Creeper
Will Gould (vocals) / Ian Miles (guitar, vocals) / Lawrie Pattison (guitar) / Sean Scott (bass, vocals) / Hannah Greenwood (keyboards, vocals) / Jake Fogarty (drums, percussion)
It really can’t be much fun being up the warm-up band for a major league rock band. Equally, it can’t be that much fun if you are the warm-up band for TWO major league acts, but that was the role that Creeper fulfilled with ease last night as they played warm-up for The Cult and Alice Cooper in Leeds. I’ll be honest – I’d never heard of the band before and had made a point of not listening to anything on YouTube, so I came to the band completely fresh and with an open mind.
And, boy, was I surprised! They were really good and so unlike Alice’s usual opening bands which are generally just loud, thrashing local bands who create an absolute wall of noise that usually sends me dashing to the relative safety of the bar, or at least the foyer, of these big venues. No, Creeper were not like that at all; quite the contrary in fact – they were rather good. They had energy, dynamism and, most importantly, melody.
Their disappointingly, but wholly understandably, short 25-minute set included the standard five songs that they have performed throughout this tour, each one a punchy affair with the twin guitar attack of Miles and Pattison, the latter who only joins them on tours to play the guitar parts normally undertaken by Greenwood who concentrates on the keys on stage. And she sings too. Lead vocalist Gould took the honours for four of the songs but Greenwood vacated her ivories to take the reins on ‘Midnight’ whilst also adding background vox throughout, along with the others. The highlight of the set – in my humble opinion, Anyway – was the closer, ‘Annabelle’, a killer from their 2020 album, ‘Sex, Death & The Infinite Void’.
The set was over all too quickly, leaving me impressed and with one key question to answer, namely would I go and see them again? Yes. Good band, and well worth catching.
Setlist: Cyanide; Thorns of Love; Down Below; Midnight; Annabelle
And here’s a sew-on patch that I bought at the time…
The Cult
Ian Astbury (vocals) / Billy Duffy (guitars, vocals) / Mike Mangan (keyboards, guitar, vocals) / Grant Fitzpatrick (bass, vocals) / John Tempesta (drums, percussion)
I know only three songs by The Cult – ‘Rain’, ‘Li’l Devil’ and, of course, ‘She Sells Sanctuary’. I didn’t even know that they were a Bradford band! Anyway, it was with a fairly open mind that I approached this gig in Leeds where they were co-headlining with the band that I really wanted to see, Alice Cooper. As a result, there was quite a mix of fans in the certainly not sold out audience with Cult fans most definitely in the minority although one or two sat around me seemed to be avid fans of both bands, which was pleasing. After a quick stage setting turn around – Creeper‘s had been very sparse and The Cult had only a printed curtain backdrop – we were soon underway for the first of the two major acts of the evening. And The Cult didn’t disappoint.
As I have already said, I knew very little of their canon and so I was happy to be entertained with some energetic playing, particularly by Billy Duffy on lead guitar and Grant Fitzpatrick’s constantly rumbling bass. Lead vocalist Astbury was on form and rattled through a set packed with Cult favourites. Certainly the bloke sitting a couple of seats along from me up in the circle was repeatedly on his feet, waving his arms and singing along and at around mid-50s to 60s I’d say that he was fairly representative of the whole audience too. A glance around the arena revealed a lot of folks up and jigging about as Astbury’s efforts to get the crowd on their feet eventually paid dividends, although he did pick on the wrong guy when he asked a seated punter if he was bored, and received a response which caused him to apologise and point out that his brother was currently in hospital/receiving care so I’m guessing that this poor bloke was in some way required to stay seated. Nice one, Ian! 😉 And he certainly loves to swear, does our Mr Astbury. I’m no prude, but listening to some tired old rocker effing and jeffing for seventy minutes can be rather wearing.
The music, however, was good. I enjoyed the set even though I had read that previous gigs on the tour had been “flat” and “rubbish live with a plodding set and lifeless renditions of the classics. Ian seemed to be in a strop and moaned constantly.” Clearly you can’t please everybody. Highlights for me were, of course, the three aforementioned songs together with ‘Soul Asylum’ when my mate Rob thought that we were going to be treated to Zeppelin’s ‘Kashmir’ because of the similarity of the opening riff.
And one fun memory will be Astbury constantly kicking away the monitors at the front, throwing the mic stand to the floor and also his tambourine which, after the first couple of chucks, soon began to fall apart with the little silver cymbals falling out intermittently until there couldn’t have been more than three or four left!
So, seventy minutes of throwback rock which I really enjoyed and which left me well primed for the main act of the evening…
Setlist: Sun King; Automatic Blues; Sweet Soul Sister; Soul Asylum; Edie (Ciao Baby); Aphrodisiac Jacket; Lil’ Devil; Wild Flower; Fire Woman; Revolution; Rain; She Sells Sanctuary; Love Removal Machine
And here’s some video from this gig
And here’s a sew-on patch that I bought many years later…
Alice Cooper
The “Nightmare Castle” tour
Alice Cooper (vocals) / Ryan Roxie (guitar, vocals) / Tommy Henriksen (guitars, vocals) / Nita Strauss (guitar, vocals) / Chuck Garric (bass, vocals) / Glen Sobel (Drums, percussion) / Sheryl Cooper (dancer)
It had been eleven years since I last saw Alice (October 2011) and I have to say that I haven’t really bothered listening to any of his stuff since ‘Welcome 2 My Nightmare’ (which was brilliant) because his newer material – with the odd exception – just seems too dull and uninspiring for me. But everyone knows that you’re safe with an Alice gig – only two or three new songs ever feature as he always sticks with the tried and tested AC material from the past. The worry here was that it was billed as a co-headlining tour with The Cult, so would either band – or both? – play a shorter set to accommodate the other? Well yes, actually, they both did. Having played across the States through late 2021 and early 2022 Alice brought his ‘Detroit Muscle’ tour to the UK but was obliged to cut down the set to a measly 75/80-ish minutes; more about this later. The evening had been ably warmed-up by Creeper and then The Cult and, after a forty minutes break to change the set – the “Nightmare Castle” from 2019 was again in evidence behind the curtain with our view from the side of the stage – we were good to go.
Taped thunder, wind and rain filled the air as the ‘Detroit Muscle’ searchlight black-eyes curtain went up and Detroit’s poster-boy took to the stage with the taped intro to ‘Feed My Frankenstein’ to kick off a breathless performance where many songs segued one into another. Highlights on offer this time were first performances (for me anyway) of new tracks ‘Fallen In Love’ (complete with Alice on harmonica during the intro) and ‘Go Man Go’, together with oldies ‘Bed of Nails’ (from ‘Trash’), ‘Escape’ (from ‘Welcome To My Nightmare’) ‘Teenage Frankenstein’ (from ‘Constrictor’) and ‘Roses on White Lace’ (from ‘Raise Your Fist and Yell’). All of which tempered my disappointment at Alice having to ditch several songs from his American shows such as the new song ‘Shut Up and Rock’ and two of my all-time favourites, namely ‘My Stars’ (from ‘School’s Out’) and ‘He’s Back (The Man Behind The Mask)’ (from ‘Constrictor’).
And then, of course, there was the theatrical side of things… As I had said to my mate Rob before the gig, it’s never all about Alice the Man, it’s never all about the band; it’s all about THE SHOW. And this show was terrific. As mentioned earlier, the Nightmare Castle was there, as were the usual costume changes, the balloons for the encore, and the guillotine and the hooded executioners. But new to me were the Frankenstein Giant (I think it was new, can’t be sure), the hunchbacked Igor dashing about the stage at intervals, the faceless minions who ‘police’ Alice about the stage, and certainly the Billion Dollar Baby which emerged from the tower of the castle like the Marshmallowman in Ghostbusters. Hilarious! That same song also featured a catapult firing what looked like glitter into the audience; I don’t think it was Alice dollar bills even though that would have made perfect sense. To be honest, I was too far away to be certain either way.
Appearing as the supporting cast, Chuck Garric’s bass rumbled and growled angrily throughout the proceedings whilst drummer Glen Sobel had his three minutes in the limelight with his solo. Yes, people still depart to the bar and toilets during these and it’s hard to criticise them for doing so because, whilst I can marvel at Sobel’s dexterity, it isn’t a particularly musical digression. Erstwhile Beasto Blanco guitarist Ryan Roxie’s weapon of choice screamed throughout and it was a particular delight to be afforded the opportunity to see female guitarist Nita Strauss who spent the entire performance swinging her long blonde tresses around, up, down and over in true head-banging fashion. She must have a terrible headache every morning, but her axe-wielding was truly great. And last, but most definitely not least, Alice’s wife Sheryl made a welcome appearance as the dancer during ‘Roses on White Lace’ and again as his taunter-in-chief for ‘Dead Babies’ and ‘I Love The Dead’.
In conclusion, I thought the gig was great. I had travelled rather in expectation that I might have been disappointed but left the Arena with nothing but ace memories of a fantastically entertaining show, with the emphasis very much on the fantasy element. The Man clearly hasn’t lost any of his appeal nor his ability to entertain whilst still proving himself capable of evolving and updating his shows. Bring on his next tour – I think I’ll be going again! (But I still won’t be buying an official metal/enamel pin-badge at £15 👀)
Setlist: Feed My Frankenstein; No More Mr Nice Guy; Bed Of Nails; Hey Stoopid; Fallen In Love; Be My Lover; Go Man Go; Under My Wheels; Nita Solo; Roses On White Lace; I’m Eighteen; Poison; Billion Dollar Babies; Black Widow Jam; Drum Solo; Steven; Dead Babies; I Love The Dead; Escape; Teenage Frankenstein; Encore: School’s Out (inc. Another Brick In The Wall excerpt)
Footnote: on 11th July 2022, Nita Strauss announced that she had left the Alice Cooper Band and so I count myself very fortunate indeed to have seen her perform with them. All the very best to you in your future endeavours, Nita! 👍🎸🎵🎶
Here’s some video of the gig too…
And a sew-on patch that I bought around this time…
Gigs'n'Stuff 