Alice Cooper at The O2

The O2 Arena, London. Saturday 18-June-2016.

The Stone Free Festival was an opportunity to see the legendary Alice Cooper.

The first act Blackberry Smoke impressed. They are an American Southern rock/country rock band from Atlanta, Georgia.

Apocalytica were my first encounter with Cello Metal - who knew that was a thing? File under "Hmmm. Interesting".

The Darkness were OK-ish. Not Mary's thing so she went out for that set.

Finally the act I suspect was the real reason many were there - Alice Cooper. He kicked off with "No More Mr Nice Guy",  always one of my favourites.


The Evening Standard wrote: "Cooper’s tightly drilled, heroically daft pantomime was in fine fettle, despite the 68-year-old’s reduced mobility and absence of patter. As if it were 1972 (the whole point of Stone Free), there were explosions; the traditional live snake on Is it My Body; the guillotine ritual on the Killer/I Love the Dead medley which, not entirely unpredictably, ended with Cooper being resurrected by the love of a lascivious woman; a 20ft monster on Feed My Frankenstein and two fake Kennedys having a fake brawl during the closing Elected." Full review...

I think "heroically daft pantomime" describes it perfectly.

Louder Than War’s Sophie Sparham wrote: "The band’s encore consisted of a series of tributes to fallen rock stars such as Keith Moon, Hendrix, Lemmy and Bowie. It was great to see such a legend paying tribute to musicians that have passed and revved the crowd up for ‘Eighteen’ and ‘Schools Out’, which he sang accompanied by bubbles that came out from the side of the stage." Full review and pictures...

The tributes were great rock and roll songs and very touching all at the same time.

So that's another act ticked off the bucket list :-)