Alice Cooper took his “Welcome To My Nightmare” stage show to Auckland, New Zealand in 1977.
Having been an avid fan of this master of the whole range from hardest hard rock to the most sensitive of ballads since I first heard the “Billion Dollar Babies” album at the tender age of 16, I had to “get me to the show” (a reference other fans may recognise…).
Only thing was, he was only doing one concert in New Zealand, and my university town of Palmerston North was several hundred miles away to the south.
Undaunted, with a car load of other Alice Cooper appreciators, in April of that year we set off in my 1962 six-cylinder, three-gear, column-change Mark II Zephyr, and happily actually made it to Auckland safe and sound for the concert at Western Springs Speedway, a former volcanic crater like many other parts of Auckland.
I tried to take photos for a review I was doing for the student newspaper, with a massive telescopic lens and “natural” light.
Unfortunately that didn’t turn out too well, fortunately the programme from the show had pictures to illustrate the article – to which I artistically added a spider’s web that sprawled down towards an ad for a local butcher…
The show was awesome.
When it finished, before we could head for home we first had to “unstick” the column change leverage under the hood down to the gearbox so we would be able to get out of second gear, then off we went through the night straight back to “Palmy”.
I can tell you, I got a bit sleepy going down the seemingly never ending Desert Road, past the (very much still active) volcanic mountains of the Central Plateau of New Zealand’s North Island. It was cold too!
It was light well before we got home, and I could barely keep my eyes open, so on arrival I slept sound as a baby, with no dreams and no nightmares, as far as I can recall…
Anyway, here’s the original of “Welcome to my Nightmare”…
And here’s a live version, though I find it a bit fast, perhaps because I’m used to listening to the studio recording.
Hope that didn’t scare you! 🙂
Paul