Monsters of Rock

Manchester Evening News Arena

20th November 2002

 

Dogs D'Amour | The Quireboys | Thunder | Alice Cooper

 

Let's get the gripes out of the way first, then we can concentrate on the music.

Firstly, if you have a choice between the Manchester Evening News Arena and somewhere else, go to the somewhere else. Of the modern arenas in the UK, the MEN is one of the newest and most modern, but it is also one of the worst, for so many reasons.

Unless you are on the floor, either standing or seated in the first blocks in front of the stage, your view is poor, even if you have perfect eyesight. Furthermore, on the tiered seating, the slope is so steep you really need to pack ropes, crampons and take along a Sherpa to aid you in the ascent and descent. If that were not enough, you have a choice between being close enough to see the stage (one side of the stage or the other to be precise) or being able to see the whole of the stage, but being so far away that you really need a personal, portable, Hubble telescope to make out what's going on.

And that is only the first stage of the tiers. I wouldn't even entertain a seat in the second stage. I have stood atop the Empire State Building with no problems at all, but the second tier of the seating at the MEN really makes me feel quite queasy. It is not only high up, but the angle is just unpleasantly acute. As for being able to see anything on the stage, forget it.

Sound? What sound? Imagine standing on the Larsen Ice Shelf. Hurricane force winds howl around the hood of your snorkel jacket, ice-rain pounds your body until you're numb and you fancy you can hear a million penguins giving birth beneath the ice, that is about the quality of the sound at the MEN Arena.

Actually, it was about the same temperature too. I like the AC on Nuclear Winter setting myself, but even I was cold. Polar Bears were walking the aisles complaining of the wind chill factor. I joke not. Any welders hanging around the building would have made a fortune.

The height and the angle of the tiers not only affects what you see, it causes pain in both the knees and back. Walking up and down these steep inclines is really an effort. Yes, I am the wrong side of thirty-five and not quite the figure of a racing snake that I once was but, even my super-fit, kickboxing, teenage daughter likened it to a good workout.

But that's not all. I don't have especially long legs, so it is surprising that, considering the steeply raked tiers, the distance between the actual seat and the concrete is far too little for comfortable seating. You find that your knees are pushed up, which wrecks your knees, strains your calf and thigh muscles and gives you back ache because you cannot comfortably sit up straight. Stick with me, I haven't finished bitching and moaning yet.

Why do people spend around £30 on a ticket to go to a concert in these places only to spend the entire evening making you stand up on your crippled knees every few minutes because they want to go to the bar, the toilet, the bar again, the toilet again, the bar again, the toilet again. And what's more, they travel in pairs or trios, so one goes and comes back, then the other one goes and so on. This is repeated all night. They miss half the evening's proceedings because they're buying the over-priced refreshments or evacuating their bladders, because they've been buying the over-priced refreshments. They could save themselves a lot of effort by putting a £50 under toilet mints.

And what is it with the pricing of the refreshments in these places? £1.60 for a 30p bottle of water. £2.40 for 20p's worth of non-specific cola? £2.70 for a large waxy cup of artificial colouring and saccharine that neither quenches the thirst, nor tastes of whatever citrus fruit it purports to be. I don't even want to consider the cost of alcohol. I was driving, so it is best not to even go down that road. I don't think my blood pressure would take it. The carotid artery would just rupture and there'd be a fountain of blood spurting all over everywhere. No, I don't even want to contemplate how little change there would be, from a fiver, if any, for a pint of something that barely corresponds to any known recipe for beer. They should dress the spotty little oiks behind the counters in masks and tricorner hats, because the prices are nothing short of daylight robbery.

Right, merchandise. How can anyone justify the price of merchandise? I complained years ago at the cost of Yes merch, having refused to buy any on the Union tour. Don't think it is because I'm mean with money and I never buy stuff at gigs. I have drawers full of T-shirts, a shelf full of programmes and more CDs than you can, or would want to, shake a stick at, so I know whereof I speak. But, really, these prices are just taking the piss. A Monsters of Rock programme £8, which contains nothing but an advert for Alice Cooper, leaving you to shell out an outrageous £15 for a separate Alice Cooper programme! £4 for a key ring. Alice Cooper panties £10. Alice Cooper Dragontown bandanna, £10! Whathefu? But the best one of the lot was the Thunder 'skinny' T-shirt. Skinny means that it is nothing more than six square inches of cotton jersey with an iron on logo on the front and for this they stuck a price tag of £22 on them. I mean, even an Alice Cooper T-shirt that would have warmed the torso of a Siberian Mammoth only cost £18, fercrissakes! I realise that a T-shirt costs 20 quid these days. I'm not so old that I am totally out of touch. However, I fail to see why a T-shirt that is half the size shouldn't be half the price. Unless, of course, you are trying to rip-off a certain element of the consumer base, that is.

You would have thought that I would have finished bitching and moaning by now wouldn't you? 1000 words and I've not even got to the music yet.

The Manchester Evening News Arena does not allow digital photography, or so I was informed by a little man, in a four-sizes-too-big, banana-yellow jacket - obviously a reject from clown school. Not that that would have stopped me. Not the bands, nor the promoter: the Manchester Evening News Arena. If 'they' catch you, they'll make you wipe the pictures. He wasn't specific as to who 'they' were. It would certainly have taken someone much bigger than him to make a difference anyway. Normally, I would have thanked him for his concern and carried on regardless. However, even with my 6x optical zoom, the best I could do was a few small, coloured, blobs in the inky blackness of the rock firmament. It just wasn't worth the argument. Had I had some good shots, I would have argued the toss and they would have got nowhere near my 128MB SmartMedia card. Besides, I always carry a spare blank card, just in case...

Besides my general gripes with the MEN Arena, there were other problems, which can only be ascribed to the apathy of the general concert-going public. You see, in spite of the outstanding line up, the tickets had evidently not sold well in Manchester. So, whereas you would expect the stage to be across one of the curved ends, with both sides and the opposite end all packed to the steelwork, what had happened was that the stage was set up half way down the sides and the top tier was mostly curtained off. So, the tickets we had, at the front of the top tier, half way down one side, were actually looking at the stage, side-on, behind the PA.

Dogs D'Amour | The Quireboys | Thunder | Alice Cooper

Unfortunately, I cannot really tell you how the Dogs were. When they were on, we were perched on the edge of a precipice. We could see very little and could hear almost nothing save for what sound waves were being reflected back from the roof. As far as I could tell, they were good. I always liked them and have seen them a couple of times before and each time they were great. This time however, I could neither see, nor hear them, so I can't really say. As, the Dogs left the stage and that dirty, dribbling, old git, Krusher, shambled on stage, we went to find Customer Services to complain about our tickets. They were changed with no problems (and that is about the only compliment I am prepared to pay the MEN Arena, at this point.) We found our new seats and the aforementioned little-man-in-the-big-yellow-jacket escorted us down the crevasse to row N of block 112. Not bad, we thought. I can actually see the stage from here and I can see features on faces...result! Unfortunately, it seems that the Customer Services bint needs writing lessons, because our reassigned seats were actually, row W, not row N. Only 9 rows back, but up the side of a sheer cliff face, that is one hell of a long way. Still, at least we could see the stage and hear something.

Dogs D'Amour |The Quireboys | Thunder | Alice Cooper

Hello! Hurray! No, Alice hadn't sneaked on with Spike and Nigel, The Quireboys were in town! For myself and as it turned out, Herself, my firstborn girl-child, this was where the night's entertainment really started. I've loved The Quireboys for years, yet surprisingly, I realised that whilst I knew all but one of the songs they played, I couldn't actually be sure about the titles of most of them. The vinyl disappeared years ago and I haven't got the CD reissues, so my only access to their material is their 1990 Donington set, which was broadcast on Radio 1 back in the days when you could actually listen to R1 without having had a lobotomy and twenty-seven pints of lager first, and a set that they played at The Rock Night Music Weekend, God only knows when that is from.

The unusual thing about my lack of precision in the song title department and my daughter's complete lack of foreknowledge of Quireboys material, made absolutely no difference to our level of enjoyment in the slightest, which in itself, is unusual. Normally, when you don't know anything by a band, your enjoyment is not as great as, say, it might have been had you been familiar with their back catalogue. However, you occasionally see or hear a band where such trivialities matter, not one whit. Such a band is The Quireboys. They exude an easy familiarity both musically and personably, which instantly makes you feel as though you have listened to their music since your were in the womb. Partly, this is due to their (more than a passing) resemblance to the Faces and partly it is due to the wonderfully cheeky lyrics and catchy, singalong choruses. You can't help but tap your toes, clap your hands and sing until you are hoarse. Unless of course, like the guy in front of us, you're dead. What is it with people at arena gigs? It is unnatural to sit down at a rock gig. Not only is it unnatural and it is unhealthy. You can't sit down when The Quireboys are on stage; you'll get piles, or something.

History was well represented with Hey You, There She Goes Again, I Don't Love You Any More and the welcome inclusion of Tramps and Thieves, as well as a couple from the recent This is Rock 'n' Roll CD. A short but perfectly formed set was nicely rounded off with the eternal crowd-pleaser, 7 o' clock. I would have liked to see them come back for one more, but really they didn't need to. They had already made their statement very effectively: The Quireboys are back in town and they're better than ever.

From my point of view, it re-acquainted me with some music I hadn't listened to in a while. As for the little pit bull to my right, she added another must-buy CD to her list. I've already given her the serial number for the CDs. It's quite nice when the offspring get to an age where they've started buying stuff that isn't just popstar-in-a-box type crap. I can actually borrow her CDs for weeks-on-end now.

***

Arsechickens and nipple-donkeys! The dirty, dribbling one came back on stage to launch an eloquent, impassioned and well-reason argument against Robbie Williams and I, for one, agree with him. Bring me Robbie's empty head and I'll show you a plant potholder.

One positive thing about the Monsters of Rock show was the organisation with regard to the actual show. All of the bad things at this event were solidly down to the atrocious Manchester Evening News Arena. As far as the show was concerned, I could not fault it. Well, OK, there's Krusher, but he's never going to get any better, so why bother? I've been listening to him since the days of his BSB show and he is just the same. He is beyond hope or redemption! Seriously, the production was slick and beautifully put together and ran like clockwork. Congratulations to all concerned on that side of things.

Dogs D'Amour | The Quireboys | Thunder | Alice Cooper

Setlist: Welcome to the Party / River of Pain / Low Life in High Places / Spin Doctor / Higher Ground / Back Street Symphony / Love Walked In / Dirty Love

If I need to spell it out, if I need to tell you, what is the point?

If you don't already know, how is anything I have to say going to make a difference?

Well, I can try.

It's quite simple. From the first time I heard Thunder, back in the days of The Power Station on BSB (Oh, shut up! I know some of you have no idea what that means!) I remember thinking that this was a band that was better than its' peers by a considerable amount. And I was right.

Thunder is one of the best live rock bands I have ever seen and I don't say that lightly. It is not just the great songs, the superb musicianship, it isn't even Danny Bowes' awesome voice, it is the whole thing, and the show they put on. There are no fancy sets, the lights are effective, the sound is good, but a Thunder live show is more than the sum of its' parts. And before you start saying, he doesn't know what he's rambling on about, believe me I do. I am putting them on a level with some great live performers: Rose Tattoo; The Dells; The Kinks; BB King; The Grateful Dead; Bobby Paris; Al Green; I've seen them all and in their own way Thunder has the same intensity and level of live performance, which leaves you wrung out, hoarse and exhilarated after the gig. Kudos to Alice Cooper for following them on stage. It takes someone of Alice's stature to be able to play after Thunder and not be worried by what they can do. I can think of so many bands that wouldn't be able to handle it. I remember what Rose Tattoo did to Rainbow on the Difficult to Cure tour. Blackmore had a hard time and it should have been called the Difficult to Follow tour because the Tats rocked the house, big time.

But, I digress, for a change.

Thunder. I have seen them several times before and on each and every occasion, I have been unable to do ought but croak the next day. This time would be no exception. Your hands are tender from all the clapping, your shoulders hurt from the arm waving and your legs ache from the standing and foot tapping. A Thunder gig is a full body workout. No seriously, I was mortified when Thunder broke up. It is the only exercise I ever get and I was glad to see them again. I have put on so much weight since the last gig I went to at Liverpool's Royal Court. After the other night, I feel pounds lighter. I hope they do a full tour in their own right, maybe with The Quireboys, then I can get to a few gigs and maybe fit in those jeans again by the end of the tour.

All right, so I may jest somewhat, but that is what makes the difference. Some bands are technically good live, some have a superb stage show, but they just don't involve you. I want my live music to be 'live', not just the same as the CD. Thunder delivers in this respect. The songs are beautifully crafted pieces of music and all but one have been live favourites for years. They're songs you can sing along to and Danny makes sure that you do.

Luke Morley and Ben Matthews keep the hot licks and cool riffs flowing endlessly, whilst Chris Childs nails the bass to the floor with a heavy-duty, reliable accuracy and Harry James, well, no one quite does what Harry does. He is, even by drummer standards, different but this is just part of how Thunder draw you in to be part of the show. Then there is Danny Bowes' voice. This guy has some pipes, I tell you what. Danny can not only sing on the records, he can do it live. Maybe he is even better live than on CD? For sure, he is right up there with Glenn Hughes, Chris Farlowe and Marvin Junior (look it up!) as far as power and sheer WOW! factor are concerned. His voice is so good, it literally takes your breath away. My daughter has fallen in love with Danny, on account of his voice.

As a showman, I'd put money on the fact that Danny Bowes is a Kinks fan. He winds the audience up just like Ray Davies does and Thunder make the most of the ends of songs, as do The Kinks, with Danny's 'deafness' and inability to hear the crowd cheering and clapping. Bowes is right up there with Ray Davies as a crowd teaser and pleaser too. He makes you cheer, clap, sing, dance, wave your arms around in the air, because if you don't the band won't play such and such, or they'll go home or they'll all sit down and wait whilst the audience goes hysterical. It all adds to the enjoyment of the evening and for my money, I can hardly wait for Thunder to tour again. I know for certain that at least one of the gigs will be a complete family outing.

Oh, and what a great name, Thunder. I can't, for the life of me, think why I like that so much.

Dogs D'Amour | The Quireboys | Thunder | Alice Cooper

Setlist: Sex, Death and Money-Brutal Planet-Dragontown-Sex, Death and Money (reprise) / Sanctuary / I'm Eighteen / Welcome to My Nightmare / Go to Hell / Billion Dollar Babies / Feed My Frankenstein / Wicked Young Man / Nurse Rozetta-Dead Babies-Steven-Ballad of Dwight Frye-Killer-I Love the Dead-Devils Food-Black Widow-Drum Solo-Ballad of Dwight Frye (reprise) / No More Mr Nice Guy / Is It My Body? / Fantasy Man / Trash / Lost in America / I Never Cry / Only Women Bleed / Poison / Band Intros / Under My Wheels / Schools Out // Elected / Cold Ethyl / Department of Youth

 

Come on, you can't fail to be impressed by that setlist! If you are, well, you're just being unreasonable, or unrealistic, or you're just a goon.

For me, this was my fourth Alice Cooper tour, the first being twenty-one years ago: Special Forces. That one was a minimalist stage show, back in the days when we all thought Alice had lost it a bit. He performed the entire show with, what appeared to be short hair, had a fridge with a snake, I think called Arnold, in it and a dustbin full of swords and junk. After his "death" he reappears to the strains of Schools Out, long black hair everywhere and says, "Aren't ya glad I didn't cut it?" to wild applause. Ah, the heady days of my misspent youth.

For some reason, which I cannot even remember, I completely missed the Trash tour, but caught the Hey Stoopid tour, which was back to the full stage show and all the illusions and effects. The next one I caught was Fistful of Alice, another minimalist stage show but an excellent, kickass, rockin' set. I missed the Brutal Planet tour, but was overjoyed when my wife won two tickets, courtesy of Total Rock, to the Monsters of Rock, even though only myself and firstborn are Alice fans. This Descent into Dragontown Phase II stage show falls somewhere between the amazing, mind-boggling ones and the minimalist ones, which Alice has toured with in the past.

The stage is nicely decked out with an oriental motif and Alice's entrance is flash (literally) and sudden and immediately drags the audience into the show. The Sex, Death & Money-Brutal Planet-Dragontown medley opens the show in impressive and thunderous style. Sanctuary is more of the same and I was convinced that the first forty-five minutes or so would be a sort of Brutal Dragontown, the sort of stuff that got my daughter into Alice. However, much to our surprise, that was practically it for the newer songs. The rest of the show was almost entirely older material, of varying vintages. Some of the choices even surprised me. My joy at the choice of songs was mirrored by my daughter's dismay at the lack of late era Alice. I think that this was probably felt by many of the audience, which attended this and the other shows around the country. What is billed as 'Dragontown' features only three songs from that album and only three from Brutal Planet. He didn't even do Triggerman. I'm not complaining, I enjoyed the set immensely, but I can imagine that a lot of the younger audience members, who have discovered Alice more recently, would have been completely lost when Nurse Rozetta started up, for example.

For me this was great, I'm Eighteen, Nightmare and one of my personal favourites, Go to Hell, it was just one classic after another. The show whips along at a fair old pace, Alice, being his usual menacing self and the usual procession of men with straight jackets come along and try to whisk Alice off to the nut ward, with varying degrees of success. Alice always seems to get the better of his opponents though and becomes one stage more wicked with each little victory, creating his own Frankenstein from random body parts scattered around the stage. Naturally, there is one important part missing.

Nurse Rozetta, played by Coopers 'own little nightmare', Calico, gets a beating from Alice for her troubles and gets stuffed inside one of Alice's little hidey-holes. In a beautifully segued Dead Babies-Steven, the out of control Coop impales a baby on the end of his sword. Orderlies come out with straight white vest and wheelchair and restrain the bad man and he tries to escape towards the end of the Ballad of Dwight Frye, but not this time, Mister! Alice is grabbed, the guillotine is wheeled out and, to the strains of Killer-I love the Dead, he must pay for his heinous crime.

With Alice now out of the way, the guitarists have a field day with Devils Food-Black Widow, the ubiquitous Pete Freezin' making yet another appearance in the Alice band, before Eric Singer delivers a blistering drum solo.

The Ballad of Dwight Frye is reprised as a dishevelled Nurse Rozetta escapes and, in what must be one of the best jobs on the [brutal] planet, Calico gets to parade her dead daddy's severed noggin around the stage, before sticking it on the torso of the Frankenstein that Alice lovingly created earlier in the show. There are loads of lights and all unholy hell breaks loose as the regenerated FrankenAlice steps out into the spotlight, all white tux and boy next door, singing No More Mr Nice Guy. This entire segment of the show is so beautifully crafted and flows so beautifully, it is a veritable masterpiece and a joy to behold. Obviously, its effectiveness is lessened if you do not know some of the songs that make up the sequence.

From then on the show just rocked, Is It My Body being the song that I was most surprised to see in the set. One of the highlights of the show was the storming rendition of Lost in America, which is such a great song. Then the tone is softened and you can catch your breath as sensitive Alice comes forward with I Never Cry and Only Women Bleed. Poison soon wakes you up again though and the set is drawn to a close with two solid gold classics, Under My Wheels and Schools Out.

After the obligatory, wandering off stage for a few minutes, whilst the audience does the necessary, Alice reappears, and sings Elected and Cold Ethyl, all the time adorned in a T-shirt bearing, on the front, the legend BRITNEY WANTS ME, and on the back, DEAD. So it is no surprise that in the call and response section of the final song, Department of Youth, that when Alice asks of the audience who gave it to you, the response he wants is Britney Spears. He actually achieves this by answering his own question but lo, and behold, Calico Spears miraculously materialises. Alice slaps her around a bit, she knees Alice in the groin, he slaps her a bit more and drags her, kicking and screaming, back stage. Moments later, Alice appears atop the stage, holding Britney's severed head triumphantly aloft to loud cheers from all points of the compass. This alone is worth the price of admission!

And so it ends, some 105 minutes after it all started, with a disembodied voice imploring us to 'Get Out!'

I enjoyed this show, as I have every other Alice show I have seen. Each one has been different, both in the stage show and the setlist. Not just the same songs in a different order, but completely different songs. Last time, example, there was Gutter Cat and Desperado, this time Is It My Body, Devil's Food, Black Widow and Nurse Rozetta. Obviously, certain songs have to go in the set or Alice would never make it out of the building alive, but the fact that you know that each tour will be nothing like the last, makes Alice such an exciting prospect to see live. Thirty-five years after he used to crash out under Frank Zappa's table, get drunk with Jim Morrison and generally offend the denizens of Lost Angeles, Alice Cooper is still one of the most innovative and creative showmen in the business.

Considering the fact that he was written off as having lost it completely in the mid 70s and made several albums in the 80s that he just doesn't remember, his re-emergence in the 90s and noughties, bigger than ever, is nothing short of amazing. Alice is an icon, a survivor and a legend in his own lifetime and really, you know, there is no one else, quite like Alice, no matter how much the imitators might try.

***

All in all, we both enjoyed the evening's music, but hated the venue with such a violent passion that we have vowed never to go back, unless we have front row seats or tickets on the floor.

As for The Monsters of Rock tour, those who made the effort saw a bloody good show, those who didn't, missed out, big time. Sadly, the MEN was only half-full at best, possibly due to the confusion over the bill, from day one. I know that the original line up didn't do much for me, in spite of Alice and the publicity did not make it clear that it was the Thunder.

20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing and, using it, the show would have been better booked on a sold out Apollo/Odeon tour than a half-filled arena tour, and the sound and the atmosphere would have been much better too. Credit to Danny Bowes, though for having the idea of doing this. It would be nice to see it happen again next year but after this year, whether it will, or not, remains to be seen. My daughter says that Iron Maiden would be a good headliner...