Continuing with their collection of excellent concert films from the Montreux Jazz Festival, Eagle Vision gives us a 2005 performance from the legendary Alice Cooper. For over thirty years Alice Cooper has held the title as the "Godfather of Shock Rock" with bands such as KISS and Motley Crue following in his influential footsteps. For this concert Alice would be performing in support of his to be released Dirty Diamonds CD (of which several tracks are presented for the viewer to enjoy). However, like many Artists who place too much focus on a new release Alice and Company make sure to provide an absolutely heavy amount of classics from his extensive back catalog. Most of his hits are now legendary parts of Hard Rock music culture and I think even the most distant of music fans knows that "School's Out" and "Billion Dollar Babies" are Cooper tracks. Fortunately these and many others are present but as you watch this concert there is a couple of things that stand out very quickly about the show. You'll find that there is not much of an emphasis of the showman from the Nightmarish carnival that he usually brings around with him. The stage itself is not garish in design and no one is really in any sort of costume change except Cooper who has several during the performance while using a number of small props. He has a female dancer who also goes through a number of costume/character changes during the show and she does really well. It was a great difference to the Cooper experience for while its common knowledge about his level of visual talent and capacity, this showed that while it's an important part of his show, it can be used minimally and still have a maximum impact on the audience. No matter what the reason for his changing the format from the way he used to you can count on Alice to lose his head for you as a viewer when it comes down to it. As an older fan of Cooper I lean to his classics, but was happy to see his newer material hold a heaviness that works very well.
Musically Alice knows how to build a band for his tours and as you watch this film you will see that he has not faltered yet. On guitar/vocals he has Damon Johnson of Brother Cane & Slave To The System (guitar), Ryan Roxie (guitar), Chuck Garric (bass) and the one and only Eric Singer (most recently seen in makeup performing with KISS as the "Catman"). Singer is always on point it seems and has proven himself to be one of the better drummers in Hard Rock music. He does a brief solo which is an added bonus. The dancer/actress performing around Alice through the whole show is in fact his Daughter Calico Cooper. It's amusing to see when at band introductions with her wearing next to nothing Alice announces "that's my little girl, now put some clothes on!" A companion CD is included with this DVD that features 19 of the songs from the film. It's a great way to load up your music player or take the show along with you in the car. I hope they do this with more of the releases since it's a nice enhancement to the product purchase.
Fans of Hard Rock music video and legendary performers cannot go wrong with this release. I enjoyed it very much and am happy to see Alice Cooper still showing the new kids how it is supposed to be done.
Track List
- Department Of Youth
- No More Mr. Nice Guy
- Dirty Diamonds
- Billion Dollar Babies
- Be My Lover
- Lost In America
- I Never Cry
- Woman Of Mass Distraction
- I'm Eighteen
- Between High School and Old School
- What Do You Want From Me
- Is It My Body
- Go To Hell
- The Black Widow
- Gimme
- Feed My Frankenstein
- Welcome To My Nightmare
- The Awakening
- Steven
- Only Women Bleed
- Ballad Of Dwight Fry
- Killer
- I Love The Dead
- School's Out
- Poison
- Wish I Were Born In Beverly Hills
- Under My Wheels
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