As a large and appreciative crowd with a decidedly 1980s big-hair-band feel watched a spectacular sunset over the Great Salt Lake on Saturday night, Cooper's stage was set.

There was an overall dungeon look, and a coffin in one corner. A can full of props that included assorted swords, daggers and batons was placed right below the elevated drums.

Before the night ended, there would be a woman with whips who made Cooper disappear into thin air, a straitjacket, body parts assembled into a monster, ghouls wandering the stage and, of course, the trademark guillotine.

All of this was the kind of classic show that, to coin a phrase, Cooper's legion of fans lose their heads over.

The fact that one of rock's biggest and most-imitated innovators - a tall, raspy-voiced man with wild hair, eye makeup, a large crooked nose and huge white teeth - was going through his classic routine in a place where fans could reach out and almost touch him made the night that much more special.

It is perhaps easy to forget that Cooper, born in Detroit as Vincent Furnier 58 years ago, inspired so many classic and modern acts over the years.

He did makeup before KISS, had the hard licks and raspy voice down before Metallica and the big hair bands of the 1980s, was camp before Elton John, insulted society before Marilyn Manson and wore gloves before Michael Jackson.

The fact that he can still rock and perform with the best of the best is not only a credit to his staying power and stamina but to his importance as a rock icon.

It was all there to see Saturday night. As a vintage 2004 Cooper "Election" T-shirt read, this is the troubled man for troubled times.

There was no banter or idle chatter on Cooper's part, just hard-pounding music, bizarre staging, great lighting and enough bloody special effects to do George Romero proud.

And, of course, the music is of classic variety, with gems such as "No More Mr. Nice Guy," "School's Out," "Feed My Frankenstein," "I'm Eighteen" and "Welcome to My Nightmare" mixed in with newer songs such as "Dirty Diamonds."

Backed by a veteran, tight band, Cooper strutted on the stage in mostly black leather adorned with a huge red belt buckle.

While the act might be old and certainly sick if one thinks about what happened on stage too closely, it still possesses a sort of black magic.

A particularly bizarre portion of the show came late when Cooper first assembled a headless body in a coffin from parts lying around the stage. Moments later he was sitting in a wheelchair surrounded by ghoulish nurses pumping who knows what into him.

Then came the guillotine bit where Cooper loses his head, which, as the band played loud licks, was carried around the stage by a delighted woman dancer.

That was followed by a resurrection of sorts when Cooper, now clad in white, exploded out of the coffin where the headless monster once resided to lead the ecstatic audience in a rousing rendition of "School's Out."

By the time an encore - which included "Poison" and a version of "Wish I Were Born in Beverly Hills," complete with a Paris Hilton imitator who took her licks from Alice - had ended, the crowd was in a frenzy, knowing that while Alice Cooper may have looked half-dead all these years, he is still very much alive.

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Contact Tom Wharton at wharton@sltrib.com. His phone number is 801-257-8909. Send comments about this story/review to livingeditor@sltrib.com.

Review

l Who: Alice Cooper with Fireball Ministry.

l Where: Saltair

l When: Saturday

l Bottom line: Alice Cooper showed why he became one of the most-imitated acts in rock music with an energetic, hard-driving performance enhanced by enough props to make a Broadway producer happy.