Alice Cooper, Halestorm Rock Camden, New Jersey on Ol’ Black Eyes Is Back tour

Alice Cooper brought his Ol’ Black Eyes Is Back tour to BB&T Pavilion in Camden, New Jersey on Friday, August 16th, 2019 with special guests and Pennsylvania’s own rock bands, Halestorm and Motionless In White.

The evening launched at around 7pm with metalcore band, Motionless In White who shook the venue upon entering the stage. Motionless formed in 2005, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Their current lineup boasting of Chris “Motionless” Cerulli (lead vocals), Ryan Sitkowski (lead guitar), Ricky “Horror” Olson (rhythm guitar), Vinny Mauro (drums), and Justin Morrow (bass). The stage dressed in black with two large white angel statues on both sides of the drum riser making for an eery feel to their set with a bunch of upside down red roses covering Chris Motionless’s mic stand. The band opened the night with a song off their 2017 album, Graveyard Shift entitled “Rats.” Their songs feature intricate guitar riffs, thumping bass guitar, and double bass drum beats along with Chris’s raspy vocals and melody lyrics. The rest of the horror-themed metal set included tracks from their latest album Disguise, songs included, “Broadcasting From Beyond the Grave: Death Inc.” and “Brand New Numb”. The 2014 Reincarnate album was also represented during their set with songs from it like, “Everybody Sells Cocaine” and of course “Reincarnate”. MIW revisited their 2012 release of Infamous, performing “A-M-E-R-I-C-A. Motionless closed out their powerful 40-minute set with two more songs from the Graveyard Shift album, “Untouchable” and “Voices.”

Next was the powerful female fronted rock band, Halestorm. The band from Red Lion, Pennsylvania consisting of the powerful lead vocalist and guitarist Lzzy Hale, her brother Arejay Hale who is the drummer and backing vocals, guitarist Joe Hottinger, and bassist Josh Smith. Lzzy and the boys hit the stage at 8pm with “Do Not Disturb” from their latest album, Vicious. Lzzy puts all her energy into her vocals and guitar riffs and doesn’t disappoint every time that we see Halestorm. The next song off the setlist was the Grammy awarded “LoveBites (So Do I),” off their second album, StrangerCase Of (2012). During this powerful rock riffed ballad, Lzzy and Joe battle back and forth with guitar leads and rhythms and Arejay and Josh keep the tempo thumping.

Next was “Familiar Taste of Poison” off of their 2009 self-titled album, Halestorm, continuing into “Amen” which is off their 2015 release of, Into the Wild Life. The lead song “Black Vultures,” off the latest album was up next. Lzzy has a high vocal range, raspy and raw at times for the rebel rock songs and melodic for the power ballads. It wouldn’t be a Halestorm show without an Arejay ‘big stick’ drum solo to entertain the crowd. The bands hits kept coming throughout the set including, “Freak Like Me” and “I Get Off”. Another single off the new album “Uncomfortable,” which Lzzy and the boys ripped through battling guitar riffs. Then Lzzy announced that they would play a new single entitled “Chemicals,” in which the lyrics speak to problems we create within our minds, chemicals or not. They broke out the red solo cups to toast the other bands and the crowd with the ballad “Here’s to Us.” Closing out their hour long set with their smash hit “I Miss the Misery.” The set included great lighting production to go along with their powerful rock and roll hits.

Finally, It was time for Alice Cooper to take the stage around 9:30pm. The Godfather of Shock Rock was here to entertain all ages. Black outlined eyes greeted the crowd on the curtain that covered the stage. “Nightmare Castle” started pumping though the PA. The stage was set as a medieval castle and tower with skeletons, skulls, baby dolls and armor. The Curtain drops to the band playing “Feed My Frankenstein” from his Hey Stoopid (1991) album. Next they played a song from Billion Dollar Babies, titled “No More Mr. Nice Guy.” The latest adaptation of the band includes: Ryan Roxie (lead and rhythm guitar, vocals), Chuck Garric (bass guitar, vocals), Tommy Henriksen (rhythm and lead guitar, vocals), Glen Sobel (drums, percussion), Nita Strauss (lead and rhythm guitar, vocals) and of course the iconic Alice Cooper (lead vocals, harmonica). Cooper enters the stage with his traditional black top hat, leathers, and cane. The third song from the set included the hit “Bed of Nails” from his (1989) Trash album.

The crowd was treated to a 19-song set with a two song encore. The set included all of Cooper’s hit from over his 50 plus year career. The hits included “I’m Eighteen,” “Poison,” “Roses on White Lace,” “Muscle of Love,” “Fallen in Love,” “Billion Dollar Babies” and “My Stars.” The band jammed to “Devils Food,” which was a highlight of the night. The middle of the set had a guitar dueling solo from the three guitarists. The night ended with two encores: “Under My Wheels” and the infamous “Schools Out.” During “Schools Out,” Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale, Joe Hottinger and Chris Cerulli from MIW joined the band to cap off a great evening of rock and roll.

Check out our exclusive photo gallery from the show below by Michael Wylot: