Alice Cooper fails to scare up much action

Spencer Patterson

Monday, Oct. 25, 2004 | 8:19 a.m.

Cooper made it onto FM radio with anthemic, coming-of-age songs such as "I'm Eighteen" and "School's Out," but he was just as famous for cutting off heads and wrapping himself in snakes during his freaky live show.

Based mostly on those concert reports -- my parents didn't actually allow me to see for myself -- I had a healthy fear of the shock-rocking Cooper as a youngster, I'll admit.

That is, until I started bagging the man's groceries.

While spending a summer working at a Phoenix-area health-food store, I routinely encountered Cooper and his grocery order. And minus his makeup and his python, he turned out to be a fairly normal guy. Go figure.

On Saturday night, I took in the latest incarnation of Cooper's stage show, at his tour stop at Sunset Station's Sunset Amphitheater.

With the moon almost full and Halloween fast approaching, I hoped Alice would reclaim his sinister hold over me, with some concert wickedry that would put Marilyn Manson, Ozzy and the rest to shame.

It was not to be.

Apparently these days, Cooper relies less on fake blood than on audience sing-alongs. He left his legendary guillotine at home, a major disappointment for those of us hoping to see heads roll onstage.

The 56-year-old vocalist made use of a few props: a cane for "No More Mr. Nice Guy," a black hat and pistol for "Desperado," giant balloons filled with confetti for "School's Out."

None of that stuff created the spectacle I had hoped for, however, and for which Cooper earned his reputation as a must-see live act.

A straightjacket routine during "Ballad of Dwight Fry" that had Cooper down on his knees gazing at the moon while torturously crying "I've gotta get out of here!" easily rated as the 100-minute performance's eeriest moment.

Other choreographed scenes played more like snapshots from "West Side Story," as a gang of denim-clad "hoodlums" circled Cooper's four bandmates, who they pretended to fend them off with their instruments.

Far more entertaining was Cooper's own "battle," with a sword-wielding female dancer, whom the singer later identified as his daughter.

Clad in a yellow jumpsuit a la Uma Thurman's "Kill Bill" character, the attacking ballerina nearly "snuck up" on Cooper. But the savvy headliner reacted before it was too late, pretending to cut her throat with a dagger and sending spurts of fake blood into the cheering crowd.

Fun stuff, but sadly not enough of it. Most of the night, Cooper's music spoke for itself, which might have been all right had it not been for an atrocious sound system that crackled at the high end of nearly every vocal.

A crowd of around 1,700 -- which included several face-painted Cooper look-alikes -- enthusiastically sang the choruses to "Billion Dollar Babies," "Be My Lover" and "Elected," but it would have been better if the headliner's own words had been more audible.

Unlike many nostalgia acts, Cooper deserves credit for routinely updating his catalog, even if recent releases such as last year's "The Eyes of Alice Cooper" have fallen well below the mainstream music radar.

On the downside, that desire to stay current has led Cooper down some questionable lyrical paths.

An example, from "What Do You Want From Me?," a new song performed Saturday night: "Baby what do you want from me? ... Disconnected my X-Box, and ditched all my friends."

How can a musician hope to be scary when he's singing about a home gaming system?