Alice Cooper, Johnny Depp and Joe Perry opened their first tour in three years in London, with Ronnie Wood on for two songs.
Alice Cooper saved the introduction for last. “We now bring out the most deadly British vampire,” he told The O2 on Wednesday night, and Ronnie Wood walked on.
Hollywood Vampires opened their European tour in London on August 12, their first concert in over three years. Wood appeared at the end of a 23-song set for The Rolling Stones‘ “Brown Sugar” and “Train Kept A-Rollin’“, the blues standard Aerosmith put on Get Your Wings in 1974.
It was not a first. Wood joined the band at the same venue in July 2023, that time in tribute to Jeff Beck, who had died six months earlier. Beck was in this set too, “Beck’s Bolero” sat in the second half, alongside Johnny Thunders‘ “You Can’t Put Your Arms Round A Memory” with Joe Perry singing lead.
The rest of the night moved between the band’s own material and the covers the project was built on. They opened with “I Want My Now” into “Raise The Dead” and “My Dead Drunk Friends“, then “I’m Eighteen“, “The Boogieman Surprise“, The Velvet Underground‘s “Venus In Furs” and The Jim Carroll Band‘s “People Who Died“. “Livin’ On The Edge“, “Baba O’Riley“, “Highway To Hell” and “School’s Out” followed.
The name goes back to the drinking club Cooper kept at the Rainbow Bar & Grill in the early seventies with John Lennon, Keith Moon and others. Cooper has been sober for four decades. The band as it exists now, Cooper, Depp, Perry and Tommy Henriksen, first recorded together in 2015.
Eight UK dates run through August 22, taking in Cardiff Castle, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, the OVO Hydro in Glasgow, Manchester’s AO Arena, Birmingham’s Utilita Arena, Colchester Castle and the Piece Hall in Halifax, with The Jesus And Mary Chain and The Damned supporting. Mainland Europe follows from August 25, Nuremberg, Paris, Cologne, Hamburg, Milan and Este, and the run has since been extended past its original finish, adding Pula in Croatia on September 3, St. Pölten in Austria on September 5 and Prague on September 6. It now closes at the Atlas Arena in Łódź on September 10, the band’s only Polish date.
Whether a third studio album follows is another matter. Cooper told Classic Rock this year: “I can’t imagine there not being one. But we all have pretty demanding day jobs. And you want to try getting Johnny out of his 44-room castle.”
Perry added: “I can tell you that some people in his camp are not happy he’s taking a couple of months out to play music. But when it’s time for Johnny to play guitar, he knows it’s time.”
A documentary tracing the band’s formation is also in progress. Perry told Eddie Trunk last year that he had seen a rough cut.
Their last release was the live album Live In Rio, issued through earMUSIC in June 2023 and recorded at Rock In Rio in September 2015, in front of a crowd of more than 100,000.
