Every night could be Halloween on the Freaks on Parade tour, co-headlined by Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper.
Zombie, who also writes and directs horror movies besides his musical career, and Cooper, the godfather of shock rock, brought their unique but complementary versions of horror business Tuesday night to the Pavilion at Star Lake for a crowd of around 13,000.
First off, a Rob Zombie concert can create sensory overload. The massive giant video screens offered a variety of pulsating animations, horror movie clips, anime, pictures of cult leaders and much more in a true multimedia experience. And that’s not to mention the pyro, falling sparks and light show. (If strobe lights are an issue, this might be a concert to avoid in the future.)
Visible in silhouette behind a screen, Zombie started the show in an elevated platform emblazoned with his name, and drummer Ginger Fish even higher behind him. The band opened with “Demon Speeding” followed by “Super-Charger Heaven,” the first of several classics from White Zombie, the band he started before going solo.
Zombie used a variety of mic stands, from a goathead with flashing red eyes to a gnarled, six-armed skeleton to a 10-pointed star. Guitarist Mike Riggs and bassist Rob “Blasko” Nicholson had matching Nosferatu mic stands.
An explosive “Feel So Numb” led to the funky yet odd “Well, Everybody’s (expletive) in a U.F.O.,” which saw the first of several oversized puppets, this one a gorilla body with a deep sea diver’s head, not to mention a massive inflatable robot behind the drums. Others that appeared later included a demonic red creature in “The Lords of Salem” and a different demonic creature for “The Triumph of King Freak (A Crypt of Preservation and Superstition).”
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Zombie closed strongly with a sizzling “More Human Than Human” from White Zombie, with “Living Dead Girl” next as Zombie did big kicks as giant balloons fell into the crowd.
“Did you outgrow headbanging?” the 59-year-old Zombie asked. “Come on! I’m older than you, and I didn’t outgrow it.”
That led to Riggs dropping the riff from “Thunder Kiss ‘65,” the final White Zombie song, as Zombie donned a Pittsburgh Penguins jersey with No. 65 and Zombie on the nameplate. (Sorry, Erik Karlsson!) He closed with his biggest anthem, “Dragula,” to close the night of supernatural and overcharged metal.
More from @RobZombie at @Pav_StarLake pic.twitter.com/SLbLI6GugT
— Mike Palm (@MikePalmMedia) September 4, 2024
Cooper, meanwhile, seemed positively restrained in comparison to Zombie.
After entering through a newspaper with a “Banned in Pennsylvania” headline for “Lock Me Up,” the 76-year-old hit four straight classic rock standards from the 1970s: “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” “I’m Eighteen,” “Under My Wheels” and “Billion Dollar Babies.”
Cooper’s band vamped and hit the rock star poses, but they also showed their chops. The three guitarists — Ryan Roxie, Tommy Henriksen and Nita Strauss — shredded and traded guitar solos, with Strauss getting a standalone solo that transitioned to “Black Widow Jam.”
Through the night, Cooper used a variety of props, from a cane to a horse riding crop to a crutch to a saber. During “Hey Stoopid,” he stabbed a paparazzi photographer with his mic stand, with a ninja escorting him off stage. Jason Vorhees from the “Friday the 13th” movie series made an appearance during “He’s Back (The Man Behind the Mask)” to stab a fan. A giant Frankenstein’s monster hit the stage on “Feed My Frankenstein.”
Would a Cooper show be complete without a snake appearance? He performed “Snakebite” with a boa wrapped around his shoulders.
The theatrics escalated on “Ballad of Dwight Fry,” which saw Cooper performing in a straitjacket before a mock beheading in a guillotine, with his wife Sheryl playing the role of Marie Antoinette. While still wearing the straitjacket, Cooper moved to “Elected,” with American flags on both sides and red, white and blue streamers launched into the crowd. (Coincidentally, Cooper launched a satirical run for presidency this summer.)
Cooper closed with a celebratory “School’s Out,” which included a snippet of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall Part 2” and band intros (with bassist Chuck Garric flinging a Terrible Towel into the crowd). As bubbles drifted from both sides of the stage, confetti-filled balloons floated through the crowd, with Cooper seemingly eager to pop them.
More from @alicecooper at @Pav_StarLake pic.twitter.com/e1bcuazMtT
— Mike Palm (@MikePalmMedia) September 4, 2024
Ministry, one of the forefathers of industrial metal, mixed in a pair of new songs (from 2021 and 2024) alongside several of their classics from the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Founder Al Jourgensen, who jokingly lamented the changeover music — “James Taylor before a Ministry concert? I don’t know. I’m kind of freaked out” — ditched his facial piercings and trademark dreadlocks earlier this year, opting Tuesday for more of a gunslinger look with a black cowboy hat.
In their 40 minutes, Ministry unleashed a wall of sound, with pummeling drums on “Just One Fix,” the heavy thrash of “Thieves” and “Stigmata,” where the influence they had on Nine Inch Nails seemed palpable. They closed with “Jesus Built My Hotrod,” the band’s first commercial hit.
Ministry up before Alice Cooper and Rob Zombie at Star Lake pic.twitter.com/i2fxoMdSHC
— Mike Palm (@MikePalmMedia) September 4, 2024
Also dressed all in black, Filter opened the show with the sun beating down. Leaning on their heavier material during most of their 30-minute set, the industrial rock band softened a bit with their biggest hit, “Take a Picture.”
“Half of you are like, that’s Filter?” said frontman Richard Patrick.
Patrick, who formed the band in Cleveland before moving on to Chicago and now Los Angeles, had kind words for Pittsburgh — a far cry from a 1995 show where he referred to the city as “Pitts-puke.”
To start the grim theme of the night, they closed with “Hey Man, Nice Shot,” which was based on the on-air suicide of Pennsylvania state treasurer R. Budd Dwyer.
.@OfficialFilter opening the Freaks on Parade tour at @Pav_StarLake pic.twitter.com/Ual5REbUql
— Mike Palm (@MikePalmMedia) September 3, 2024
