Music Cooper offers much more than “theatrical rock” in the best of blues and rock

Between March and April 1974, Alice Cooperstill accompanied by its original band, came to Brazil for the first time. It was also the inaugural occasion of a large international artist in the country. Before him, even artists came Bill Haley & The Cometsbut of a far distant media potential.

Today at 77, Vincent Furnier, the man behind the character Alice Cooper, admitted to Rolling Stone Brazil: “We still talk about those shows”. He could: he himself states that this tour put his name on Guinness Book, the Book of Records, as one of the performances at the Anhembi Exhibition Salon in São Paulo gathered the largest audience in a closed place, around 160,000 people.

There was reason to attract so much attention. Cooper, at the time, was the main name of a curious subgenre named Shock Rock, which mixed influences from Glam and Hard Rock with well -theatrical performances inspired by horror movies with… shocking, as the name delivers. In addition, it was virtually unprecedented that an artist at the height of his career came to a country who was not part of the still incipient international touring circuit during the period.

51 years have passed. Alice Cooper has changed. Rock too. The world is not even spoken. But it’s still cool for Caramba to watch such a show, which ended Saturday, 14, third of the four days of the 12th edition of Best of Blues and Rockfestival that takes place at Ibirapuera Park, in São Paulo. In the first weekend, they presented themselves Dave Matthews Band, Richard Ashcroftbetween others. Just before Alice, they played Black Pantera, Larissa Liveir and Charlie Brown Jr – Marcão Britto and Thiago Castanho. And on Sunday, 15, we will still have Deep Purple, Judith Hill and Hurricanes.

For a long time, Alice argues that there is no more shock rock. There is no way to shock, because reality fulfills this role with mastery. Therefore, it is impossible to face as a “horrors show” the current presentation of the singer, who has the tour “Too Close for Comfort” and is accompanied by Nita Strauss (guitar), Ryan Roxie (guitar), Tommy Henriksen (guitar), Glen Sobel (battery) and Chuck Garric (low). Far from it. Theatrical performance goes a lot to the fun side; Not in the sense of joke, but entertainment.

In the first moments of the show, two people with crow mask playing bells appear. A newspaper format curtain “informs” about a trial of Alice Cooper, which must be convicted of “crimes against humanity” after banishment at, see, Brazil. The singer tears this newspaper and goes through the middle to start a stretch of “Lock Me Up”succeeded by Garage-Rocker “Welcome to The Show”from the most recent album, Road (2024). Both songs sound almost like a warming, as they are far from hits and, without the visual element, are even strange like the first of the set.

Musically speaking, it is as if the show even starts in “No more Mr. Nice Guy”range of Billion Dollar Babies (1973), the artist’s most famous album. There is then a parade of classics with the dramatic “I’m Eighteen”with different lighting and a jacket already using a crutch; The Fun “Under My Wheels”which, as in “Welcome to the Show”, has proportional soils of the three guitarists; “Bed of Nails”representative of the bestseller trash (1989) with spotlight under the talented Nita Strauss; and “Billion Dollar Babies”which names the aforementioned record of 1973 and brings Cooper with fencing sword (!).

Aesthetics aside, what draws attention, really, is the sound. And no small talk with the public: the songs are all amended, in a format that remains even with “Snakebite”during which Alice usually comes up with a snake – but the reptile did not appear in Ibira. Nita, curiously, passes the whole song in the background, perhaps aware that it draws a lot of attention. Succeeding this number, they roll up songs appreciated by fans, but not necessarily classics or hits: “Be My Love”the most classic rock of the set; “Lost in America”, of a well -known letter; and the “mortals” “He’s Back (The Man Behind the Mask) and “Hey Stoopid”when they are “murdered” during each of them, respectively, a “hysterical fan” and an “accredited photographer” without notion. It is noteworthy that both have cameras in hand.

A short Glen Sobel battery soil gives some breath before the more theatrical stage of the set. “Welcome to My Nightmare”the title track of Alice’s first solo album, brings the singer at last enjoying one of the stairs of his scenario “Saloon” and a parade of well-played guitars, while “Cold Ethyl”Hard rock boldly guided by Cowbell has loving and violent interaction with a doll – Ethyl. From the show nothing shocking, perhaps the most controversial moment, including the double meaning letter: can deal with alcoholism, as well as about… necrophilia.

If “Go to Hell” seems to serve only as a background for a dancer with whips that appears on stage, “Poison”then it is indispensable in the set. Deliciously seductive, the music that replaced Alice at the top almost 20 years after the artist initially burst is, by far, her most popular on streaming platforms. Owner of the stage, he plays the song as if it were any other, to the point of playing with fans that can see from afar on the grid.

Your character, finally, is arrested and placed on a strength shirt in “Ballad of Dwight Fry”rare slow track in the set preceded by a Nita soil and a jam to the sound of “Black Widow”. In the end, the dancer enters that positions him in a guillotine, along with other executioners. Alice is “dead” to the sound of an instrumental version of “Killer” And it has its “head” exposed during “I Love the Dead.” Suggestive.

The circus ends-or starts over in another content-with the mega-hit “School’s Out”responsible for ending the regular repertoire with giant balloons (which spread chopped paper when burst) and irresistible stretch of “Another Brick in the Wall”from Pink Floyd. In the bis, the heavy “Feed My Frankenstein”entitled to a giant and “Frankensteinian” version of Alice and… soap bubbles. We warned that such a shock rock does not shock.

The whole theater can distract a portion of the audience of the great musical merits of Cooper and its band. The singer, who for decades surpassed the addictions and cares like an athlete, preserved his vocal cords like rare names in rock. It does not lose its breath, nor do you disagree and very rarely seek shortcuts. Your timbre follows the same.

The trio of guitarists complements: Tommy Henriksen takes better care of the foundations; Nita Strauss, phenomenon of the six strings, assumes arrangements and more virtuous soils; Ryan Roxie, in turn, assumes the spotlight on the more “Classic Rock” passages. Often, two of them or even three mix on folded lines. Chuck Garric, the main name to take over the backing vocals, offers the expected consistency of a good bassist, while Glen Sobel, a machine – in a good way -, has considerable freedom to add some extra beats and revam songs for years to the popular rocker imagination.

The choice of repertoire, most of the time, is also accurate. More dedicated fans can point out some absences, but you can’t have everything in 90 minutes. And yet, several moments of Alice’s long catalog are addressed, focusing on the first half of the 1970s and their resurgence between the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Considered the musical and visual combination, Alice Cooper did one of the best shows and certainly the most grand show in the history of Best of Blues and Rock. Get this feat at a festival that has had Jeff Beck, Buddy Guy, Richie Sambora, Joe Perry, Joss Stone and Tom Morello It’s quite a feat. It impresses even more that it occurred 51 years after he dragged nearly 160,000 fans to see him in the same city. Eternal life to the most beloved villain of rock.

Setlist:

1. LOCK ME UP (Excerpt)
2. Welcome to the show
3. No more Mr. Nice Guy
4.
5. Under My Wheels
6. Bed of nails
7. Billion Dollar Babies
8. Snakebite
9. Be my lover
10. Lost in America
11. He’s Back (The Man Behind the Mask)
12. Hey Stoopid
13. Glen Sobel’s battery solo
14. Welcome to My Nightmare
15. Cold Ethyl
16. GO TO HELL
17. Poison
18. Nita Strauss guitar solo
19. Black Widow Jam (only the band)
20. Ballad of Dwight Fry
21. Killer (only the band)
22. I Love The Dead
23. School’s Out

Bis:

23. Feed My Frankenstein