In a lot of ways Alice Cooper's yearly Christmas Pudding charity concert is like most families Christmas gatherings. Everybody gathers together in one spot and you have to sit through a lot of boring, awkward and downright uncomfortable moments in order to have a handful of good ones.
This years Christmas Pudding concert was particularly a special one for two reasons. First off, this was the tenth concert in the yearly series and it also comes on the heels of the announcement that Alice Cooper will soon be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall Fame. Like previous years the lineup of guests and performers was pretty varied and included everything from dance crews, stand-up comedians, painters and some big-time rockers.
While the musicians are obviously the big draw of the event you have to had to have a lot of patience to get to them.
The whole night featured a pretty eclectic group of performers but the first hour of the show was mostly a hodgepodge mix of everything. One thing that became very clear during this first hour was that Cooper must like to watch a lot of competition based reality television. Americas Got Talent winner Michael Grimm showed up last night as did So You think You Can Dance winner Lauren Froderman. The first hour also had the winners of this years Proof Is In the Pudding competition which is kind of like Americas Got Talent but probably has way less annoying judges.
As is usually the case with the show, most of the musical acts on the bill fell under the classic rock category and this year was pretty much the same. Given the number of bands on the bill most acts had short sets and stuck to their big hits. On a personal note, however, this was my first and probably only time ever seeing Glen Campbell perform live and I was really disappointed that he didn't perform "Wichita Lineman." Having Cheech Marin perform the "Mexican-Americans" song from Cheech and Chong's Next Movie more than made up for it, though.
Alice Cooper and his band showed why the decision to include them into the Rock Hall if Fame was a good one as their performance was one of the highlights of the night. The group performed all of their big hits including a pretty awesome performance of "School's Out."
Closing out the show was Rob Zombie. "We are here to ruin your night," joked Zombie. He may have been joking but considering there were a handful of people making their way to the exit during his performance there may have been some truth there, too. Zombie's performance was definitely the most energetic of the night and even featured a cover of Alice Cooper's "School's Out" with Cooper lending a hand on vocals.
Last night's Alice Cooper's Christmas Pudding definitely featured it's fair share of awesome moments. But it also featured more than it's fair share of not so awesome moments. Namely the first hour and a half of the show. Considering that last nights show went about five hours I think it's definitely worth leaving out a few ingredients when making next years pudding.
Critics Notebook:
Last Night: Alice Cooper's A Taste of Christmas Pudding at Comerica Theatre
Personal Bias: I was mostly interested seeing Rob Zombie perform but was also looking forward to Glen Campbell and Cheech Marin but I'm glad I got to see Alice Cooper, too.
The Crowd: Pretty much older white couples. Some of them came way more dressed up than I would have expected.
Overheard in the Crowd: "Ha ha, those bitches are dumb." A fellow sitting behind me who doesn't care for the ladies on The View.
Random Notebook Dump: The pudding they serve to the audience about halfway through the show was not bad at all.
