Johnny Depp, Alice Cooper, and Aerosmith's Joe Perry are one of the more curious musical combos. Since 2012 the unlikely trio have been touring as the Hollywood Vampires, based on the 1970s LA drinking club formed by Cooper that occasionally included the likes of John Lennon and Ringo Starr.
Legend has it that that group would meet in an upstairs bar in LA’s Sunset Strip and drink until nobody could stand up. Years later Cooper, Depp, and Perry crank out trademark rock classics and original tunes on stages across the world. It’s a bizarre toast to “dead, drunk friends” but in spirit rather than actuality, at least in Cooper’s case – he reportedly swapped vodka shots for golf years ago.
If it sounds like something dreamed up it still feels a little like that when the band take the stage at the Swansea Arena on Friday for the second night of a UK tour that was scrapped back in 2020 due to the pandemic.
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Looking someway between a geriatric magic show and the undead crew aboard a lost pirate ship (really, did you think there would be no Pirates of the Caribbean reference here?), the band are clearly all in on the affair. Cooper, now 75, is almost entirely clad in leather and wears his trademark black eye makeup. Depp looks like a slightly toned-down version of his Captain Jack Sparrow alias sporting a crochet hat, layers of bracelets, and a medical boot on his left foot after an ankle fracture that forced the band to cancel some shows earlier this summer.
Cracking through classics by AC/DC and The Who along with tracks from their new album Live in Rio the show frequently veers towards the cartoonish. "We play songs for our dead drunk friends," cries Cooper, wild-eyed and wielding his cane theatrically at the crowd before launching into the opening stomp of The Doors' Five to One.
Band original Dead Drunk Friends sees the singer, whose voice still retains an impressive rasp, tottering around the stage and raising an imaginary glass to the heavens. The world has moved on since Cooper’s heyday when men in makeup singing about the last day of school-induced pearl-clutching and Friday night is less shock rock and more macabre satire.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t immense fun though. Perry and Cooper are nothing if not seasoned performers at this stage of their careers, and they cleverly pepper the set with belters like Baba O'Riley, Walk This Way, and David Bowie's Heroes (led by Depp on vocals.) At one point a giant set of bloodied fangs are hung menacingly from above the stage while there is plenty of smoke shot into the air, dramatic visuals of skulls, and departed legends like Bon Scott, Kurt Cobain and Phil Lynott, and the customary drum and bass solos you'd expect from a pumped-up rock show.
The star of the show, needless to say, is Depp, who throws nonchalant waves and pats his chest in between guitar riffs, well aware of the reason many have come tonight. "Johnny Depp in the flesh!" one woman is overheard screaming from the hall outside to no-one in particular. I also encounter a woman walking her dog outside who, unprompted, tells me of her devastation at not getting tickets and how she's been wandering the streets "trying to find Johnny Depp". A small crowd gathers near the stage door even before the show is over and you sense there's only one man they're hoping for a glimpse of.
Did Depp take in the exotic sights of Wind Street? Did Edward Scissorhands himself sample a Welsh cake? Who knows. But he certainly seems to enjoy his Welsh trip. One of the last stars of a bygone Hollywood era, the actor smiles through the set, joking and laughing with the band as calls of "we love you Johnny" ring out any time there is a snatch of silence in the packed arena. "Thank you so much," he mumbles in his whimsical way to the crowd as he leads a tribute to the late Jeff Beck and takes vocal duties on Heroes. As someone who never had a chance to see Bowie live, I enjoy it immensely. Judge me as you will.
Some might call the whole thing a vanity project for washed-up rock stars with little else to do but those constantly looking for nuance are likely to be disappointed no matter where they look. Tonight leaves introspection in the dust in place of head-melting guitar riffs, nostalgia, and rock pageantry. Sit back, enjoy it, and don’t think about it too much.
As the final chords ring through the arena the band give it one more burst of bombastic, vampiric (oh, go on then) energy for good measure before greeting the crowd as one. It's odd and ridiculous as all hell but oddly touching too – a few old friends having fun in front of rock (and Depp) fans doing the very same. Who could begrudge any of us that?
