looked cool but atrociously overpriced. There were no tour booklets! � Not a great start.

The set list was terrific encompassing all the legendary songs of Cooper�s prolific repertoire. (I wrote them all down when I got home so I would not forget). It began with the killer opening number �It�s Hot Tonight� and the crowd made a bee line for the stage. Rather it was a stampede. I had lousy seats at the back of the hall, and I had to part with $80 to get here so I made an executive decision to join the stampede. I found myself bang in front of the stage on the side but it was an awesome view and I could even see Cooper�s garb consisting of skulls up the pant legs and leather jacket. He looked fantastic and was agile for a man in his 60s prouncing around the stage as if he owned it, and he did.

 

He had the crowd in the palm of his hand by now and the ear blistering metal from Psycho Drama band was really killer stuff. He was more metal than I remembered him with this band line up. They looked cool too, playing off to the crowd, leaning their guitars out to us who feebly tried to touch them, and they played some great lead breaks. �Welcome To My Nightmare� was next, a bonafide classic and we all knew the lyrics and let him know it. He seemed to enjoy our enthusiasm and played off it even stopping to hear us sing verses. There was a spider web behind him with a large black widow in it and I hoped he would sing �Black Widow�, my fave from that album. Alas, Alice did not sing it.

He did do some quintessential hits though such as the next batch, �Dead babies�, complete with a baby doll on a spear, �Cold Ethyl� where he bashed the living suitcase out of a rag doll, and this was followed by the brilliant �Only Women Bleed�. On this song he was suddenly confronted by an angry ballet dancer who danced beautifully in a mesmirising way. He feigned slapping her around and she was sad and he looked sorry � a nice theatrical performance by the two and typical of previous shows I had seen on DVD.

Next was the dark part of the set, the songs were a lot darker in lyrics and atmosphere including, �I love the Dead� where he is lead to the guillotine to be beheaded and his head is chopped onto a basket. Weird how he did that but there was a blackout giving him time to replace his own head with a fake one. He then belted out �Devil�s Food�, �Steven� and �Ballad of Dwight Fry� but he did not wear his customary straight jacket.

Next he disappeared for a while and the band cranked out a killer riff, and there was a great drum solo. It was amazing because at the end of the solo the drummer threw his drumstick out to the crowd. I saw it come towards me and never thought for a moment I would get it. But all these hands went up and the drumstick fell between us. I got on my knees and there it was! I grabbed it quickly without thinking and stuffed it up my shirt. I arose and pretended I did not have it, but I could feel it digging into my ribs. I could not believe it. I checked it out later and it had a signature of Eric Singer engraved on it, but he was not playing at the concert I attended. Ah well it made a nice keepsake.

The next song was like an encore as Alice turned up in a leather cowboy hat singing �Killer�. Then the riff crunched out from �Billion Dollar Babies� where he threw a lot of fake billion dollar notes out. I could not get any but I had my drumstick so I wasn�t perturbed.

 

 

Next he sung �School�s Out� and we all were jumping in the mosh pit. It was a pretty subdued mosh pit as there were lots of girls and kids and nobody was getting out of line though I got shoved by some lunatic from behind. I saw the security guard coming over and the offender disappeared. There�s always one isn�t there? The lead guitarist threw out a few picks and I could not get any but the guy beside me did. He said to me that he was a drummer and would love to take home that drumstick I had. He wanted to swap the pick for it but I kept telling him I would not swap until he gave up. He looked really annoyed. I hoped he would not try and steal it from me later. He did not but I did not give him the chance as I bolted out to the car after it was over � the things that go on at rock concerts!

 

Back to the concert. There was an encore and we all screamed out �Alice! Alice! Alice!� till our throats were raw. He came out with his gothic band and launched into �Poison� and the crowd sung with smiles on their faces as they all loved this song and knew every lyric. I will never forget this moment. I love the way Alice looked out at us and just stood there singing back to us, a formidable presence in black. Next he did �Elected� a very early hit single and I think after this was �The Life and Death of the Party� though at this point I was losing count. �Six Hours� and �Is It My Body� ended the show to rapturous applause.