• ARTIST: Alice Cooper
• DATE: October 12 2011
• VENUE: Atlantico (Rome, Italy)
• OPENING ACT: The Treatment

Alice Cooper is the finest entertainer that I’ve ever seen live, hands down. Even now, in his late 70s, he doesn’t spare himself and always puts on a great show. All of the horror props (especially the guillotine) make it an unforgettable experience, but those gimmicks never overshadow the music, and that’s because his songbook is literally packed with amazing songs.

You can catch him on any tour and you won’t be disappointed, as he always plays the big hits, yet, at the same time, sneaks a few deep cuts into the setlist for the hardcore fans. On this tour, one of the curveballs was ‘Clones’, one of my favorite Alice Cooper songs ever, taken from his new wave-tinged (and often overlooked) album ‘Flush The Fashion’. I literally screamed like a 13-year-old girl at a Harry Styles concert after the first few notes. If anything, I was slightly bummed that he only played one song from his then-new album, ‘Welcome 2 My Nightmare’, which I really like, but that would be really splitting hairs.

As usual, the band backing him was extremely solid. It was around this time that Alice started to use his now usual line-up with three guitar players for live performances, and I was lucky to see a very interesting configuration of it. Alongside longtime guitarist and musical director Tommy Henriksen, still playing with Alice to this day, the other players were former Michael Jackson ‘This Is It’-era guitar heroine Orianthi, and Detroit legend Steve Hunter, frequent collaborator of Cooper (and Lou Reed, among others) in the 70s.

I was deeply into trading video concerts back then, so I would often try to sneak my camera in at shows and make recordings to share in my trading circles. However, spending entire shows filming, camera in my hand, wasn’t exactly something I liked, so whenever possible, I would try to find recording methods that would keep me hands free so I could just enjoy the show. Sometimes I managed to bring a little tripod with me, but that was not going to pass the security checks at this particular venue, so I had to get creative.

Knowing the place beforehand helped. The tickets were all standing, no seats. Besides the floor in front of the stage, the venue had a small upper balcony on one side. You didn’t need a specific ticket to get there, as they were all general admission. So, in the end, I went up to the balcony (not very crowded, as it was a very small section and people preferred the floor anyway), and used some duct tape I brought with me to secure my camera to the balustrade. I was then free to fully enjoy the show from a great spot, operating the camera just every now and then for some zooming in and out. A video from that night is visible right after this post. I forgot to turn the annoying autofocus off, but it’s still enjoyable.

🟥 Amp Hiss And Memories is a series of posts revisiting concerts I’ve attended both in the past and more recently. A full index can be found here.