Alice Cooper’s Concert Review: A Night of Monsters, Snakes, and a Surprise Guest at the Connecticut Casino

On Friday, May 23, Alice Cooper’s Too Close for Comfort tour arrived at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. The macabre spectacle was akin to the performance of the world’s most renowned shock rocker, featuring a beheading, a slithering boa constrictor, a giant Frankenstein creature, and a plethora of exceptional rock ‘n’ roll songs.

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Dennis Dunaway, the bassist from the original Alice Cooper Group, made an unexpected appearance at the concert. He joined the singer and his current band for a rocking rendition of Cooper’s 1971 signature tune “School’s Out” near the conclusion of the evening.

Alice transitioned between different periods of his extensive career during the performance, commencing with a cover of the 1987 song “Lock Me Up.” This transitioned into the most recent song performed at the concert, “Welcome to the Show,” which is featured on Cooper’s 2023 album, Road.

The throng was then energized by Cooper and his band as they performed two of his most significant early hits: “I’m Eighteen” (1970) and “No More Mr. Nice Guy” (1973). Ryan Roxie and Nita Strauss, two of Alice’s three exceptional guitarists, executed fiery solos during the latter song.

[RELATED: Listen to the Alice Cooper Group’s Slithery and Sinister New Song, “Black Mamba,” Featuring Robby Krieger of The Doors]

The following track was the rocking 1971 fan favorite “Under My Wheels,” followed by the minor 1989 U.K. success “Bed of Nails” for Cooper and the title track of the classic 1973 Alice Cooper album Billion Dollar Babies.

Cooper’s Props
Cooper wore a diverse array of jackets and manipulated a variety of props, such as a cane, crutch, dagger, fencing blade, riding crop, and whip, during the concert.

Alice introduced one of his most recognizable and renowned props, a live boa constrictor, for the rendition of his 1991 song “Snakebite” at the Connecticut performance. Cooper wore the serpent around his neck during the performance. He also permitted the reptile to crawl over his cranium.

The Body Count on Stage
Cooper transitioned into a rendition of “He’s Back (The Man Behind the Mask)” following the performance of the 1971 treasure “Be My Lover” and the 1994 song “Lost in America.” The melody served as the theme song for the 1986 horror film Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives. A young woman entered the stage during the performance. As she bowed in reverence to Strauss, who was performing a solo, a masked man disguised as Jason emerged from behind her and appeared to use a machete to sever her throat.

The subsequent track was the title track of Cooper’s 1991 album, Hey Stoopid. Alice was interrupted by a man who attempted to capture his image during the performance. Cooper then (apparently) used his cane to impale the prospective shutterbug.

Glen Sobel, Cooper’s seasoned touring percussionist, then executed an impressive drum solo as a wooden platform and staircase were introduced onto the stage.

Alice sang the ominous title track of his 1975 concert album, Welcome to My Nightmare, from the platform.

Cooper hurled a female dummy off the platform and onto the stage at the conclusion of the song, in anticipation of the show’s most unsettling moment. Alice descended to the stage and began to manipulate the mannequin while he sang the “Cold Ethyl” track from the Welcome to My Nightmare album. The song is primarily about a male who has control over the body of a deceased woman.

The subsequent performance was a cover of the 1976 song “Goes to Hell,” during which Cooper’s daughter, Calico, entered the stage brandishing a whip. Before she stormed off stage, her father momentarily choked her with the whip that he had taken from her.

Cooper experiences a loss of consciousness.
The audience was electrified by Cooper’s 1991 comeback single, “Poison.” Roxie, Strauss, and third guitarist Tommy Henriksen were involved in a guitar jam that was initiated by a video footage of the late Vincent Price from Cooper’s 1975 Welcome to My Nightmare TV special.

Alice sang the ominous 1971 tune “Ballad of Dwight Fry” as a masked man brought Cooper onto the stage in a straitjacket and repeatedly struck him with a cattle prod. Cooper emerged from his restraints at the conclusion of the performance, extracted a dagger from his footwear, and deployed it against his tormentor.

Simultaneously, Sheryl, Cooper’s wife, appeared on stage and embraced her spouse while dressed as Marie Antoinette. This occurred as two individuals dressed in executioner’s attire carried a guillotine onto the stage. Alice was subsequently led to the guillotine, where Sheryl appeared to have executed her husband by cutting off his head.

Sheryl subsequently retrieved the head from the receptacle beneath the guillotine and proceeded to dance around the stage with it. Alice’s band’s rendition of “I Love the Dead” by Billion Dollar Babies served as an appropriate accompaniment for the interlude.

The conclusion of the program
Cooper returned to the stage with his cranium intact for the concert’s finale, donning a white tuxedo. Dunaway made a surprise appearance with the group, and Alice and his band launched into the aforementioned classic “School’s Out.”

A segment of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” was incorporated into the performance during the midpoint. Cooper popped the giant, confetti-filled balloons as they were rolled back to the stage after they were thrown into the audience.

Cooper and the band returned for an encore, performing his 1991 composition “Feed My Frankenstein.” A man in a gargantuan Frankenstein creature costume skulked across the stage. Additionally, all individuals who were purportedly murdered during the performance were present onstage.

Alice concluded the eerie evening by wishing the audience a sweet night, stating, “May all of your lovely dreams… become nightmares!”

Cooper’s Upcoming Tour Schedule
The Mohegan Sun Arena performance was the second-to-last concert of Cooper’s spring 2025 U.S. tour. The excursion concluded with a concert in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on May 24.

Alice is scheduled to perform at the Best of Blues and Rock Festival in São Paulo, Brazil on June 14. Cooper will subsequently embark on a summer expedition to Europe. From a performance in Hannover, Germany on July 5 to a concert in Schaffhausen, Switzerland on July 30, that excursion is scheduled.

Alice will conclude the summer with a series of performances in the United States. The itinerary for that leg spans from a joint performance with My Chemical Romance in Philadelphia on August 15 to a headlining concert at the Graceland Soundstage in Memphis, Tennessee on August 30.

Subsequently, Cooper will collaborate with Judas Priest for a joint North American autumn tour. The itinerary spans from a Biloxi, Mississippi, performance on September 16 to a The Woodlands, Texas, concert on October 26.

Cooper’s Upcoming Studio Album
Cooper’s subsequent studio album, The Revenge of Alice Cooper, is scheduled for release on July 25, as previously mentioned. It is the first full-length album that Alice has produced with the other three surviving original members of the Alice Cooper group—Dunaway, guitarist Michael Bruce, and percussionist Neal Smith—since Muscle of Love in 1973.

Alice Cooper’s set list for the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, CT on May 23, 2025, is as follows:

Lock Me Up
“Welcome to the Show”
“The End of Mr. Nice Guy”
“I am eighteen years old.”
“Under My Wheels”
“Bed of Nails”
“Billion Dollar Babies”
“Snakebite”
“Be my lover”
“Lost in America”
“He’s Back (The Man Behind the Mask)”
Hey, stoopid.
Drum solo
“Welcome to My Nightmare”
“Cold Ethyl”
“Depart for the underworld”
“Toxin”
Solo for guitar
“Black Widow Jam”
“The Ballad of Dwight Fry”
“Deadly”
“I have a fondness for the deceased.”
“School’s Out”/”Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2” (with Dennis Dunaway)
Finale:

“Feed My Frankenstein”

(Photo by Khoi Ton/Courtesy of Mohegan Sun)

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