Hot and Cold

Alice Cooper co-founder and Hall Of Fame inductee Dennis Dunaway answers your questions!

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VinceRaven
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Hot and Cold

Post by VinceRaven » Fri Jul 26, 2024 4:22 pm

Hey Dennis,

Here's another very random question for you.

As someone who has played in a vast number of environments, both outdoors and in, I was wondering what the hottest temperature you've ever had to play in was? Likewise, was there any occasion you had to play when it was absolutely freezing?

Thanks

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Re: Hot and Cold

Post by Dreary » Sat Jul 27, 2024 3:00 am

Despite playing lots of gigs in Phoenix, Arizona, I think the hottest was in recent years with Blue Coupe with Tish and Snooky at the Great South Bay Music Festival 7/21/19. Our drummer, Albert Bouchard didn't remember the final note of our closing song due to heat exhaustion. Luckily a nurse was backstage and she put bottles of cold water under his arms and on his forehead. It took awhile for him to realize what had happened.

Alice Cooper played a few mighty cold outdoor festivals. It's tough because your fingers don't move as easily.
Quite often arenas had a hot dressing room and required a freezing walk to get to the hot stage. That played havoc with tuning.

We once booked 2 venues for the same night. The first show was in a warm room full of people. Then all of the equipment was loaded into the van. This was in Michigan and there was an ice storm that the van's heater couldn't handle. By the time the equipment arrived at the 2nd gig, it was frozen. A note through the frozen bass amp speakers sounded like a thump rather than a boom. My wrist stuck to the bridge of the Frog bass, like putting your tongue on a frozen flag pole. The bass and guitars were steaming and covered with condensation for the first few songs.

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Re: Hot and Cold

Post by VinceRaven » Sat Jul 27, 2024 6:39 am

Thanks Dennis.

That freezing Michigan gig sounds wild!

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Re: Hot and Cold

Post by Babysquid » Sat Jul 27, 2024 3:14 pm

VinceRaven wrote:
Sat Jul 27, 2024 6:39 am
Thanks Dennis.

That freezing Michigan gig sounds wild!
Sounds very dangerous!

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Re: Hot and Cold

Post by Dreary » Sat Jul 27, 2024 3:34 pm

That second Michigan gig was dangerous in a couple of ways. The ice storm caused the equipment van to show up later than the band. So bikers were hassling us while we waited. Then we found out the house band refused to let us use the stage, and so the club owner had the staff move several tables together and secure them with 1/4" masking tape!

When the van arrived, and we found out the equipment was frozen, we had to forge ahead to calm the pissed-off bikers.
Glen and Alice helped matters by handing out cans of frozen beer.

Once our equipment thawed enough to sound decent, which was about three songs in, we won them over because, as several bikers said, we were much better than the house band whom they redirected their anger toward for not letting us use the stage.

The funny part was seeing Glen, who had had a few, try to balance on a bar table and play.

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