Project-Blu's 'Alice Cooper: Live at Montreux 2005' Guest Review, by Gerard Iribe

Alice Cooper: Live at Montreux 2005

By: Gerard Iribe 1.10.2009

The Movie Itself:
If you know me, you’ll know that I love the theatrical. Alice Cooper IS the theatrical. He’s considered one of the most successful hard rock “conceptual artists” ever. Literally, everyone of his studio albums is a “concept” album, meaning, it’s a story album. Not many artists have dared to do that, because it’s not easily pulled off.

If you’ve ever been to an Alice Cooper show, all bets are off. He pretty much breaks the show up into categories, the first being the somewhat serious rock n’ roller, the second being, the actual theatrical storyline, and third, the pop-trash rockstar. It’s all valid, and a lot of fun.

This show was shot live in Switzerland at the Montreux Jazz Festival, Jazz? Yes, Jazz. I’m assuming Alice was on his “Dirty Diamonds” world tour, and stopped off in Montreux. For the most part, it’s a great show, the only thing that bugged me was that the crowd sucked until the end. I mean, I don’t know if this crowd was expecting a laid back show or what. Alice Cooper is anything but laid back. Anyways, the band is tight, and Alice has never sounded better, the vocals are strong with this one. His band is comprised of some familiars. We have Eric Singer on the drums, and Ryan Roxie on the guitar. Chuck Garric and Damon Johnson round out bass and guitar duties. Oh, and Calico Cooper is featured as the “dancer”, she’s hot, by the way.

Once you can get past the zombies in the crowd, you’ll remember that Alice Cooper is the star of the show. He’s up there movin’ and rockin’, and so is the band, Eric hits those skins, and the instrumental on “Black Widow” is for the ages. The show gets kicked off with the familiar “Department of Youth”. In the middle of the show, we switch gears to the “Welcome to my Nightmare” album, and the first encore begins with “Poison”. Folks, this is a 27 song set list, I’ll be here all day if I listed every single track played.

This is the definitive live album showcasing the legend.
Rating: 10/10

The Presentation:
Live in Montreux is presented in 1080i, 16X9 1.78:1 aspect ratio. The show was completely shot in HD, but in 1080i.

The show features three soundtrack options: LPCM Stereo, Dolby Digital 5.1, and a DTS 5.1 (lossy) soundtrack. I prefer the DTS soundtrack, it peaks at a constant 1.5 mbps. It really is tight, and cracks your ribs when it has too. That’s what a great soundtrack should do.
Rating: 9/10

The Extras:
Non-existent
Rating: 0/10

Overall:
Besides the lame crowd early on, there’s really nothing bad about this show at all. The production values are top notch and it kicks some serious butt. The price is also right, it sells for about $15-$17 at the proper outlets.

Having seen the man live myself, the closest you’ll ever get to being there will be with this top shelf live performance Blu-ray. I hear he’s starting up his latest tour for his new album, “Along Came a Spider”. Can you say, I’ll be there?
Rating: 7/10