Wembley Gig- how did it go?

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Wembley Gig- how did it go?

Post by recoop » Sat Nov 18, 2017 10:29 am

Wondered whether anyone had any views on this gig?
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Re: Wembley Gig- how did it go?

Post by Si » Sat Nov 18, 2017 10:43 am

Had real problems with Wembley. Dumb steward standing in front of me the whole show so I saw more of the side of his head then anything on stage (from second row!), plus he was a complete waste of space as he was serving no purpose, not removing the drunks, or checking tickets or anything. Either let people go to the front or don`t. Stopping them less than 2 feet from the barrier and fighting with them for 90 minutes serves no purpose at all but to spoil it for everyone else. Moron.
And as for the 'monkey girls' standing with their backs to the original band while chatting and texting... seriously??!?!?

If you are selling seats, then check tickets and put people in their seats... otherwise make it general admission.
Okay, rant over.

So that completely ruined the final show for me, but I'm sure it was still a great performance as all the rest were amazing!

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Re: Wembley Gig- how did it go?

Post by While Heaven Wept » Sat Nov 18, 2017 1:40 pm

I was at the final london show.

First off, I thought the show itself was great. Really slick and some nice song selections. It was great to hear Pain and The World Needs Guts.

I had issues like Si. I really don't understand having an all seater venue and then everyone just stands up. I felt really sorry for the ladies behind me because they couldn't see a thing. Secondly, I thought the sound was pretty poor. No definition in the guitars. It improved as the show went on but I expected much better. Alice's voice was the only thing really cutting through.

It was lovely to see the original band and I thought they played extremely well. Muscle of Love felt a bit of a mess in the middle but the sound was so muddy I couldn't tell whether that was the band messing up or just the PA.

All in all I really enjoyed it, but I do long for the days of seeing Alice in smaller clubs.

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Re: Wembley Gig- how did it go?

Post by recoop » Sat Nov 18, 2017 5:10 pm

Thanks Si and WHW- I read a review of the gig which gave it 2 stars-I think it was on the FT and one has to subscribe to read it- the main criticism centred on the content with some of the more obscure tracks- if the performance was anything like Leeds then the lesser known tracks were well played and accepted. I am glad the performance was good although the hassle factor sounds bad.
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Re: Wembley Gig- how did it go?

Post by Si » Sat Nov 18, 2017 5:14 pm

yes that FT review is at odds with every other review. Ignore it haha

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Re: Wembley Gig- how did it go?

Post by MVS 1009 » Mon Nov 20, 2017 9:34 am

Having seen Alice on all his tours to the UK since 1975 how could I miss the Wembley concert especially with the anticipation of seeing him reunite with Mike, Neal and Dennis. I have to be honest and admit the past few times I had seen Alice I found the performance a little stale in relation to the theatrics and song choice. So I approached last weeks Wembley concert slightly reserved and more interested in seeing the original ACG perform. A life long dream come true!

I admit to being blown away......Awesome performance. Yes the theatrics do not change, but I found the song choice very inspiring in that the concert started almost in a sprint and hardly let up at all. I think Si pointed that out in another thread to which I agree. The production and performance of Halo of Flies was simply awesome. However I have to admit and this is a personal point of view I am not sure about Woman of Mass Destruction. Good yes but the only slight dip for me. Anyway a minor issue.

The current band are superb. Alice allows them enough room to breathe and to showcase their ability and personality, I do think he should maybe allow Nita a little longer to showcase her guitar abilities though. Simply I cannot fault them at all.

As for Alice it was the best I had seen him for ages, having said that when does he ever lower his performance. He commands the stage and maybe having the current band around him pushes him to another level. He was simply superb and trying not to be biased is there a better frontman out there? At 69 he just gets better and better.

Then the original band, I have waited 45 years for this and it did not disappoint in the slightest. Total opposite to his current band in terms of appearance and stage craft (maybe not Dennis however) but bearing in mind even at their peak they were a different beast on the stage. Would have happily settled for a few more songs by them but what they did was faultless. The collaboration with the current band on Schools Out was superb and the impression I got was that both bands get on tremendously well with each other and compliment each other on stage. I thought Alice's comments about his former band mates came across as genuine and sincere which was nice to hear.

So all in all it was a great concert. Alice gets better, his current band are superb, and the icing on the cake was seeing Alice, Mike, Dennis and Neal together on stage. Will it happen again, I do hope so but if not I would settle for a full album by the originals.....remember its not about age but attitude and the originals had that in abundance!!

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Re: Wembley Gig- how did it go?

Post by Saint&Sinner » Tue Nov 21, 2017 1:18 am

Well it didn't start well with the seating situation - i was relegated to the bloody sides of the venue (as the floor was sold out of "normal" tickets apart from behind the mixing desk ,no one wants those seats!!)
Alice seemed great, nita was phenomenal and the setlist rocked! (pain and world needs guts anyone!?!?!)
The issue was the crowd, terrible crowd - almost no excitement or interaction at all. It seemed like 90% of them have never heard an AC album.
I saw a few hands around the 2nd or 3rd row at the front but other than that it was just lifeless. polite clapping at end of each song but nothing else. no singing nothing
I know the venue is terrible on a good night but please - no more seats! It needlessly pushed the prices up and stopped fans from being front and center rocking out.

Also i didnt see many younger fans this time, which is a first - is this due to extortionate prices? i dont know.
All i know is the people around me in the seats will be moaning for weeks after as me and my mates headbanged (world needs guts!!) screamed, shouted, sang along to everything and generally rocked like lunatics (as you should do!) - all the people around us only stood up for schools out. thats it! even then they didnt sing, if you are gonna sit for 98% of the gig and not sing along or anything i really dont get why you are there.

Sigh. Anyway, alice himself was great, great to hear some good tunes and even woman of mass distraction sounded better with nita shredding through it! Only down side was lack of new material -
the original ACG were cool and it was nice to see them but the energy on stage just dropped through the floor in my opinion and i know they are all old but it really showed that it shouldnt turn into a long term thing. I love dennis and neal (michael bruce seemed to struggle with allot of his parts) but it just didnt rock me like his normal band do. I really hoped they would have played something new but sadly not.

I would have loved it if it was the roundhouse or brixton academy, but in wembley it was just frustrating.

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Re: Wembley Gig- how did it go?

Post by ech » Sat Dec 09, 2017 11:21 am

I had a completely different experience. Where I was (7th row, slightly to the right on Nita's side) everyone was really into it and the place exploded when the originals arrived. Yeah, we had one annoying drunk guy who was being a bit of a nuisance (especially during The Tubes) but then he quieted down after we had a little talk. The sound was actually quite good and I could make out every part rather well (except for School's Out where it was just a wall of sound, but that didn't bother me). The show of course was great, and Alice and the bands were fantastic.

The Tubes were ok... I think the stage was too big form them and there was no real sense of mayhem to their performance. Also, apart from Roger Steen, they are not good enough musicians to pull off some of their more polished 80's tunes. It was still fun, and I enjoyed seeing the Quay Lewd routine I'd heard so much about but I was expecting something a little more riotous...

The less said about The Mission the better... I don't dislike their albums but that was dreadful. They were completely disengaged, and that anaemic version of Neil Young's Like A Hurricane was painful and there was way too much backing tapes.

It was my first Alice show on that tour (I then attended both Paris gigs) and I was blown away. The stage show is relatively unchanged from the past few years (a little tweaks here and there to keep it current) but the act works perfectly. There is no fat at all in the show, not a dull moment (I even enjoyed the drum solo) and everything is as tight as you'd expect. And hearing Pain was a great surprise. Such a fun gig, and the venue even sold Lagunitas IPA on tap so yeah... A great night.

I took a few (read: a shitload) of pics you can see here:

https://electriceyephoto.blogspot.fr/20 ... ondon.html

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Re: Wembley Gig- how did it go?

Post by Si » Sat Dec 09, 2017 12:01 pm

ech wrote:
The Tubes were ok... I think the stage was too big form them and there was no real sense of mayhem to their performance. Also, apart from Roger Steen, they are not good enough musicians to pull off some of their more polished 80's tunes.
With all due respect... seriously? 4 of the 5 people on the stage wrote and performed on those "polished 80s tunes" originally, and to suggest Prairie Prince isn`t good enough to play ANYTHING is laughable! The guy is a legend!

The problem The Tubes had is they only had 40 minutes and tried to pack too many songs (especially too many 80s songs) into that time, so they missed Fee's introductions and several classics which would normally be in a full length set. I get what they were trying to do, maximum number of songs in the time they had, but personally I think their song selection wasn't great. Even White Punks was a cut down version to fit everything in the short set.
Interestingly the setlist on the first night of the tour was substantially different to the rest of the shows. Unfortunately the sound on that first night, at least where I was at the front, was dreadful.
ech wrote: The less said about The Mission the better...
That I agree with. They were pretty bad the one night I stayed to watch them, and actually I quite like their first couple of albums. Rightly or not, it *seemed* to me that they were using a LOT of taped backing including drums/percussion, and Hussey seemed to have a real chip on his shoulder about supporting.

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Re: Wembley Gig- how did it go?

Post by patrick » Sat Dec 09, 2017 12:48 pm

in an other thread Ech said the second Paris show would be taped for a dvd release... I thought/hoped it would have been one of the UK shows with the ACG .. No further info on that ?
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Re: Wembley Gig- how did it go?

Post by Si » Sat Dec 09, 2017 12:51 pm

patrick wrote:in an other thread Ech said the second Paris show would be taped for a dvd release... I thought/hoped it would have been one of the UK shows with the ACG .. No further info on that ?
Wembley was apparently filmed as well.

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Re: Wembley Gig- how did it go?

Post by ech » Sat Dec 09, 2017 1:26 pm

Regarding The Tubes, I maintain that they were pretty sloppy, regardless of the legendary status of the players. And while it works on Talk To Ya Later and White Punks On Dope, the more intricate songs of their repertoire need a little more precision. It wasn't bad, but Rick Anderson especially seemed to struggle on some numbers. Maybe he couldn't hear himself? I must admit I don't know them all that well but I was under the impression that the 80's records were mostly performed by L.A. session musicians?

As far as filming for the Wembley show, I don't remember seeing any cameras but maybe they used a lighter set-up than in Paris which was already pretty discreet. I went to see Sabbath's last show in Birmingham which was also filmed for DVD release (great film by the way!) and it was a lot more intrusive. They were both great shows but releasing Wembley would make more sense because of the involvement of the original group, but the Paris crowd was a lot wilder. Maybe the original band's set could be a bonus, with the main film being the Olympia gig?

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Re: Wembley Gig- how did it go?

Post by mestreech » Sat Dec 09, 2017 3:28 pm

ech wrote:Regarding The Tubes, I maintain that they were pretty sloppy, regardless of the legendary status of the players. And while it works on Talk To Ya Later and White Punks On Dope, the more intricate songs of their repertoire need a little more precision. It wasn't bad, but Rick Anderson especially seemed to struggle on some numbers. Maybe he couldn't hear himself? I must admit I don't know them all that well but I was under the impression that the 80's records were mostly performed by L.A. session musicians?

As far as filming for the Wembley show, I don't remember seeing any cameras but maybe they used a lighter set-up than in Paris which was already pretty discreet. I went to see Sabbath's last show in Birmingham which was also filmed for DVD release (great film by the way!) and it was a lot more intrusive. They were both great shows but releasing Wembley would make more sense because of the involvement of the original group, but the Paris crowd was a lot wilder. Maybe the original band's set could be a bonus, with the main film being the Olympia gig?
If the Paris public was a lot wilder I prefer that performance as a future dvd.
I went to Tilburg in the Netherlands (sold out) and it was the best show I've seen from him in years with lots of good responses from the audience.

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Re: Wembley Gig- how did it go?

Post by Si » Sat Dec 09, 2017 4:00 pm

ech wrote:Regarding The Tubes, I maintain that they were pretty sloppy, regardless of the legendary status of the players. And while it works on Talk To Ya Later and White Punks On Dope, the more intricate songs of their repertoire need a little more precision. It wasn't bad, but Rick Anderson especially seemed to struggle on some numbers. Maybe he couldn't hear himself? I must admit I don't know them all that well but I was under the impression that the 80's records were mostly performed by L.A. session musicians?
Mostly? no. I think there were some guest appearances but the band performed on the records and have been performing those songs for decades since.
ech wrote: As far as filming for the Wembley show, I don't remember seeing any cameras but maybe they used a lighter set-up than in Paris which was already pretty discreet.
They had some weird cameras on things like mic-stands at intervals across the front of the stage, as well as extra microphones to record the audince at the sides, and just before they started a guy came out with an electronic "clapperboard" to check them. Also Kyler said they were filming it ;)
I really don`t know anything about technology, but maybe they were 3-D cameras or something like that? They weren`t the traditional handheld cameras that you normally see so maybe they were trying something different. You can just about see them in this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGNaynNJsxo), the two or three "blobs on stands" across the front of the stage, and I think you can maybe see more around the sides and back. Those weren`t present at any other show. At around 6.30 you can also see a tripod thing beside Nita.

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Re: Wembley Gig- how did it go?

Post by Rhapsody of Fire » Sat Dec 09, 2017 6:04 pm

Thanks for the rewiews and pictures from the 2017 tour.

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Re: Wembley Gig- how did it go?

Post by A_MichaelUK » Sun Dec 10, 2017 11:58 am

From Si:
"or something like that?"

Yes.

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Re: Wembley Gig- how did it go?

Post by ech » Sun Dec 10, 2017 2:58 pm

An Alice Cooper 3D concert film recorded at Wembley and the Olympia... I think I just had an orgasm.

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Re: Wembley Gig- how did it go?

Post by ElectedPlus » Sun Dec 10, 2017 3:32 pm

They look most like 360 cameras to me. The spherical shape.
How that would work to a DVD release I'm not sure, but whatever it is, it seems to somewhat special.

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Re: Wembley Gig- how did it go?

Post by A_MichaelUK » Sun Dec 10, 2017 4:49 pm

From ech:
"An Alice Cooper 3D concert film"

That isn't what it is.

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Re: Wembley Gig- how did it go?

Post by A_MichaelUK » Sun Dec 10, 2017 4:50 pm

From ElectedPlus:
"How that would work to a DVD release"

I think it might be available online only but I'm not sure.

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