Alice Cooper at the Greek Theater, September 16

For an Alice Cooper novice, this show was a delightful surprise: The king of spectacle revealed himself as, most of all, a swell rock & roll tunesmith, with one beautifully crafted pop hit after the next (and some of them composed well past his prime, such as the brilliant “Lost in America.”). His younger, rockabilly-versed band played like a band, too — not just hired guns. For genuine rock & roll fun, Cooper & Co. made openers Cheap Trick look like math geeks. A subsequent listen to Cooper’s ’05 release, Dirty Diamonds, revealed a faithful cover of the Left Banke’s “Pretty Ballerina,” which confirmed that he is infinitely cooler and more versatile than his ’70s shock-rock rep.

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