When I look back on my concert attendance over the past year it seems that I have not been to The Roseland Ballroom in quite a long time. Come to think of it there has not been a lot of Metal shows coming through town that have booked the venue and it seems as though anything worth attending has been at either B.B. King Blues Club, Irving Plaza or The Nokia Theatre anyway. It makes the rockers happy to know that no less than 4 major venues are at their immediate convenience and now we would all get the chance to enjoy someone who needed a place like Roseland, the Father Of Shock Rock – Alice Cooper!!!! I admit to being excited about this one, for while I have always enjoyed a major portion of his catalog, I had never seen him perform live outside of what was available on DVD. The show would take place very close to Halloween and I can think of no better time to enjoy a show like this. He would bring with him an opener of similar style and vibe, the Horror Rocker Wednesday 13. Here is what went down for the show.

Read on for Ken Pierce's full review of the show!

Wednesday 13: W13 is a band fronted by the former guitarist and singer of the Murderdolls. Named after him, Wednesday 13 is a Horror Rocker in the highest regard and tonight he would be treating fans to music from his Murderdolls releases as well as some of his new music from his new album Fang Bang. W13 is a four piece Hard Punk Rock tour-de-force who slams you with a high-energy set from the second they hit the stage and unlike many openers for an act such as Alice Cooper, they would go over very well. Friends who had met me at the show normally only pay attention to the main event but found themselves also intrigued and responding to the front man as he requested yells and comments from them throughout their performance. The touring band for W13 is Eric Griffin, along with Nate and Ricci Shay. Griffin was also one of the Murderdolls while Racci Shay is a former member of Dope. If you had never heard of the band yet, but find yourself interested in the kind of thing that Cooper does and enjoy Hard rock with a twist of Dark humor to it, then you should look into them. They were tight as a live band and kept everyone's interest. They did not do as much of the new CD as I had anticipated and that was about the only disappointment that I found in the show. I recently reviewed and enjoyed the album very much so was looking forward to a lot more of it being presented than would be the case. Given my limited knowledge of his Murderdolls work and pre Fang Bang releases I was not able to jot down more than a few numbers of his set. However, it was a lot of fun and one of the highlights was the even speedier version of the Motorhead song "R.A.M.O.N.E.S.". Wednesday 13 was pretty much the perfect opener for Cooper in my book, and I look forward to seeing him again.