Alice Cooper Live in Montreux 2005

Director: Thierry Amsallem Starring: Alice Cooper, Ryan Roxie, Damon Johnson, Chuck Garric, Eric Singer, Calico Cooper

Rather than developing the cultural sensibilities needed for an appreciation of country music, I spent my early teens developing an appreciation of Alice Cooper. And others as well, but it was centred on Alice Cooper, the group. The album ‘Killer’ with brilliantly constructed songs such as Dead Babies, the title track, and of course Halo of Flies, a progressive rock epic that stands with the best of them. The group did that because… well, because it could.

As someone ‘way more interested in the music than the lyrics, I didn’t even realise for years that Alice Cooper songs were supposed to be shocking, and certainly had no idea about the on-stage controversies. Musically, the group was enormously better than its general reputation, improving in performance standards through School’s Out, Billion Dollar Babies and even Muscle of Love.

And then Alice Cooper became Alice Cooper the man, not the group, and he achieved even greater success with ‘Welcome to My Nightmare.’

Things have come a long way in the rarefied atmosphere of the Montreux Jazz Festival since Stevie Ray Vaughan was booed in 1982 for performing blues instead of jazz. This concert is Alice Cooper at the Festival in 2005, and the crowd loved him.

Some of the songs were shortened and run together with others. That’s what happens when you squeeze 27 songs into a ninety minute show. Most are from the period up to and including ‘Nightmare’, put together into a loosely flowing structure. For example, The Ballad of Dwight Fry from ‘Love it to Death’ is the climax to a medley of numbers from ‘Welcome to My Nightmare’, which of course came five albums later.

Cooper is older and stouter, but sings much better as a sober man than he did live back in the 1970s. His wife-to-be performed on stage back in the day. This performance has his daughter filling the role. (Warning: stylised violence against women. Also stylised violence against Cooper with his James Randi-designed decapitation.)

You have a choice of 16-bit, 48kHz LPCM in stereo, or 5.1 surround in Dolby Digital or DTS. I’d recommend the DTS. No, of course it isn’t lossless, but there are tradeoffs to be made. The surround mix has for once been employed to actually add to the performance, with elements of the music thrown to the back of the room, the crowd kept properly off the stage and the creepier musical effects spread all around the room. The organ fanfare from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Phantom of the Opera’, which opens the show, is spread out overhead (I had the current version of Dolby Surround processing running, so it pulled out material and sent it to the ceiling speakers). Stephen Dawson

FEATURES

Running time: 94 minutes Picture: 1.78:1, 1080p24, MPEG2 AVC @ 26.82Mbps Sound: English: DTS 16/48 3/2.1 @ 1509kbps; English: Dolby Digital 3/2.1 @ 640kbps; English: LPCM 16/48 2/0.0 @ 1536kbps Subtitles: Nil Extras: 6 page insert Restrictions: Exempt, Region Free