How many people have been to the
Filene Center at Wolf Trap in Virginia? It's really one of the nicest venues in the tri-state area, and I've been going there since I was very young.
Last night I saw a concert that was somewhat out of place for the venue, but fantastic: Alice Cooper w/ Cheap Trick.
I was amazed that both bands are still impressive. Robin Zander's voice was still good (I thought I'd heard some recent live performances where it wasn't holding up so well). Cheap Trick rocked out pretty well, but I think they played a bit too much of their newer material. They hit the main singles (and practically sleep-walked through "I Want You to Want Me" - but who can blame them?). Anyway, Rick Nielsen's guitars were all there, and he sounded good on all of them. I originally went to see them, but the headliner was even better...
I must admit, I've never listened to Alice Cooper. I will now. First the not-so-great: much of the music that he really does the theatrics on isn't his best, or at least not as I was hearing it. I wasn't a huge fan of the shock-rock-
opera as I was the plain old shock-rock. Then there were some ballads. Meh.
The
kick-ass: the first seven-or-so songs of his set were freaking incredible. They rocked so damn hard. [sarcasm]This man obviously had no influence on Rob Zombie[/sarcasm]. I was also suprised how well he moved on stage considering his hard-lived 57 years. His voice is still menacing, if not
quite as powerful as it used to be.
The highlight of the evening was the crowd. Wolf Trap usually attracts baby-boomers at the youngest. The performances are usually the opera or NSO-type (National Symphony Orchestra), with the occasional Beach Boys or Peter Paul and Mary thrown in. What was so funny is that this show had baby-boomers and
younger. So aside from lots of 50 year-old women who thought they were still 30 - or maybe 20 - there were a suprising number of goth teenagers, and even a few full goth families!
So yes, it was a fantastic experience. It's cool to see bands like this while they're still around, especially when they aren't embarassing yet. These guys weren't embarassing. They rocked.
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