Rocktober Video #5: Alice Cooper Live at Toronto Rock & Roll Revival 9/13/69

Less than a month after Woodstock, Toronto had its own music festival, with a line-up consisting largely of '50s and early '60s rockers, like Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Gene Vincent.  There were also some contemporary rock acts.  The Doors headlined, but the festival is notable for two other reasons. 

First, John Lennon showed up with the Plastic Ono Band, including Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton, Klaus Voorman, and future Yes drummer Alan White, and they performed what would become the Live Peace in Toronto 1969 album -- and John would tell The Beatles a few days later that he was leaving the band. 

Second, Alice Cooper killed a chicken.  At the time, Alice Cooper was relatively unknown and had not yet had their string of hits that established them as a hard rock staple in the '70s.  They were starting to develop their shock rock stage show, as well.  They didn't yet have the guillotine, giant spider, or any snakes, but Alice himself played the show in a leather bondage type get-up.  Most of this video is a weird, fuzzed-out psychedelic jam, with a game of hide-and-seek and a stage fight thrown in for good measure.

Part of the band's stage show at the time was that they would spray a couple pillowcases full of feathers into the crowd.  Things got weird weirder when someone threw a live chicken on the stage.  How someone smuggled a live chicken into the stadium is beyond me, but then again, it was the '60s and it was Canada, so maybe that kind of thing just wasn't questioned.  Anyway, Alice picks it up and, being a city boy and believing something with wings has the ability to fly, threw it into the air, thinking it would fly away.  It did not.  It abruptly dropped into the first few rows, where audience members tore it to pieces.  The best part of the story?  The people that killed the bird were disabled and in wheelchairs.

The chicken chucking occurs at about the 11:40 mark.