Welcome back to the Alice Cooper Fanzine. With Alices' tour now over, it's time for a reflective look at the 1986 tour of Britain, which saw Alice return at the peak of his powers.
However, first an update on Alices' activities since the end of the UK tour. The tour which was officially named as 'The Nightmare Returns', ran right through December until April 1st 1987.
In that time, the tour covered the whole of the United States (well almost) from the Eastern side, into Canada, into the Deep South, across the border to Mexico, then into the Mid-West before hitting the West Coast and finally ending in Canada. This proved to be Alices' longest ever stint with many one-nighters making the schedual far more gruelling then the epic 'Billion Dollar Babies' and 'Welcome To My Nightmare' tours. It all started in October 1986. Alice played venues which ranged from 2,400 seaters to 17,000 seaters. In New Brunswick, the show was picketed by right-wing organisations for whom Alice was an obvious target. Undeterred, Alice returned to Detroit on Friday 13th of February 1987 where he played to 14,000 at the Joe Louis Arena. In Toronto, the crowd was a 16,000 sell-out, as was the show in Long Beach, where reports say that Alice allowed the snake to slip into the crowd and cause a little havoc. On March 29th 1987, Alice appeared at a wrestling tournament called 'Westlemania' in Pontiac before a crowd of 94,000, where he partnered Jake 'the snake' Roberts, a well-known American wrestler who also appears in public with a snake! Tuned in were millions of Americans watching on TV as well as Europeans watching on satellite.
Alice is currently resting after his recent activities. He is due to start recording the next album shortly, again with Kane Roberts being involved and with Michael Wagner producing. It's anticipated that Alice will be at the Reading Festival in August 1997 before embarking on a tour of Europe.
'Teenage Frankenstein' was released as the new single, although with the current attitudes of radio programmers, it is not expected to be a hit. The single arrives in a picture sleeve and poster bag. There is also a 12" version available. The MTV Halloween special from Detroit is due to be released on video soon, but it looks as though it won't be released in Europe for a while. A pleasent surprise was the release, via West Germany, of 'Good To See You Again Alice Cooper', the legendary 1974 film. Unfortionatly, it's not the version with the sketches in between the songs but the version which features an interview with Alice and old footage from old movies. However, the actual concert sequences are worth seeing.
'Constrictor' was released recently on import compact disc as was 'Billion Dollar Babies'. Both feature excellent boxes and booklets containing lyrics.
Also released recently was a picture disc of 'Constrictor' with the European version having the album cover and back photograph and an American version has front photograph on both sides.