On This Day in History

On this date in history, 3/29/2018, I returned to the luxurious Old National Centre’s Murat Theatre in Indianapolis to witness my 9th Alice Cooper show. Everyone in attendance at this one caught the final night of his current tour, and it was an electrified event of stellar proportions. Having just seen Alice at this same venue roughly a year and a half ago in October of 2016, I noticed a lot of similarities to the previous show, along with some streamlined changes, too.

Any act that has been touring as long as Alice has will have the songs that are set in stone in their sets, and the classics were well represented here, with “Billion Dollar Babies”, “I’m Eighteen”, “School’s Out”, and several others being crowd favorites. A lesser known gem, “Halo Of Flies”, returned as the band feature, with an absolutely sensational drum solo from Glen Sobel. Alice’s current hot shot (and literally HOT) lead guitarist, Nita Strauss, similarly had a solo spot earlier in the evening where she blazed away in guitar hero(ine) fashion…proving conclusively that women are shredding on equal ground with men and “plays pretty good for a girl” can be retired from discussion forever!

One of Alice’s heaviest songs, “Brutal Planet”, opened the show and set the tone for the hard rocking band’s performance throughout. In addition to Strauss, long time Cooper guitar ace Ryan Roxie, and Indianapolis native Tommy Henriksen rounded out the triple threat lead guitar arsenal, aided by the bottom end bass badassery of Chuck Garric. Alice even played some harmonica on one of the new songs.

During the encore of School’s Out (complete with bubbles, balloons, and the singalong edit of Another Brick In The Wall’s immortal “We don’t need no education” chorus) Alice introduced the band and his wife/dancer Sheryl. At the end of the introductions, he said the part of Alice Cooper was played by King Herod, a reference to him preparing to appear in NBC’s live broadcast of Jesus Christ Superstar (airing on Easter Sunday).

The 70 year old legend was in great voice, and aided by an absolutely energetic, entertaining, and astonishingly talented band, continues to be at the top of his game.

As long as the Coop is out there touring, I will make every effort to be in the audience. Long live the Coop!

Written By Braddon S. Williams AKA “The Concert Critic