The Gruesome Twosome Tour
Featuring Alice Cooper & Rob Zombie
Hartland Arena
Park City, Kansas

May 9, 2010

By Jeb Wright 

Alice Cooper:
School's Out | Department of Youth | I'm Eighteen | Wicked Young Man | Ballad of Dwight Fry | Go to Hell | Guilty | Cold Ethyl | Poison | From the Inside | Nurse Rozetta | Be My Lover | Only Women Bleed | I Never Cry | Black Widow | Vengeance is Mine | Dirty Diamonds  | Billion Dollar Babies | Killer/I Love The Dead | No More Mr. Nice Guy | Under My Wheels

Rob Zombie:
Sawdust in The Blood/Call of the Zombie | What Lurks on Channel X? | Superbeast | Scum of the Earth | Living Dead Girl | Let it Bleed Out | More Human Than Human | Mars Needs Women | House of 1,000 Corpses | Demonoid Phenomenon | Never Gonna Stop | What? | Thunderkiss 65 | Werewolf Women of the SS | Dragula | Schools Out  

The Gruesome Twosome took Wichita, Kansas by storm on a day usually spent with one’s mommy: Mother’s Day.  There were no roses or candy dispensed, as blood and guts were the preferred gifts of the day.  People were not there to celebrate life, however, they were there to see two generations of shock rockers compete for the Crown of the Demented Kingdom.   

Alice Cooper was the opening act.  This seemed to surprise all of the over 40’s in the crowd as it seemed weird to see the student get the main set over the master.  Coop came out firing on all cylinders with the classics “Schools Out,” “Department of Youth” and “I’m 18.” Alice has as much angst, piss and vinegar as a severely dysfunctional adult half his age.  Speaking of age, Coop remains in good voice and the wrinkles and bags on his face only add to his mean demeanor.  Alice looks more grotesque and evil than ever.  He is not, however, slowed down by his advancing age.  He still changes clothes, swings swords, murders nurses, get his head chopped off and hangs himself during the set.   

Musically, Cooper's band is top notch.  Former Brother Cain guitarist, Damon Johnson, bears the biggest musical burden – a job he gladly handles with ease.  His co-axeman Kerri Kelli, is more Glam than Johnson, but joins in for harmony solos and even rips several leads of his own.  Bassist Chuck Garrick is a muscle bound, short-haired rocker who snuck in lead vocals on “I Love The Dead.”  “Black Widow,” which was performed at the end of back-to-back ballads “Only Women Bleed” and “I Never Cry,” was instrumental and saw the band stealing center stage from Cooper.  The invasion of metal was very successful, thrilling the audience with solos while giving the master time for a wardrobe change.   

Cooper played many classics, including “Be My Lover,” “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” “Under My Wheels” and “Poison” but he also thrilled Cooper fanatics with lesser known numbers such as “From the Inside,” “Nurse Rozetta,” “Dirty Diamonds,” “Wicked Young Man,” “Vengeance is Mine” and “Ballad of Dwight Fry.”  The best album cut performed, however, was the perverted classic “Cold Ethel.”  We won’t even report what Alice did to poor Ethel’s lifeless corpse.  

Speaking of corpses, the final act of the evening could be described best in one of the songs performed:  “House of 1000 Corpses.”  Rob Zombie may not be able to pull out rock classic after rock classic like his opening act but he makes up for it in presentation.   

Remember, back in the day, Maxell cassette tapes had an advertisement where a man was sitting in a chair in front of a stereo?  The power of the music coming from the tape deck blew his hair back.  Rob Zombie’s stage set blew one’s MIND out of his skull.  Several video screens flashed horror films, naked dancing woman and scenes of disasters as the band pounded, literally, pounded out Rob’s biggest hits.  Strobe lights flashed, stage lights shot wildly around the arena and robots, monsters and ghouls – some seemingly twenty feet tall  – wandered on and off stage. 

The band were as intense as the show with guitarist John 5 providing most of the power.  Zombie relies on sampled sounds and effects more than Cooper but that can be seen as the next generation of horror taking advantage of the modern days toys available to them. 

Unlike Cooper, Zombie took time to address the crowd.  He cursed the people in section 108 for “sitting on their asses” and he took a moment to say how pleased he was that people showed up on the holiday.  He stated, “They told us no one would come out to see up play because today was a holiday but we showed them.  Happy Mother Fuckers Day!”  The band also brought out a display of about 200 bras as Zombie declared, “This is how many bras we have had thrown on stage in the last two days.”  With that, Hartland Arena began raining bras.  Rob even put a bra on one of the walking robots.  He picked another one, looked at it and said, “This one has little hearts on it” and discarded the underwear.  Zombie not only talked to the crowd, during John 5’s guitar solo, he jumped off stage and walked around the entire arena.   

At the end of the day, Zombie, while interesting and intense – incredibly intense – must still bow to the master.  Cooper does not hit one over the head with a sledgehammer – probably because he has not thought of it yet.  Instead, his theatrics contain both horror and humor.  They are also done with suspense.  Zombie, on the other hand, delivers death with the grace of a clumsy serial killing cannibal having a bad day.   

Alice plays with your mind while Zombie takes a machete, cracks open your skull, pisses on your brain and then eats it for dinner.  Depending on your agenda, you may prefer one approach over the other.  The bottom line, then, becomes about the music.  While Zombie has killer tunes in “Draglula,” “Thunderkiss 65” “Living Dead Girl,” “Scum of the Earth,” “More Human Than Human” and “Werewolf Woman of the SS,” he doesn’t have anything as timeless as “Schools Out” or “No More Mr. Nice Guy.”   

That said, The Gruesome Twosome is a show unlike any other.  The entertainment and shock value far surpass the price of admission.