Dead End Drive-In: Now Showing – Uber Rock double bill
Written by Gaz E
Sunday, 18 May 2014 03:00
The majority of British people who harp on about seeing Star Wars when it first came out in 1977 probably didn’t. And when I say “probably” I mean almost certainly. Thing is, these sufferers of False Memory Syndrome are sci-fi so-far from the facts that they wouldn’t know them if they climbed onto a Bantha and bit them on the arse.
Thing is, though Star Wars had opened in May 1977 in the US, UK cinema goers had to wait until December 27th of that year to get their first glimpse of the greatest movie of all time, and even then, as was generally the case in ’70s Britain, the film’s release was limited to just London, showing at the Leicester Square Theatre and the Dominion.
Star Wars remained locked in the trash compactor-style grip of these venues until January 29th 1978 when it rolled out to a dozen other cities in the UK, a further sixteen a week later.
So, unless you had a Christmas treat in the capital in 1977, despite what your Ree-Yees-tinted memory tells you, you saw Star Wars in 1978.
I turned seven half-way through 1978, but not before I saw the film that would turn my head and instill in me a sense of the fantastic that hasn’t dissipated almost four decades later. And that six year old, eyes widened by the tale of a boy from the kind of insipid location that we all kind of recognised as similar to our own being able to change the world, saw the film for the first time in a cinema called the Market Hall in Brynmawr. How fitting then that, on the day that J.J. Abrams started filming the seventh episode of the Star Wars Saga, I returned to the very same cinema backed with the sheer rock ‘n’ roll power of Uber Rock, a wretched hive of scum and villainy equally blessed and cursed with the power to change the world. Possibly.
Yes, the circle was now complete.
Peter Watkins-Hughes, winner of a Welsh BAFTA for his 2009 film, ‘A Bit Of Tom Jones?’, spearheaded a campaign to save the Market Hall when it was threatened with closure by typically scoundrelous council behaviour and, after reinstalling the ruggedly handsome Ralph Price (who had worked at the cinema for three decades) as manager, has watched the iconic building reclaim its place as the cultural hub of the South Wales valleys.
Coating the current movie screening schedules with a spattering of cult cinema in a quest to make the cinema as genre-hopping and fan-friendly as possible, Peter made the wisest choice of his career to date when he pulled on his leather chaps and air guitared his way to URHQ to ask us if Uber Rock wanted to team up with the oldest cinema in Wales – the Market Hall is 120 years old this year – to show double bills of rock-based movies. How could we refuse? We couldn’t.
But what films to show? How to capture the imagination of cinema goers and rock fans alike? The Welsh premiere of new “doc opera” Super Duper Alice Cooper was available so we snapped that up knowing that it would be, ahem, killer. Showing theatrically in North America for just one night only, the chance to see this on a massive screen, coupled with the Market Hall’s uber impressive sound system, was a no brainer.
But what to pair it up with? I’d been blown away by As The Palaces Burn, the Lamb Of God documentary, when reviewing it for Uber Rock prior to its limited cinematic release several weeks previously, so, knowing that its home video release was still some way away, we decided that this powerful doc was the perfect partner to the timeless shock rock of Alice Cooper.
I knew the night was going to be cool, no matter how many people turned up or how the films were received, and the coolest part for me was waiting in the cinema foyer as Godzilla stomped his way through his opening night, the sound of his limited skirmish with humanity rumbling from the theatre to the Market Square, where a merry band of dedicated rock fans and cult cinema aficionados waited patiently to enter Uber Rock’s Dead End Drive-In just as soon as Godzilla spat his viewers out into the warm night air. If our ambitious plan to introduce late-night rock movie double bills to the area had struck a power chord with this scattered bunch of ne’er-do-wells (featuring a virtual who’s who of Welsh rock talent, from Bullet For My Valentine to Vermin) then everything was gonna be okay. Not everyone is satisfied with sitting at home badly spelling twee statuses on social networking sites about the deluded self-important bullshit that they call life.
Having waxed lyrical on the merits of As The Palaces Burn previously, I was still surprised at how much the film grabbed me on a second viewing that came pretty quickly after my initial screening. Director Don Argott’s film bottles lightning, unexpectedly, as the film, starting out with the intention of documenting how Lamb Of God’s music have given hope to the almost hopeless, kids living in deprived situations in various countries surviving because of the heavy duty stylings of the lauded Richmond, Virginia metal crew, turns on its axis as frontman Randy Blythe is charged with the murder of a fan in the Czech Republic.
I’d been telling prospective attendees who fear the metal somewhat that they didn’t have to be Lamb Of God fans to take something from Argott’s film, and I think I was proved right, the documentary absorbed by everyone in attendance, its thought provoking subject matter transcending rock subgenres.
Following a quick leg-stretch/comfort break/beer run (yes, the Dead End Drive-In lets you enjoy an ale or two as you watch the film) and the opportunity to purchase some Uber Rock merchandise at ridiculously low prices, the face of Alice Cooper himself filled the huge screen, introducing us to Super Duper Alice Cooper, Reginald Harkema, Sam Dunn and Scot McFadyen’s “doc opera” dedicated to the rise, drunken fall, and rebirth of the legendary artist formerly known as Vincent Furnier.
Having seen everything, you’d guess, Cooper-related since falling for his (snake) charming self as a young (shock) rock music fan, I sat, gob-smacked at times, as never-before-seen photograph after photograph, rare vintage film clip after vintage film clip rolled out before our eyes.
You think you’ve seen and heard everything you need to know about the legend of Alice Cooper, both band and solo artist? Think again. This film, remarkably, educated as well as entertained long-time Coop fans and did so via a dazzling collision of modern animation techniques and gorgeous archive footage.
What made the film stand out for me, even more so than the animation which, I’ll be honest, had me worried at announcement time, was the fact that, although the filmmakers had gathered an iconic set of ‘stars’ to give their takes on the Alice Cooper story – Neal Smith, Dennis Dunaway, Bob Ezrin, Elton John, Bernie Taupin, John Lydon, Dee Snider amongst them – they refused to toe the line of generic documentaries and wheel these out as talking heads: no, these monoliths of rock ‘n’ roll history simply narrated their own parts of the story, from the Earwigs to The Nightmare Returns.
As the film ended with Alice’s resurrection on Hallowe’en night, 1986, Dee Snider stated, over a montage of Twisted Sister, W.A.S.P., Poison and Ratt footage, that when Alice Cooper ejaculated in the ’70s he gave birth to a load of cock rockers. It was laugh out loud funny and the ultimate point at which to end the film, the oft-startling animation stripped away from the blown-up VHS quality of the classic October 31st show, giving it a nostalgically naughty ’80s feel.
So, at around 1:30 am, with a belly full of brown booze (or Cherry Coke for us girls), the die-hards wandered into the night, Uber Rock’s Dead End Drive-In closing its doors….for the time being.
I tried to sleep when I got home but, with caffeine-laced carbonated water coursing through my veins, I tossed and turned, images of Alice Cooper being beheaded and Randy Blythe being incarcerated flashing behind my eyes, the thought that we should do this all again flashing like neon bombs in my head…..
