Two Alice Cooper DVDs

I recently got these 2 DVDs of live performances by Alice Cooper. Typically, I am drawn to the older Alice Cooper with a stable kick-ass band lineup that diluted due to megalomania - something necessary to both the survival of a band and its downfall - and the tolls of the rock and roll lifestyle. This lineup captured a performance on film, but that's not one of the ones I got hold of, unfortunately. The first solo tour of singer Alice Cooper after the band Alice Cooper became defunct is offered on the first DVD, while the second DVD offers an Alice Cooper from the eighties when his antics proved a hit with the ümlaut heävy crowd.

Welcome To My Nightmare
Alice Cooper started in the sixties as one of the first ghoulish leather-clad shock rock mayhem makers, and not as a stunt double for The Crow as rumours may have you believe. Welcome To My Nightmare hosts one of the most compelling and influential performers of all time battling his way through props comprising gigantic spiders, skeletons, concerned parents and most ruthless of all - journalists.



It would not be a self-respecting seventies show if there were no bass or drum solos. These are thrown in for good measure, plus the bassist has a Brakpan snor and does some porno grooves which stretch the spandex of all the dancers just a tad. As an added bonus, there are many pärking lot scenes with audience members all claiming the genius of Alice Cooper in foreign accents and mock-Cooper face paint.

The Nightmare Returns
The eighties. A decade of decadence. Following the precedent set by Led Zeppelin, bands like Mötley Crüe went hellbent for leather and tried very hard to destroy themselves. Alice Cooper on the other hand rediscovered Jesus and sobriety and subsequently some of his short term memory. Like where he put his old spandex.

The Nightmare Returns features a much more confident Alice Cooper with a pseudo-virtuoso band and less intervals between the songs. The audience would tolerate none of that anyway. This time the enemy comprises of boa constrictors, plastic dolls and nefarious makeup, but worst of all - he confronts it with ten years more worth of sagging skin in what appears to be the same spandex. Except it grew an exoskeleton.

Wait at least two hours after a heavy meal before watching.