This article was originally published on Ferretbrain. I’ve backdated it to its original Ferretbrain publication date but it may have been edited and amended since its original appearance.
The ringing is slowly fading from my ears as I write this, in the wake of Alice Cooper’s concert at the Birmingham NEC on the 10th November 2007. Supported by Joan Jett (known in this country for I Love Rock and Roll on the Guitar Hero soundtrack and… little else) and Motörhead (known for Ace of Spades and a million million million other songs which sound exactly like Ace of Spades), the show turned out to be a four-and-a-half hour celebration of loud guitars and distinctive lead singers. But are trashy New York punk, gruff British speed metal and heavy Detroit glam rock musical flavours which go well together?
The Venue
For those of you who’ve never been to a concert there, incidentally, the NEC Arena isn’t at all bad. Clearly signposted from the M42, it has plenty of conference facilities – which means you’ll usually be able to grab a moderately-priced and moderately-bland dinner before the gig if you’re hungry – and the arena itself is well-lit, has plenty of toilets, snack food stands and (most importantly) water dispensers, and for this gig offered both standing and seated tickets. It’s the hallowed ground where such cultural icons as Wolf, Shadow, and Panther reigned supreme in Gladiators, back before we realised that it was just a tame and less entertaining form of professional wrestling, and it doesn’t seem to have changed a bit since then. The floor is sticky, but not as sticky as, say, those in the Ultimate Picture Palace in Oxford. Some of the toilets are unpleasant.
Jumbled Thoughts of a Fake Geek Boy 