Project Description

ALICE COOPER

@Brisbane Entertainment Centre

18/02/20

(Live Review)

Reviewer: Connor Gutteridge

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The stage was set on a hot Tuesday night in the Brisbane Entertainment Centre, with every second punter walking around in face paint and an Alice Cooper shirt. Everybody excited to see the man himself and what he had in store for fans to see. Knowing that this is one of the final times we will see Alice on this side of the water, the place was absolutely packed out.

Due to some unfortunate circumstances I was five minutes late for the legendary super group MC50, however from talking to a bunch of people who were there it was something special. First thing I noticed when walking in the doors was that the ground area of the venue was all seated. This was a first for me having been to many rock shows in the past and seen Alice in the past I was taken aback by this. This did not stop the crowd from dancing and singing along with entertainment for the evening.

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The second support act and in my opinion the highlight of the evening was the boys from Warrnambool, Airbourne. Opening the set with the bone shattering Terminator 2 theme song which you could literally feel to your core.

The band came out to the stage a million miles an hour and ready to rock which was a fitting title for their opening track. The whole set guys were running around the stage and running a muck with no sign of stopping, putting 100% of their energy into their stage craft. This was a set full of highlights playing a wide range of tracks from all their records and many moments leaving the crowd jaw dropped.

Personal highlight for me was right before they busted into their hit track Live it up, the stagehand wheeled out a Raid siren onto the stage and the drummer was at the wheel. The power of the sound coming out of that thing was incredible and it led onto another incredible performance.

I would hands down 100% recommend everyone checking out Airbourne live. If there is anything, I can criticise is that they require a mosh pit for their show, it felt a little underwhelming having half the crowd sitting, but what the crowd lacked in energy the band more than made up for.

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Next to the stage was the main event, the man, the legend, coming to cut all our heads off – Alice Cooper. What can I say about this man, he is simply incredible, at 72 years old he has still got it. With obvious exceptions like not biting the heads of chickens anymore, he is still every bit as sassy, scary and stupidly talented as he has ever been. Opening the set with their smash hit ‘Feed My Frankenstein’, from the moment he walked onto the stage the crowd was going wild.

The set spanned out a great range of tracks from all over his career playing tracks like Poison, Billion Dollar Baby and Schools Out. The show was a theatrical masterpiece that I only really thought about on the way home, each track was set in place telling a story as a park of the show. The backdrop of the stage was a castle setting with lots of actors and props used throughout the set. The big tall Frankenstein made an appearance twice during the set in Feed My Frankenstein and Teenage Frankenstein and the newly added 10ft tall billion-dollar baby also made an appearance.

The highlight of the night for me must fall onto the Guillotine scene where you see the head of Alice come off his shoulders (at least that’s what they want you to think). This was also followed by a hilarious highlight for me was during their track Escape he picked up his own head.

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I could talk the whole article about the stage theatrics of the show, but I also must mention about how truly awesome Alice’s band was. The star studded lineup were absolutely on point last night featuring Ryan Roxie (Guitar), Chuck Garric (Bass Guitar), Tommy Henriksen (Guitar), Glen Sobel (Drums) and her majesty Nita Strauss (Guitar).

During the middle section of the set there was a cut-out part where each member of the band got to show off their amazing skills with each member having their own solo. Including an absolutely face melting guitar solo from Nita Strauss and a soul shaking drum solo by the incredible Glen Sobel. This was another personal highlight for me as a musician who loves seeing pure talent and shredding from a band.

If I had to criticise anything about the set, the crowd interaction was lacking from Cooper, only saying minimal words to the crowd at the very end of the show. I know this is part of the theatrics of the set and this is what he does but I would have liked to hear more from him outside of his singing. Other than that, the show was an absolute masterful display of age is just a number and even at 72, he is still the man.

Everything from the light show, to the performance itself from all the bands was what made it such a good night. My overall highlight for the night has to go to Airbourne, those guys absolutely blew me away with their show. But overall I give the night a 7.5/10.

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Check out our galleries of Alice Cooper’s Australian tour – Adelaide Brisbane, Firefight, Melbourne, Perth & Sydney

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