HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES – BIRMINGHAM UTILITA ARENA, 11 JULY 2023

BY SHARI BLACK VELVET

“Lock your doors, put garlic all around, because the Vampires are coming!” Alice Cooper exclaimed, when the long-awaited Hollywood Vampires UK tour was rescheduled and announced to take place in July 2023. The rock supergroup, which comprises of the legendary Alice Cooper, actor Johnny Depp, Aerosmith’s Joe Perry and Tommy Henriksen from Alice Cooper’s band, plus touring bandmates Glen Sobel, Chris Wyse and Buck Johnson, were originally due to grace our land in 2020, until Covid hit, and lockdown commenced. 

But now that our doors are unlocked again, Alice’s advice may fall on deaf ears. We won’t be putting any garlic out, and instead, we rush to the venue to burst inside as soon as their doors open, eager to catch these lovable Vampires in action. 

With an intro of Bauhaus’s ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’, suddenly, there’s a clap of thunder and lightning strike and a line of blood red smoke piercing the air. The seven musicians take to the stage and blast into ‘I Want My Now’, the first track from their second studio album, ‘Rise’, released in 2019. Initially, it’s hard to know who to focus on. Eyes are on Johnny Depp at the far left of the stage, while vocalist Alice Cooper points his cane up in the air and stalks the stage, coming together with guitarist Joe Perry as the song progresses. With a live album, ‘Live In Rio’, released a month before the shows, it’s the perfect excuse to play some of the tracks on the release, and ‘Raise The Dead’ is up next, the opening song from the live album. ‘Raise The Dead’ was one of the band’s original songs from their debut self-titled album, released in 2015 – giving us a couple of original tunes before delving into some of the cover songs that they perform. Alice Cooper’s own ‘I’m Eighteen’, which sees the frontman prowl around to the breakthrough tune, recorded in 1970, precedes a tribute to The Doors with ‘Five To One’ and ‘Break On Through (To The Other Side)’.

'My Dead Drunk Friends’ is very apt. Alice goes over to Johnny, who he penned the song with, about his musician buddies that have passed away. Joe Perry announces, “This one goes out to Johnny Thunders, another friend of ours who passed away too soon,” taking centre stage to sing the sombre-toned ‘You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory’. It’s fun to see the members switch things up and take turns singing. Johnny Depp sings The Jim Carroll Band’s punky ‘People Who Died’, while the backdrop shows footage of legendary musicians who have died, such as Ronnie James Dio, Jimi Hendrix and Amy Winehouse. " Malcolm from AC/DC left us, so this is for him," Johnny says, before the band perform AC/DC number, ‘The Jack’. Alice sings this one and brings out some playing cards. He throws them out into the audience one by one. “We’ve got the Joe,” Alice says, before Joe performs the solo.

Johnny Depp sings another tune, David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’. Alice and Joe Perry join him at the mic for the chorus. Johnny tells the crowd that not so long ago we lost a hero and great friend – Jeff Beck. He brings one of Jeff’s guitars out (which he calls his dear friend) and gives it to Joe to play an instrumental tribute to Jeff. 

The set includes a couple of Aerosmith covers (‘Bright Light Fright' and ‘Walk This Way’), before being wrapped up with Alice Cooper’s ‘Schools Out’, in which Alice puts on his white top hat and tails and twirls his cane again, and giant balls bounce around the audience. It includes a snippet of ‘Another Brick In The Wall’ and sees the band members introduced to the crowd. And finally, there’s a surprise rendition of Black Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’ with local legend Tony Iommi as a guest musician to end the Birmingham show. Tony is called “an official vampire now” at the end of the song. 

What a fangtastic show, from start to finish.