Alice Cooper Concert Was Great Despite The Universe Conspiring Against Me
Alice Cooper comes to the Radisson Star Theater about once a year. I’ve seen the advertisements on the giant animated billboard next to US 30 about a dozen times over the last decade. And every time, I say to Chrissy that we should go see him since we’re both big fans of his music. We don’t get out to see many concerts anymore, since we’ve been going to plays in Chicago the last few years. But we decided that we should go see Alice Cooper before he, ah, dies.
Chrissy is really good at buying tickets online, consistently finding great seats. We got the fifth row behind the Celebrity Circle, which consists of the first seven or eight rows in front of the stage (so, roughly twelfth row). She got these seats as part of a dinner package. There’s a restaurant in the Radisson that serves a decent buffet (prime rib was the main course), and if you get the buffet you get the better seats. The only way to get seats in the Celebrity Circle is to buy an overnight package, and we didn’t want to go that far.
We got to the restaurant a little early and got seated before the rest of the concert goers arrived. It was interesting to see the different ages when people started arriving. When we first came in, Chrissy saw a small group of teenagers with black t-shirts and figured that the entire concert would be filled with kids. I told her that most likely the audience would be made up of older people who would have been fans since the 70′s. As it turned out, we were not the only “old people”. The median age was about forty, I would say.
We got to the theater early and waited by the doors to take our seats. We were some of the first ones in and sat down in our seats. We could see the stage very well and were pretty happy with where we were. But then the people next to Chrissy sat down. The lady next to Chrissy had no regard for personal space, which was only made worse by the fact that she required two seats due to her large size. To make matters worse, this woman had seriously not bathed in several days. Being nudged and stunk out of her seat, Chrissy was not happy.
I offered to trade seats with her. So as not to be too obvious, we both walked up to the stage to take some pictures. We also ran into some friends who had scored Celebrity Circle tickets and took their pictures as well. When we came back, I put myself into Chrissy’s chair and let her take mine. I was able to scootch over in my seat so as not to be touched by the stinky woman. Alas, no good deed goes unpunished, as my own problems would be arriving at that point.
As the theater began to fill, the row in front of us became occupied. Chewbacca sat in front of me. Directly in front of me. Chrissy became concerned that I couldn’t see the stage, and honestly I couldn’t. However, once Alice Cooper made his entrance, the entire audience stood up anyway. This wasn’t as bad as it would seem, because I was able to position myself in between the two giants in front of me so that I could pretty much see the entire stage from there.
The stinky lady had a similar problem. The gentleman who sat next to Chewbacca was easily twice her width, if that can be believed. To alleviate this problem, she again invaded my personal space in order to see between the wide guy and the tall guy. Not a big deal, I just scooted closer to Chrissy, which was fine by me. This was, after all, our anniversary gift to ourselves, so cuddling was allowed. I’m not sure if anybody behind us could see, though. I didn’t ask.
This was a no-smoking concert, which I thought was great. Chrissy and I basically quit going to concerts a long time ago because we didn’t like sitting in a sea of smokers. Lately, concert venues and bars in the area have gone to a “no smoking” policy, which makes it easier to go out without smelling like an ash tray once you get home. So now I can see and I don’t have to worry about potheads in my vicinity, so I can enjoy the music. And I did, as the concert itself was pretty good.
Alice sang mostly old classics, including four songs from “From The Inside” (one of my favorites) and many songs that Chrissy also knew all the words to. I had only ever heard these songs recorded before, never live, so I was surprised to hear that they were performed in a more modern manner than I was used to hearing them. I think maybe this was because the recordings were done in the 80′s or earlier, and bands just don’t play like that anymore. There were a lot of costume changes, and some “fatal” stage theatrics.
Alice died no less than four times on stage. The first was by beheading, they wheeled a giant guillotine out on the stage. The second was by lethal injection, but the syringe was comically large. The third was by hanging, with his battered “girlfriend” (played by his daughter, I think), kicking the stool out from under him. And lastly by impalement. I couldn’t help but feel that GWAR did on-stage murders better, but I was very happy to finally see Alice Cooper in concert.
Similar Posts:
- We Took Aiden To See The Imagination Movers In Concert (0)
- We Have Mixed Feelings On Thomas The Tank Engine Live (0)
- Choo Choo Soul Had Everything But The Choo Choo (0)
Recent Comments