The Chicken Incident

[Paul]

I have just watched MTV's 100 Most Shocking Music Moments and at No 17 was Alice and the chicken incident.

I had always presumed that the only time a chicken appeared on stage with Alice was in Toronto. However, I think a picture in the W2MN Fan Pack mag shows a chicken on stage at another concert. I also think Andy M mentioned around the same time that a chicken was onstage at several gigs.

This has made me wonder, was one of music's most shocking moments and one of the most famous incidents in Alice's 40 odd year career, contrived? Who put the chicken on stage at these concerts? Shep? Alice? The band? A N Other?

When Alice talks about the incident he talks about it as a total surprise. "This chicken just appeared on stage" If it had happened several times before, it surely was not a surprise. Had he thrown it into the audience previously?

We all know Alice on occasion exaggerates stories. The chicken incident went from "The audience killed the chicken" to "The audience killed the chicken and the 1st 6 rows were in wheelchairs" which I believe to be a total lie.

So was the whole chicken story contrived and manufactured to generate controversy? If it was, that's OK. I'd just like to know the truth.

[darkmenace]

I think contrived.

First off Alice admitted much later that Shep threw the chicken onstage. Would that really happen without Alice knowing about it in advance? Maybe and maybe not.

Also in the Rolling Stone Scrapbook from the 70s a writer says he saw the chicken incident at another Cooper show (I believe in Detroit) and he questioned Alice's sincerity about his story.

My guess is Alice and the band (and Shep) planned these "incidents" for publicity but don't want to admit it (for obvious reasons), but of course I can't prove it and no one can.

[SickThings]

This has been discussed here numerous times. A Search should reveal the other threads. The chickens (there were two, I believe) were someone's pets (Glen's). They would appear on stage, the pillows would be ripped open, flooding the stage in feathers and givIng the illusion the chickens had been killed. In Toronto, for whatever reasOn, Alice threw one of them out into the audience.

That was the story told by Dennis, I believe it was, and there was a photograph of the chickens accompanying the account. It is, I think, the most likely scenario.

Hunter

[RemarkablyInsincere]

Also in one of the older interviews on the Old School Boxset, a member of the band (can't remember who) says something to the effect of "the first time we used the chickens".

[Paul]

Thanks for the info.

Presumably then, there were no chickens after Toronto because the publicity had been achieved.

It just seems a very random idea. "Hey, you know how we burst open pillows on stage and spray the feathers around with CO2? Why don't we also place a couple of chickens on stage too"

[A_MichaelUK]

>It just seems a very random idea.

Think of it as a form of surrealistic art.

[darkmenace]

Also no chickens after Toronto because a chicken actually died. Nowhere to go from there and like you said the publicity was achieved.

Thanks for sharing the stories about the band bringing chickens to some of their shows. I didn't know that and it sheds light on the whole thing. I wonder why Alice makes it sound like it was just one random event?

[SickThings]

Because it's a better story that way. Same reason he added the wheelchairs over the years.

Hunter