Dead End Drive-In: Now Showing – Super Duper Alice Cooper
Written by Dom Daley
Saturday, 28 June 2014 03:00
‘Super Duper Alice Cooper’ Deluxe Edition (Eagle Vision)
Having attended the wonderful Market Hall Cinema for the inaugural Uber Rock Dead End Drive-In to see the wonderful Alice Cooper movie on the big screen with surround sound I had already pre-ordered the super duper version of the aforementioned movie after reading it would be housed in a coffee table style book and have the added bonus of containing not only the DVD but the Blu-ray version, a live DVD filmed in Montreal from back in ’72, and an audio cd recorded in 2009 at Montreux…and all housed rather neatly in a very nice hardback book.
To be fair the first thing I thought when this bad boy dropped was how nice a collection it was for a relatively reasonable price as I’d expect this to have cost double and no doubt some bands out there would indeed have charged double for a similar package.
Firstly the book is a twelve inch sized affair and has a brief write up and then it’s crammed with some very nice photographs that chart Alice throughout the years from childhood pics right up to his last tour. Some of these included really do capture the different guises of the band and the man and it’s great for browsing whilst listening to the audio CD that’s included. Clearly a lot of effort has gone into this package.
The CD. Great quality kicking off with ‘It’s Hot Tonight’ and running through a familiar set from the tour: sure the classics are in like the usual encore of ‘Schools Out’, ‘Billion Dollar Babies’, ‘No More Mr Nice Guy’ and ‘I’m Eighteen’, but it was the inclusion of the more recent tunes that I liked hearing. Another thing that’s obvious from playing this live CD is how damn good the band is. Sure they remain faithful in many respects but they are also left the freedom to express themselves and their individuality as well. Seventeen tracks on a bonus CD is pretty decent in anyone’s book so excuse the acoustic solo and I guess I can also live without the twelve plus minutes of ‘Halo Of Flies’ in all honesty but, hey, I’m really not complaining.
As for the video footage, firstly the Montreal ’72 DVD. It might only have a running time of just a shade over thirty minutes but where else are you gonna get this kind of material? It’s great to finally get to see this stuff, as well as the movie which is pretty decent for a documentary even if it sort of stops abruptly and brushes over the more recent years: well, when I say recent I actually mean from ‘Poison’ and its success onwards but, then again, it’s the earlier footage that is the rare stuff and it’s finally great to see. There is also bonus material on the Blu-ray disc with deleted scenes, rare footage, as well as the Metal Evolution scenes all housed together in what is an exceptional collection for Alice fans.
Alice has always kept up to speed with what’s going on around him and remained relevant when many of his peers have turned into travelling cash points fleecing fans left, right and centre and churning out concerts that are little more than a tribute circus and he’s made some very very good albums in the last decade or so that are right up there with the best of his back catalogue. If you were thinking of investing in a copy of this film then I strongly recommend you raid the piggy bank and invest in this Super Duper version as it really is worth the money. Simply super duper stuff.
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To pick up your copy of ‘Super Duper Alice Cooper’ – CLICK HERE
