Alice Cooper at the Beacon Theatre

Alice Cooper with Calico Cooper

As a child in Detroit, Michigan, Vincent Furnier dreamed of playing left field in the Detroit Tigers baseball team, but following a series of childhood illnesses, he moved with his family to Phoenix, Arizona. In 1964, 16-year-old Furnier formed a group for a local talent show. The high schoolers named themselves the Earwigs, dressed in costumes and wigs to resemble the Beatles, and performed several parodies of Beatles songs. The group won the talent show. Encouraged, the members decided to become a real band, the Spiders, and performed regularly around the Phoenix area until they relocated to Los Angeles, California. Seeking a gimmick to succeed, they chose the name Alice Cooper because it sounded wholesome, in humorous contrast to the band's horror-inspired shock rock stage show. In 1970, frustrated by Californians' indifference to the band, Alice Cooper relocated to Pontiac, Michigan, where the theatrical performances developed a Midwestern following. Alice Cooper achieved international success in 1971 with a series of hits beginning with "I'm Eighteen." The band split in 1974, however, and Furnier legally changed his name to Alice Cooper. He was now a solo act with an even bigger stage show, alongside cameo roles in movies and a recurring guest spot on television's Hollywood Squares and side identities as a golf celebrity, restaurateur, radio show host, Little League coach, and, as a running gag, presidential candidate. Among numerous notable awards, Cooper as an individual was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2003, and the original Alice Cooper band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011. Alice Cooper's 27th and most recent studio album, Paranormal, was released on July 28, 2017.

Alice Cooper's stage show constantly evolves, yet tonight's concert at the Beacon Theatre, was yet another romp in campy horror backed with solid hard rock music. Accompanied by guitarists Ryan Roxie, Nita Strauss and Tommy Henriksen, bassist Chuck Garric, drummer Glen Sobel, and Cooper's daughter, Calico Cooper, as dancer and "evil nurse," Cooper might have found his best band ever. Cooper sang in his snarly and raspy voice his tongue-in-cheek songs about monsters and teenage angst, and the exceptional guitar team played dazzling, head-spinning leads and crunching riffs. While the guillotine, straitjacket, Frankenstein monster and other props justifiably commanded attention, the musicians were respectably show-worthy on their own. There was never a dull moment visually nor sonically. In the end, there is nothing else in rock music quite like an Alice Cooper concert.

Visit Alice Cooper at www.AliceCooper.com.

Setlist:

1. Brutal Planet
2. No More Mr. Nice Guy
3. Under My Wheels
4. Billion Dollar Babies
5. Grim Facts
6. Lost in America
7. Serious
8. Fallen in Love
9. Woman of Mass Distraction
10. (Guitar solo by Nita Strauss)
11. Poison
12. Halo of Flies (with drum solo by Glen Sobel)
13. Feed My Frankenstein
14. Cold Ethyl
15. Only Women Bleed
16. Paranoiac Personality
17. Ballad of Dwight Fry
18. Killer (partial)
19. I Love the Dead (band vocals only)
20. I'm Eighteen

Encore:

1. School's Out (interspersed with a snippet of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall Part 2"; Mike Myers joined near the end of song)