Alice Cooper Combines Shock and Generosity at Boardwalk Rock

By Dave Parsons

At 5:45 PM on Sunday, May 18, the sun was headed down over the western skies of Ocean City’s sand, as the original shock rock king, Alice Cooper, was about to take the stage.  The Boardwalk Rock setting with a classic rock carnival, with decades-old scare houses in sight of the stage, made it perfect.  Media photographers filed into the pit in front of the stage.  Cooper has long allowed them four songs, versus the usual 3, and the generosity didn’t end there.

Alice Cooper built a brand on theatrical horror, with his music and stagecraft mixed. It is why he is still on the road after all these years.  You keep expecting the farewell tour announcement every year, but he revamps the show and books it from coast to coast…usually to sold-out audiences.  

Alice launched into the darkness out of the gate with Lock Me Up.  Arriving in his usual black long jacket, white dress shirt, and belts holding up the leather pants, he propped up with a top hat and sword.  The crowd immediately came alive as the photographers snapped away. Glance after glance, Cooper went back and forth between photographers and the crowd, making the classic scowl, and making sure everyone got what they came to get. 

For No More Mr. Nice Guy, trading hat and sword for a cane, the irony was that he was literally bringing his band into center stage one at a time. The audience got to say hello one at a time, and those photographers, crammed shoulder to shoulder, didn’t have to move to get every band member’s photo.  He had taken off the jacket, down to a leather vest with the title of the song stitched on the back.

He laid down the cane, took off the vest, and added a crutch for I’m Eighteen.  The anthem of teenage years had the crowd singing along….. I’m eighteen, and I don’t know what I want… Amazing that probably 95% of the audience singing along were closer to 18 than Cooper is, the song hasn’t lost its charm with these kids that were brought up right.

Under My Wheels was pure guitar bliss.  You can’t see Alice Cooper’s set without paying some attention to the blonde guitar goddess that is Nina Strauss. A recording artist in her own right, Nina struts the stage playing the guitar.  Sometimes standing, sometimes in a backbend, or on her knees, or crawling toward those photographers snapping away.

Alice Cooper built theatrical horror as a musical stage genre, but he’s living proof that persona doesn’t define the man beneath. Cooper stepped aside, cane in hand like a conductor, making certain no instrument went unheard. That’s not just showmanship, that is a true professional showing every portion of his treasured asset to its greatest ability, and that’s what legends are made from. Top of Form

Seeing Alice Cooper’s show in the daylight, versus the usual prime time of darkness. The banter hits different, and well, shock and horror do need the lack of light to promptly work.  Though kudos for the Frankenstein walking around and the snakes hanging around at different points. However, Cooper relied on the lyrics of his songs and the audience’s willingness to let them carry the show. From Hey, Stoopid to Snakebite to Feed My Frankenstein, he showed the props that work better under a cover of darkness and curated stage lighting, but the songs carried themselves as the hits they were.

When he reached the closer, School’s Out, decked out in white tux coat, white top hat…..and bubble machine!…..the beach transformed into students set free. Cooper took one more turn at introducing each band member one by one, and then, a tradition in recent tours, the band morphed into Another Brick in the Wall mid-song, and it landed like a hammer on the crowd. Remember I’m Eighteen?  By the time it went back to School’s Out, every person on the Ocean City sand went back to that magical day every spring, and for a few minutes, they were 18 again. Alice Cooper isn’t the only one to still shock stages, but he might be the only one to hold all the monsters at arm’s length and say hello.

In a few minutes, the everyday emotions of angst, unease, and restlessness would find their balm with the next band, but for those few moments, Cooper had slayed the beasts within, and with that, he grinned at the spectacle under his trademark scowl, and then walked off behind a final grin. Boardwalk Rock had played host to a legendary star of paradox.

God bless Alice Cooper. May he haunt us forever.

Setlist – Alice Cooper Boardwalk Rock, May 18, 2025

1. Lock Me Up
2. No More Mr. Nice Guy
3. I’m Eighteen
4. Under My Wheels
5. Bed of Nails
6. Billion Dollar Babies
7. Hey Stoopid
8. Go to Hell
9. Snakebite
10. Feed My Frankenstein
11. The Black Widow Jam → Guitar Solo (Nita Strauss)
12. Ballad of Dwight Fry
13. Killer (band only)
14. I Love the Dead (band only)
15. School’s Out