Last night was the first show of The Gruesome Twosome Tour featuring the legend Alice Cooper and the prodigy Rob Zombie. Leading up to the show my friends and I were trying to figure out who would be going on first, and how toned down the opener's act would be compared to the headliner. I did a little research and I discovered that Alice Cooper would be continuing his Theatre of Death show on this tour and Rob Zombie would be promoting the release of Hellbilly Deluxe 2. I haven't had the chance to see either artist perform in the past, so I was really looking forward to this show since the announcement. It didn't really matter to me who took the stage first, I just wanted to make sure that I got there on time. Word came down that Alice would be on just before 7:00pm and Zombie would be on at 8:40ish with plans to be done around 10:00. So, I booked it home after work, threw the first clean concert shirt I could find and headed to the concert as doors opened at 5:45!Got to the venue and found my seat with plenty of time to spare so I swung by the merch table and picked up a shirt. Met up with my friends who had already been to a Rob Zombie show and they were trying to prepare me for what was about to come; 10 ft tall robots and Neon, Zombie, Go-Go Dancer Girls. Awesome. As for Alice Cooper, we only really knew that he had a lot of theatrics in the past and we were expecting something similar. 7:00 rolls around and still no Alice Cooper. I think this may have been a good thing because people were still piling into the arena. I had one of them fancy paperless tickets for this show, so I'm not sure if everyone else got the memo about the doors being opened at 5:45. At any rate, the empty seats started to fill up and finally the lights turn off at 7:15 to start the show.
SCHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL'S OUT! FOR! SUM-MER! Man, what a great way to start the show! Alice comes out with a baton and top hat and one of his most well known songs. The whole audience is going crazy and the Coop never takes his foot off the pedal. Huge, confetti filled balloons are tossed into the crowd and when they make their way back to the stage Alice promptly destroys them with a sword. Throughout the show Alice murders a number of his stage hands and is promptly executed after each slaying. I won't go into much detail about the executions, but seasoned Alice Cooper fans probably know what to expect already. Every time someone lost their life on stage, the audience went nuts wanting to see more. Alice's performance was excellent and he sounded great. His band was tremendous and thankfully each member had a moment or two to display their chops. With a name like Theatre of Death, it should come as no surprise that each song was arranged in a manner to accent what kind of shenanigans were happening on stage. They played for a little over an hour performing fan favourites like Poison, Under My Wheels, I'm Eighteen and Billion Dollar Babies. The older material blended well with the new material and the hits were spread out evenly so the "radio" fans would still be entertained. I was really impressed with Alice Cooper's performance and if Rob Zombie didn't feel like performing at all, I still would have felt like I got my money's worth.
Rob Zombie hit the stage just before 9:00 and the crowd was still pumped up after Alice's excellent performance. I was hoping that he would open with Jesus Frankenstein but he opted to go with the tried and true What Lurks on Channel X which lead into Superbeast. Zombie spent most of the concert running all over the stage jumping on and off of risers as well as jumping down into the crowd. As much as I credit Zombie for tearing up the stage, he tends to run around so much that the lyrics end up taking a back seat and he fills the verses with grunts and "yeahs" to keep the crowd into it. The shitty thing about this is that a lot of his high-tempo songs have rapid-fire lyrics that are hard to make out on the album, never mind live. This is really apparent on his older songs like Living Dead Girl, More Human Than Human and Never Gonna Stop Me but he makes a great effort to sing all the words in his newer songs. Guitarist John 5 and Bassist Piggy D did a great job of getting the crowd pumped even though the attention was placed solely on Mr. Zombie. And the crowd got together and sung a metal Happy Birthday to temporary drummer Joey Jordison (yes, the Joey Jordison) who treated the audience to a ridiculous drum solo. The setlist was great and the band wrapped up just after 10:30, ending the show with Dragula. The new stuff sounded great but I'm a little disappointed that they didn't play Sick Bubble Gum or Jesus Frankenstein.
Even though the show wrapped up a little early I had a blast. Both artists and their supporting bands were excellent and the audience was energetic and responded well to the music. In comparison, Alice Cooper put on a better show than Rob Zombie even if his on stage theatrics were a little cheesy. Cooper just sounded better and kept his performance strictly business having no interaction with the crowd until he introduced his band to us. Zombie had a few pauses between songs where he would try to get the crowd energized. He would do a great job but then in the middle of it he would say something funny that would get everyone laughing instead of screaming their faces off. Zombie did also lay claim to inventing the greatest thing in rock concert history which was the All-Girl Mosh Pit, but I don't think it got as much acclaim from the audience as he would have liked.
Since it was first announced there have been a number of shows added to the tour. Instead of it being a seven night tour, they have expanded their run to seventeen shows across Canada and USA. I highly recommend you take the chance to see this one of a kind show. I was in it for the Zombie and I ended up liking Alice more. Here are the dates of the tour:
4/26/10 - Winnipeg @ MTS Centre
4/27/10 - Saskatoon @ Credit Union
4/28/10 - Edmonton @ Rexall Place
4/29/10 - Calgary @ Stampede Corral
5/1/10 - Vancouver @ Pacific Coliseum
5/2/10 - Kennewick @ Toyota Center
5/4/10 - Billings @ Metrapark
5/5/10 - Casper @ Casper Events Center
5/7/10 - Springfield @ Shrine Mosque
5/9/10 - Park City @ Hartman Arena
5/11/10 - Rochester @ Mayo Civic Center Arena
5/12/10 - Duluth @ DECC Arena
5/15/10 - Kearney @ Viaero Events Center
5/18/10 - Knoxville @ Knoxville Civic Coliseum
5/19/10 - Charlotte @ Uptown Amphitheatre
5/21/10 - Toronto @ Molson Amphitheatre
5/22/10 - Buffalo @ Artpark
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