Alice Cooper in West Springfield

Alice Cooper is an American hard-rock singer and songwriter, born Vincent Furnier in Detroit in 1948, whose theatrical horror imagery helped establish shock rock. Alice Cooper was originally the name of his band; Furnier later adopted it as his legal name and continued as a solo artist. His best-known records include “I’m Eighteen,” “School’s Out,” “No More Mr. Nice Guy” and “Poison,” as well as the albums Love It to Death, Billion Dollar Babies and Welcome to My Nightmare. The 1975 Welcome to My Nightmare tour presented the album as a theatrical arena production and reached Wembley Empire Pool in London. More than a decade later, the Trashes the World tour carried that approach into another period of his career, and its 1989 concert at the Birmingham NEC was released as a live video. His concerts use a full rock band and recurring horror-theatre illusions, including a guillotine, an electric chair, a straitjacket and a boa constrictor. The staged execution typically ends with Alice Cooper returning to the stage.