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Alice Cooper Martin Hutchinson reviews ‘Live from the Astroturf, Alice Cooper’.
Alice Cooper
Cooper-tastic!
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In 2015, Dennis Dunaway, bassist with the original Alice Cooper band, published a book about his time in the band called ‘Snakes! Guillotines! Electric Chairs! My Adventures In The Alice Cooper Group’.
To promote the book’s launch, he arranged a get-together of the surviving members of the group, rhythm guitarist and keyboardist Michael Bruce and drummer Neal Smith for a Q&A session and live show. The live show took place at the Good Records store in Dallas, Texas on October 6th 2015 and producer Chris Penn had the foresight to record the event in sound and vision for prosperity. The big surprise for the attendees was that after the first song, ‘Caught in a Dream’ (‘Love It to
Death’, 1971), sung by Bruce, the band were joined on stage by Cooper himself!
This release contains the eight-song set performed on the day (and they have kept in the between-song banter), which includes some of the band’s greatest hits, such as ‘I’m Eighteen’ (‘Love It to Death’); ‘No More Mr. Nice Guy’ (‘Million Dollar Babies’, 1973); ‘Under My Wheels’ (‘Killer’, 1971); ‘Elected’ (‘Billion Dollar Babies’) and the anthemic ‘School’s Out’ (‘School’s Out’, 1972). Also included for good measure is an instrumental version of ‘Desperado’ (not the Eagles’ song, but the band’s own song from the ‘Killer’ album), which was recorded at the soundcheck the previous day.
Short but sweet, the tracks nevertheless capture the sound of the original band and all their power. Meanwhile, the second disc is a Blu-ray disc of the documentary film, entitled ‘Live From the Astroturf, Alice Cooper’, which has the full show and extras in the form of two music videos from the show and an interview. Cooper-tastic!
‘Live from the Astroturf, Alice Cooper’ is out now on earMUSIC / Edel Records.
