By Steve Newton
Back in 1977, three years after splitting from the original Alice Cooper Band, Alice Cooper released a live LP called The Alice Cooper Show. I went out and bought it immediately, because as a rock-crazed teenager in the ’70s, Cooper was God to me.
But I recall that I didn’t really like The Alice Cooper Show. It didn’t have the spirit and spark I’d come to expect from studio albums like Killer and Billion Dollar Babies, and although the guitar duo of Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter was wicked–as I’d learned from listening to Lou Reed’s last two live LPs–their six-string heroics were sabotaged by weak sound production.
Plus, the song selection turned me right off. I didn’t want to hear live versions of Cooper’s soft-rock ballads like “I Never Cry” and “You and Me”.
Later on it was revealed in his 2007 memoir Alice Cooper, Golf Monster that the Coop was exhausted from constant touring and heavy drinking at the time of recording the album, and that contractual obligations had pressured him into doing it.
Whatever the main reason was for The Alice Cooper Show sucking, it’s obvious that an Alice Cooper show is something that needs to be seen and not just heard. A live album is no substitute for seeing the Godfather of Shock Rock on stage in all his macabre glory, with his elaborate sets, costumes, and props. That level of performance art can’t translate to vinyl, as I failed to understand back in ’77.
When I interviewed Cooper back in 1999, he explained to me what he thought attracted people to his legendary live show.
Have a listen:
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