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A True Horror Icon To Me...

This article you are about to read is about the person who got me into anything horror related. Whether that be music, movies, TV, books, etc. When I was a little kid I was didn't really like to go out, so I would sit in front of the TV, usually watching MTV or Nickelodeon. Well one day I got sick and tired of the normal stuff I was watching. I was already into metal music at this point because my family listened to it. I knew my Dad had a few VHS tapes of metal stuff he recorded like MTV's Heavy Metal Mania, MTV's Headbanger's Ball, Twisted Sister Live In California in 1984, and many more. But there was always one video he didn't want me to watch... that video being Alice Cooper The Nightmare Returns Tour from 1986... I was only 6 at the time and well curiosity got the best of me. So I decided "Screw it, I am going to watch this." I was not ready for what I saw...


The concert started off with Alice hidden in a box singing the beginning to Welcome To My Nightmare. I liked what I saw so far. Then Alice got to the end of the first part of the verse to the song and exploded out of the box. What happened next changed my life forever. He comes onto the stage defiantly and starts singing the rest of the song. He then gets to the end of the first chorus and he is motioning these monsters to start crawling to him like he is their king. He then shoes them away and all these different monsters start walking onstage including Jason Voorhees himself (I had no idea who he was at the time). I was loving this. Then the song ended.

The next song was Billion Dollar Babies and he brought out a sword with fake money on it for this one. I thought it was real at the time and I was just amazed. Then he performed No More Mr. Nice Guy. It was awesome and it didn't seem to stop. For the next song, Be My Lover, he brought a snake onstage and I lost it. So amazed by it. Never knowing what was going to happen next. 

Then this is where the concert started taking on a darker tone. The next song up was I'm Eighteen. On the album he was touring for, and the next, he had a guitarist by the name of Kane Roberts. This guy was stacked. A muscle bound dude who looked like he could eat Rambo alive and then shred the guitar on his grave. Well during the guitar solo for I'm Eighteen, Kane took center stage with a guitar shaped like a gun. At the end of his solo he shot fire out of the head stock of the guitar. I had never seen anything like it. I didn't want to close my eyes. 

The next song up was a song off the album he was touring for called Constrictor. The song was called The World Needs Guts. Alice brought out another sword and cut his arm and licked the blood and then cut the arm of Kane Roberts. I was incensed. I had not seen anything like it. The next song was another one off of Constrictor called Give It Up and Alice had large stacks of money and he just started throwing it out to the crowd and even wiped some of it with his butt. I thought that was hilarious.

Then came the duo of Cold Ethyl and Only Women Bleed. During Cold Ethyl Alice brought up this female dummy doll out of a refrigerator and started abusing it on stage and tossing it where ever he could all while singing about necrophilia. I had no idea what that was at my age. At the end of Cold Ethyl he throws the doll to the middle of the stage and the lights went out. The beginning chords of Only Women Bleed started and Alice is on his knees next to this doll singing about how he just abused her and it was a little bit emotional. Then the breakdown of the song happened and he starts slapping her and at this point it is moving with his slaps and looks very human to me. I shake it off thinking no way... then the end of the song comes and I nearly crap myself. The doll came alive and choked Alice to the ground and the lights went out again.

Now this is when it became a whole new level of dark that I, at the time, had never experienced before in my young life. The next song was called Go To Hell and Alice is swaggering around the stage with a purpose. All of a sudden a woman in a dominatrix costume and with a whip starts dancing onstage and Alice is sort of amused. Then the dominatrix starts trying to whip Alice and he is having none of it. He grabs a hold of the whip and starts whipping this woman and she runs away and hides. Then this camera man comes onstage and starts bothering Alice. He does not like this at all but keeps singing the song. All the while the camera man is still being annoying and antagonizing Alice. Then the breakdown of the song happens and Alice grabs this mic stand and starts walking towards the camera man and tells the camera guy to put down the camera and come towards him. He does and what Alice did next freaked me out. He took the microphone stand and stabbed the dude through the chest with it so hard it went out of the back of him. I was amazed and dumbfounded. I did not believe what I had just witnessed. Alice looked so happy about what he had just done. These hooded men then came onstage and took the dead cameraman away. The song ends and the lights go out.

Then a tiny little light comes on and those same hooded men grab Alice and put him in a straight jacket and throw him on the ground while this hideous nurse with green teeth comes onstage and starts tormenting Alice, all while he is singing the song The Ballad Of Dwight Fry. At this point I do not know how much I could take. This was the most insane thing I had ever seen and I needed more. So I kept watching and then the nurse brought out this huge needle and took a LOT of blood out of Alice and he just collapses. At this point this eerie keyboard part starts in the song and Alice struggled to gain strength. He finally does and breaks out of the straight jacket and chokes the nurse to death with the rope that was keeping him in the straight jacket. He stands over her triumphant and I am cheering him on. I had never experienced anything like this.

The next song started and it is called Teenage Frankenstein and it is off the Constrictor album also. Alice is still in the straight jacket but using it now as a doctor's lab coat. Then the breakdown of the song happens and Alice started building this monster. Taking different pieces from the stage. He then starts deciding on the head and finally finds one with a mohawk and puts it on the monster. He then stepped away from it and commanded it to rise and all of a sudden this huge monster stood and Alice was pleased. Then Alice tried to command it and it kept assaulting Alice and it wouldn't obey. Then the monster finally stepped up onto this platform and Alice destroys his creation. I was amazed.

The lights go out and green and red lights hit the stage and Alice starts singing Sick Things all the while motioning the monsters from the beginning of the concert to come back to him and they start coming back but at the end of the song they grab him and this ugly bald woman with an eye patch came onstage and the hooded men bring out a guillotine. Alice knows he is done. He starts singing the song I Love The Dead all the while looking and touching the guillotine. They finally put him in position and at this point I am freaking out wondering if he is going to escape or not. The woman pulls the rope and his head is cut off. She starts showing it off to the crowd while the band starts singing the chorus to the song. She even kisses the head and it spits blood into her mouth. Everyone except the band walk to the back of the stage and then all of sudden the song ends.

Then these moving lights start and the beginning of School's Out starts. At this point I will tell you I knew this song but not who did it and I freaked out at my realization of the song I loved. Alice then again explodes onstage this time in a white suit and top hat and starts singing the song. Then a breakdown comes and he introduces the band, who all get their own mini solos. I was jumping up and down rocking out with my toy guitar at this point. So happy and then the solos end and all the monsters start coming back onstage and start throwing these huge balloons filled with confetti. They are getting popped by the audience and they are loving it. The song ends and Alice says good night and I think that is the end. Oh but I was wrong.

He and the band come back onstage for an encore and perform the song Elected and during the solo a huge female monster comes onstage and hands Alice an American flag and he starts waving it across the stage and I am going nuts loving what I am seeing. The song ends and he says this next song is for his hometown which he is in for the concert, Detroit. They go nuts. The song is called Under My Wheels and it is a rocker. The crowd is going insane still and then the song ends. I am tired and I think that is the end, but I keep watching the credits.Something for some reason told me to keep watching and I wasn't disappointed. The credits end and all of a sudden there is an old man sweeping the stage up and Jason Voorhees shows up again for a brief second and tries to attack the old man but misses. Then the old man sees Alice Cooper's Constrictor album on the ground and picks it up and starts calling it depraved and insane and sick. This whole time we have not seen the old man's face. Then all of a sudden the old man turns around and it is Alice Cooper and as he is saying the album is sick he looks to the camera and says "And so are all of you". It is over and I need more.

My life was changed at this point and I became obsessed with all things horror and all things Alice Cooper. I needed more. I was always asking to go to concerts with my Dad and always asking for a tape player and tapes. The following Christmas I got a tape player and the Constrictor album on cassette from my parents. But it still was not enough for me and I kept asking to go to concerts. I then got my wish when I was seven my Dad took me to see Alice Cooper, Judas Priest, Motorhead, Dangerous Toys, and Metal Church on the Operation Rock & Roll tour. My life was changed forever. The following Halloween I even dressed as Alice Cooper. 


I have now seen Alice Cooper 3 times in my life so far and he keeps getting better. Alice Cooper is the man responsible for me loving anything horror. And for that I will be eternally grateful. And that is why Alice Cooper is a horror icon to me.
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Hoju Koolander Posted on Sep 05, 2015 at 04:32 AM

Great story and description of the concert video. I live in Alice's current place of residence in Phoenix, AZ and he is all over the place out here. His Cooperstown restaurant, ads for car dealerships on the side of a city bus that say, "Tell 'em Alice sent ya!" and yet, I have never seen the man live. Arizona needs go be a destination for you if you love Alice. I did watch the Super Duper Alice Cooper documentary though, pretty fascinating story. Of course I was introduced to and loved him in Wayne's World, "Feed My Frankenstein" is a great rocker.

massreality Posted on Sep 04, 2015 at 09:59 PM

Alice Cooper rules. Brutal Planet was my favorite album in high school. I was actually watching Alice in Prince of Darkness just last night.

Vaporman87 Posted on Sep 04, 2015 at 07:41 PM

Wow. You certainly have an affinity for Alice Cooper. LOL.

I never listened to Heavy Metal growing up. Some of my friends did, and many at school proclaimed their love for it via t-shirts and other memorablia... or just dressing like they were one themselves. But I did come to appreciate Alice after I saw his cameo in Wayne's World. Only after that did I start doing a little research on the man, and giving some consideration to his music.

I still wouldn't call myself a fan, but I do like the song he provided for Friday The 13th, Man Behind The Mask. I liked watching the music video as well.

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