I was combing through some releases late last week and came across an announcement for the Blue Ridge Bloodfest, a new celebration of all things grotesque that runs August 6-7 at Random Row Books. Planned events include an independent film festival, a zombie/monster walk and make-up.
But what caught my eye was that the festival wraps up with a performance by a band called Alice Creeper—an Alice Cooper cover band based out of Waynesboro. Cooper himself is famous for a few things: his biggest hit "School’s Out," a cameo in Wayne’s World, and more recently for his love of golf.
Alice Creeper.
How does Alice Creeper fit in with the cover bands that regularly play in town? Over the last year couple of years I’ve seen more cover bands than I’d care to admit. There was Abbey Road playing the Beatles at Veritas and the Pavilion, Galen Curry’s Prince cover band Shockadelica at the Jefferson, where they opened for the scarily accurate Who’s Bad: A Tribute to Michael Jackson.
Abbey Road.
Once upon a time there was Mass Sabbath, the yearly celebration of the music of Black Sabbath, which shared members with a one-off Misfits cover band. All this to say nothing of tribute bands like Dark Star Orchestra, which plays song-for-song recreations of vintage Grateful Dead sets, the local Dead cover group Alligator and, of course, Badfish, which competes with the recently resurrected group Sublime With Rome.
This summer alone, Pink Floyd plays the Paramount, the Dead and Jefferson Airplane play the Jefferson and The Beatles play the Pavilion. It’s like 1968 up in here.
Let’s welcome Alice Creeper to Central Virginia’s stable of cover acts by making the competition clear.
What’s the best cover act in town?