Alice Cooper concert

(Photo: AP )

Cooper, who has been active since 1969, despite his dubious reputation as a heavy metalist, with which the readers of “Coeval” were constantly frightened, is nevertheless considered one of the brightest figures in the history of rock. He drank with John Lennon, played concerts with The Doors (while still performing under the name Nazz), and Johnny Rotten became the lead singer of the Sex Pistols only after he learned to perfectly imitate Alice's bad manners. Cooper made witty and convincing theater out of the rather stupid music called hard rock - with blood, sweat, tears and a bulky macabre boa constrictor. He brought the very idea of ​​“glamor” in rock and roll to the point of absurdity - if most rockers of the seventies painted themselves as androgynous at best, then Cooper looked like a fiend. In one of the issues of the Rolling Stones in 1970 they wrote: “The influence of Marcel Duchamp on Alice Cooper is obvious.”

However, this was not obvious to everyone.

For example, the cult American music critic Lester Bangs, already at the very dawn of the seventies, branded Cooper as a show businessman - talented, clever, but “unreal.” This “unrealness” apparently allowed Cooper to turn into the golden mean of shock rock. That is, on the one hand, you can flirt with Satan, on the other hand, you can realize that this is not serious. The option is ideal for both talent and fans.
As for influencing the masses, a person who had listened to Cooper could move in two directions. The first is to make the music heavier and the show ostracized, that is, to get carried away by groups like WASP or Kiss. Another road leads to the realm of dark, aesthetic, endlessly interesting buffoonery (the most striking example of such “black” art was the famous seventies rock musical Rocky Horror Picture Show).

In Russia, because of Cooper, a student at a humanities university could always easily see eye-to-eye with the darkest metalhead from a disadvantaged neighborhood. The Moscow concert confirmed this with maximum clarity: the dancing stalls were packed with the most varied audience. Alice Cooper's "Olympic" performance exceeded all expectations - because such a dense and intense rock and roll show had never been seen in Moscow. There was something eye-catching on stage every minute, and all the main Cooper “infernalities” were in place: flaming drumsticks, skeleton cabinets and the legendary guillotine. The concert lasted an hour and a half, and the first half was not filled with the most interesting material from the newest record, but the second half consisted of hits from the best times: Poison, Go To Hell, Only Women Bleed. The result: the hall is full, the theater of cruelty is at the microphone, Cooper is super.

August 2, 2000