By Andrew Bansal
October 31st 2016, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Hollywood CA: After completing an extensive two-leg North American tour playing in an evening-with format with no opening acts, shock rock icon Alice Cooper took the stage one more time this year, the night after a sold-out show at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood, to make an appearance on the national television show Jimmy Kimmel Live on Halloween night. Alice Cooper and his band played an outdoor mini-concert in the JKL parking lot behind El Capitan Theatre, performing five of their beloved classics, two filmed for broadcast and the rest just for the live audience. Free tickets to attend this event were gone within seconds of being made available online, and rightly so, because what’s better on Halloween than an Alice Cooper (mini) concert?
Fans gathered to line up outside the JKL premises several hours before the scheduled check-in time of 3:30 PM. This was much earlier than the norm for these concerts, and the reason was that Alice had a Q&A at Bootleg Theatre at 8 PM on the same evening, hence this taping was pushed up by an hour to enable him to fulfill both commitments, specially considering traffic congestions in this area due to Halloween. Fans were handed free ‘Alice Cooper For President 2016’ stickers and buttons, and souvenir Halloween dollar bills upon entry, which was a nice touch in keeping with the theme of the occasion as well as the ongoing presidential election. The concert began as early as 5:30, as the band arrived amidst huge cheers and opened with ‘Elected’, the song ending with two stage actors in dressed as Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump fighting it out. The band then pulled out the fan-favorite ‘School’s Out’, as Johnny Depp also joined them on guitar. These were the two songs filmed for broadcast, but the show wasn’t over by any means, as ‘Feed My Frankenstein’, complete with full-scale production and theatrics, was played next, followed by ‘Poison’, and ending with ‘I’m Eighteen’, once again featuring Johnny Depp. To experience an artist of Alice Cooper’s magnitude in a setting this intimate is extremely rare, but such are the perks of living in Los Angeles, and for the entirety of Alice Cooper’s 30 minutes on this stage, every attendee here was loving life and living it to the fullest.
Normally, bands playing these JKL concerts have to play at least one of the songs more than once because they made a mistake and don’t want it to be broadcast on television. But in the case of Alice Cooper, with the pyrotechnics and confetti guns lined up in synch with music, they had only one shot at getting the song perfectly right, and having played so many shows this year, they did so with effortless ease, and this band certainly did not require repeating any songs. The man himself has maintained his singing voice admirably even at his age, and unlike some other singers of similar or even younger age, he for one does not need a get-out-of-jail ‘old man’ card, and is as great as ever. He has an absolutely great band of musicians playing for him at the moment, boasting of Glen Sobel on drums, Chuck Garric on bass, and Ryan Roxie, Tommy Henrikson and Nita Strauss on guitar. These songs are simple and straightforward for professional musicians to play, but the magic is in the tone, the feel, and the energy, and these musicians have it all in plenty. They deservedly stand on the same pedestal as Alice Cooper, and watching them do so was delightful, so much so that for some of us, Johnny Depp’s entrance went unnoticed, because let’s face it, there is nothing he adds as a musician that this band doesn’t already have.
The simplistic yet theatrical nature of Alice Cooper’s music is what makes it so timeless and universal, and no matter what age you are, you’re compelled to feel like a kid all over again. All in attendance at this Jimmy Kimmel Live mini-concert would agree with this sentiment, and surely consider themselves among the fortunate ones to be able to witness, free of cost, this legendary artist still at the peak of his powers.
Set List:
01. Elected
02. School’s Out
03. Feed My Frankenstein
04. Poison
05. I’m Eighteen
