Witnessing Alice Cooper at Western Springs changed the way Ian Chapman approached music.
When Alice Cooper performed at Auckland's Western Springs Stadium on April 4, 1977, I was there and I fell in love.
I'd been a fan of ''The Coop'' since 1972, when the spiky, dangerous School's Out became an anthem for myself and legions of other young music fans bored with the sounds of the '60s and far too cool for Three Dog Night, the Osmonds or Bee Gees.
We were the younger siblings of the hairy hippies who'd so proudly laid claim to that tie-dyed decade. But things had moved on.
The Beatles had disbanded amid acrimony, and the three J's - Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison - were a collection of bones in the ground.
The mud puddles were dry and the muslin and mung-bean chic of the great unwashed no longer held sway.
Soap sales were up, sitar sales down, and many hippies had turned on, tuned in, and got jobs once the realisation had hit home that love was not, in fact, all one needed. (Cash was nice too.) Nah. This was the '70s - our decade - and Alice Cooper's brand of faux decadence was the biggest game in town for those of my age and ilk.
Well, he and David Bowie, right? And now rock's original super-freakoid was here in Godzone. Bats and chickens trembled. Maybe Alice would bite the head off a kiwi! Now that would be news.
I'd been to a few concerts, Status Quo, Lou Reed, etc, but this was something else. This was the day I experienced theatre in rock.
Alice's show was rock pantomime writ extremely large, as a succession of ghouls, demons, black widow spiders and a lumbering cyclops all tried to dispatch our mascara'd hero to the sound of distorted guitars.
''Look out behind you, Alice!''
But they all lost out because it wa
s the blade of the guillotine that sealed Alice's fate that autumn night. Well, until the encore anyway. It had all been a trick! Phew.
It was with rock theatre that I fell hopelessly in love that memorable night.
For me, music would never again be something to merely listen to. I would now demand music that merged sound and vision in equal measure.
In following years I would be equally delighted at the stunning productions of David Bowie, KISS, etc.
But Alice started it. And he's still going.
I saw him perform in Auckland again this year, 38 years later, and wiping the floor with Motley Crue in the process.
School's not out yet, Alice Cooper.
• Dr Ian Chapman is a senior executant lecturer in contemporary music at the University of Otago.
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