USA - It was a magical moment. At the end of Alice Cooper's outdoor CoopStock show in Mesa, AZ this spring, the rocker was joined on stage by a group of other artists including Rob Halford of Judas Priest, as well as Corey Glover and Robin Zander of Cheap Trick, to perform his hit classic School's Out For Summer.
The sold out crowd loved it, but ironically ‘school’ will not be out, but open a little longer thanks to CoopStock, an event Cooper initiated to raise funds for Solid Rock Teen Centre, an educational institution Cooper cofounded 30 years ago to provide young people between the ages of 12 and 20 with places they could go to learn more about music, art, film, photography and other forms of creative expression.
Providing Cooper and his fellow legends with a dynamic background to support their performances for this worthy cause was a collection of 32 Chauvet Professional fixtures supplied by John Garberson and his team at Creative BackStage.
Spread across the 32ft by 24ft mobile outdoor stage, the 24 Rouge R2 Washes and eight Maverick MK2 Spots were wielded by LD Mathew Berg to serve up some scorching looks befitting of trailblazing power rockers. The event may have been a noble fundraiser held on the driving green grounds of a golf club, but the mood and feel was of a raw, rebellious, and at times a bit raunchy, bad boy live music show of the 80s and 90s.
The design team set the tone, often drenching the entire stage with bold devilish red monochromatic light from the 12 upstage and 10 downstage high output Rogue washes. The saturated colorising was complimented by bold displays of light that ran across the backdrop. At more mellow moments (yes there were some!), the Rogues took a gentler approach, washing the stage with cool blues.
Creating piercing effects on stage and some intense audience lighting were the rig's, Maverick fixtures, which were flown on upstage truss. "The Mavericks worked well to create a sense of depth on stage, which was important give its size," said Garberson. "The Rogues also added depth. Matt did an excellent job turning out powerful looks with these fixtures. Also deserving credit is Pro Production, which supplied stage and sound, in addition to bringing us into this project. There was a lot of excitement in the air, given the names that were on stage."
That excitement level went from zero to sixty in hurry at the start of CoopStock as Alice Cooper himself kicked things off with a full-throated version of one of his many hits, No More Mister Nice Guy.
The song revved up the crowd, the same way that the School's Out For Summer jam would do later at the close of the show. But like that encore tune, Cooper's opening number bore a bit of irony, since, unlike the character in the song, the Detroit-born rocker is indeed a "nice guy." Who else would have worked tirelessly to raise money to provide a creative outlet for troubled kids since 1995?
