Rush is a Band

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Neil Peart, Geddy Lee & Alex Lifeson

Fri, Mar 29, 2024

Review and photos from Alex Lifeson appearance at Alice Cooper's Rock & Roll Vampire Bash

Mon, Apr 25, 2016@5:39PM | comments

UPDATE - 4/27@10:01PM: Here's some video of Wild Thing including Alex shredding on the solo (thanks Bri-the-Bri):

There's also this Facebook video from a different perspective (thanks RushFanForever).

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Alice Cooper's annual Rock & Roll Golf Classic to benefit Solid Rock and The Rock Teen Center kicked off yesterday at the Las Sendas Golf Club in Mesa, AZ and runs through today. There was also a Vampire Bash in connection with the golf tournament yesterday evening from 4:30-10PM which included a Cocktail Reception, Silent Auction, Dinner, Live Auction and Live Entertainment on the PCS Stage with Alice Cooper and friends, including Alex Lifeson, Danny Seraphine (Chicago), Tommy Thayer (KISS), Frank Sidoris (Slash), and Neal Smith (Alice Cooper). The Arizona Republic posted a review along with some photos to their website this afternoon and gave some details regarding what songs were performed and who performed them. Alex Lifeson apparently performed a killer guitar solo on Wild Thing:

... [Cooper] and Frank Sidoris took the stage, Cooper announcing "Tonight, we're a cover band" before leading the band in a spirited version of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," after which he did a brilliant parody of Mick Jagger's stage movie.

Then, they brought out Seraphine and Thayer to "go back even further than 'Satisfaction,'" as Cooper put it, on a ragged but raucous rendition of Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" that definitely played to Thayer's strengths on that Gibson Les Paul as Alice and Dash shared vocal duty.

Thayer was even better suited to the next song, Kiss' "Rock and Roll All Nite," on which also sang. As someone who grew up on Cooper and Kiss, I can't tell you how surreal it was to see Cooper singing "Rock and Roll All Nite." Maybe all those arguments my brother and I used to have over which of those artists was better back in grade school (I was Team Alice) could have been resolved with, "You don't have to choose." Who knew?

Of course, the fact that Lifeson was also on stage playing "Rock and Roll All Nite" would probably strike more people as surreal. But Lifeson looked like he was loving every minute of it.

Zelisko joined the fun for "Wild Thing," which rocked and included a jaw-dropping solo from Lifeson and Seraphine rocking more like a garage-rock fan than a veteran of Chicago.

When the song was over, Cooper proudly noted, "That's what bar bands do." ...

You can check out a bunch of great photos along with the full review online here. It doesn't look like there's any video available at this time, but I'll be sure to post any as soon as I come across it.

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