Artist: Hollywood Vampires
Album: At Montreux Jazz Festival
Genre: Hard Rock / Classic Rock / Live
Release: 14 August 2026
Label: earMUSIC
Recorded: Montreux Jazz Festival, 2018
Tracks: 19
🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸 5/5 Guitars
Alice Cooper.
Joe Perry.
Johnny Depp.
Tommy Henriksen.
A pile of classic rock songs.
And one of the most famous festival stages on the planet.
Come on, mun. What could possibly go wrong? 🧛♂️🤘
At Montreux Jazz Festival captures Hollywood Vampires doing exactly what Hollywood Vampires were created to do: celebrating rock ‘n’ roll, honouring fallen heroes and having an absolute blast while doing it.
Recorded during their 2018 appearance at the legendary Montreux Jazz Festival, this isn’t some carefully polished studio recreation pretending to be live.
It feels like a gig.
The guitars growl.
Alice Cooper commands proceedings like the immortal rock vampire he apparently actually is.
Joe Perry oozes effortless guitar cool.
Johnny Depp gets stuck into the riffs.
And the band tear through everything from original Hollywood Vampires material to songs associated with Motörhead, The Doors, AC/DC, The Who, Aerosmith, David Bowie and Pink Floyd.
Nineteen tracks.
Around ninety minutes of rock ‘n’ roll.
Someone fetch the garlic.
The Vampires are loose. 🧛♂️🔥
💿
Track Listing
- I Want My Now
- Raise the Dead
- I Got a Line on You
- 7 and 7 Is
- My Dead Drunk Friends
- Five to One / Break on Through
- The Jack
- Ace of Spades
- Baba O’Riley
- As Bad as I Am
- The Boogieman Surprise
- I’m Eighteen
- Combination
- People Who Died
- Sweet Emotion
- Welcome to Bushwackers
- Heroes
- Train Kept A-Rollin’
- School’s Out / Another Brick in the Wall
🎤
Track-by-Track Review
1. I Want My Now
No lengthy introduction required.
Hollywood Vampires arrive ready to play.
I Want My Now is a swaggering opener packed with dirty guitar and that wonderfully loose rock ‘n’ roll energy that immediately makes the recording feel alive.
The chemistry is obvious from the beginning.
🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸
2. Raise the Dead
Here’s the Hollywood Vampires mission statement in musical form.
Raise the Dead sounds absolutely enormous live.
Alice Cooper owns every second while Perry, Depp and Henriksen surround him with snarling guitars.
Dead rock stars being celebrated by a band called Hollywood Vampires.
Makes perfect sense.
🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸
3. I Got a Line on You
Spirit’s psychedelic-rock classic gets dragged into the Vampires’ bar-room universe.
The band don’t overcomplicate things.
There’s swagger.
There’s groove.
And there are guitars everywhere.
Proper old-school rock ‘n’ roll fun.
🎸🎸🎸🎸
4. 7 and 7 Is
Love’s classic gets another wonderfully rough-edged treatment.
Fast, frantic and full of garage-rock energy, it demonstrates what Hollywood Vampires do particularly well.
They’re not attempting carbon-copy recreations.
They’re playing these songs like a really expensive bar band that’s somehow ended up containing several rock legends.
🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸
5. My Dead Drunk Friends
Dark title.
Surprisingly joyous performance.
My Dead Drunk Friends sits at the heart of the entire Hollywood Vampires concept—a celebration of musicians no longer around to join the party.
There’s sadness underneath it.
But mostly?
It’s a toast.
Glasses up. 🍺
🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸
6. Five to One / Break on Through
Time for The Doors.
And bloody hell, this works.
Five to One already possesses that dangerous late-’60s swagger, making it perfect material for Hollywood Vampires.
Then Break on Through enters proceedings and the whole thing becomes a psychedelic rock ‘n’ roll celebration.
One of the set’s first genuinely huge moments.
🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸
7. The Jack
AC/DC.
Blues.
Filth.
Swagger.
Job done.
The Jack has always been built around attitude rather than unnecessary complexity, and Hollywood Vampires understand that completely.
Let the riff breathe.
Let the guitars talk.
Pour another drink.
🎸🎸🎸🎸
8. Ace of Spades
🔥 LEMMY TIME.
There are certain songs you simply don’t bugger around with too much.
Ace of Spades is one of them.
Hollywood Vampires attack Motörhead’s immortal anthem with exactly the required amount of noise and respect, with bassist Chris Wyse stepping forward on lead vocals.
It’s fast.
It’s filthy.
It’s unmistakably Motörhead.
And most importantly, it feels like a genuine salute to Lemmy rather than karaoke.
🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸
9. Baba O’Riley
That opening.
You know what’s coming.
The Who’s colossal anthem becomes another opportunity for the entire band to simply enjoy playing one of rock’s greatest songs.
And when those guitars arrive?
Lovely stuff.
🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸
10. As Bad as I Am
Back into original Hollywood Vampires territory.
And it’s important.
Because while the covers inevitably grab attention, tracks like As Bad as I Am remind everyone that this isn’t merely a travelling classic-rock jukebox.
There’s personality here.
Dirty guitars.
Attitude.
And an absolutely filthy groove.
🎸🎸🎸🎸
11. The Boogieman Surprise
Things get weird.
Exactly as they should.
The Boogieman Surprise carries that Alice Cooper theatrical DNA while the band lean into a darker, stranger atmosphere.
After several famous covers, it provides a welcome shift.
🎸🎸🎸🎸
12. I’m Eighteen
Oh yes.
Alice Cooper singing I’m Eighteen live?
We’ll have some of that.
One of the great teenage rebellion anthems still sounds gloriously defiant decades later.
And Alice?
He owns it.
Naturally.
The man could probably perform this at 118 and somehow still convince you he’s having an identity crisis.
🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸
13. Combination
Joe Perry territory.
The Aerosmith deep cut brings plenty of bluesy hard-rock swagger into proceedings.
Perry sounds completely at home—as you’d bloody well expect—while the rest of the Vampires lock into the groove behind him.
Cool without trying.
🎸🎸🎸🎸
14. People Who Died
The Jim Carroll Band’s punk-rock memorial anthem could practically have been written for Hollywood Vampires.
The song’s roll call of lost friends connects directly with the entire reason the band exists.
It’s celebratory and heartbreaking simultaneously.
One of the smartest choices in the set.
🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸
15. Sweet Emotion
That bassline.
You already know.
Aerosmith’s Sweet Emotion immediately brings another level of swagger into Montreux.
Joe Perry playing one of the songs that helped make him a guitar hero while surrounded by this particular collection of musicians?
Yeah.
That’s pretty bloody special.
🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸
16. Welcome to Bushwackers
A brief change of atmosphere before the final run.
It works as part of the live journey, giving everything a little room before Hollywood Vampires start throwing enormous classics around again.
🎸🎸🎸🎸
17. Heroes
🖤 BOWIE.
Johnny Depp steps into one of the most emotionally charged moments of the entire performance.
Trying to cover David Bowie’s Heroes is dangerous territory.
Go too theatrical and you’ve missed the point.
Go too faithful and you’re simply doing Bowie karaoke.
Here, the band treat it with restraint and genuine affection.
Beautiful.
🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸
18. Train Kept A-Rollin’
Now we’re moving again.
Train Kept A-Rollin’ is practically part of rock ‘n’ roll’s genetic code at this point.
The Yardbirds.
Aerosmith.
Countless others.
Hollywood Vampires add themselves to that lineage with a version built around exactly what this band does best.
Guitars.
Volume.
Swagger.
🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸
19. School’s Out / Another Brick in the Wall
Come on.
How else could this finish?
School’s Out remains one of Alice Cooper’s immortal anthems, and combining it with Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall turns the finale into an enormous communal singalong.
The crowd knows every word.
The band know they’ve got them.
And Alice Cooper?
He’s been doing this for decades.
He knows EXACTLY what he’s doing.
A brilliant ending to ninety minutes of glorious rock ‘n’ roll excess.
🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸
🔥
The Breakdown
🎤
Alice Cooper — 🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸
The ringmaster.
Alice doesn’t merely sing these songs.
He commands them.
Decades of experience mean every growl, joke and dramatic flourish lands exactly where it needs to.
🎸
Joe Perry — 🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸
Effortlessly cool.
Some guitarists look like they’re fighting their instrument.
Joe Perry looks like he’s having a conversation with it over bourbon.
🎸
Johnny Depp — 🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸
Forget the film-star novelty.
Within Hollywood Vampires, Depp is there to play.
His contribution works because he understands he’s part of the band rather than the centre of it.
🎸
Tommy Henriksen — 🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸
The secret weapon.
Henriksen provides enormous energy and helps glue together a band containing some very large musical personalities.
🥁
The Band — 🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸
Glen Sobel, Chris Wyse and Buck Johnson give the headline names the foundation required to wander through decades of rock history without everything becoming messy.
🎧
Live Atmosphere — 🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸
This actually feels live.
Thank bloody goodness.
The energy matters more than surgical perfection.
Exactly as rock ‘n’ roll should be.
🏆
Standout Performances
🧛♂️ Raise the Dead
♠️ Ace of Spades
🔥 I’m Eighteen
🖤 Heroes
🎓 School’s Out / Another Brick in the Wall
🧛♂️
More Than a Supergroup
The temptation with Hollywood Vampires is to focus entirely on the names.
Alice Cooper.
Johnny Depp.
Joe Perry.
That’s understandable.
But At Montreux Jazz Festival demonstrates why this project has lasted considerably longer than some celebrity side-project novelty.
There’s genuine chemistry.
More importantly, there’s a purpose.
Hollywood Vampires were built around celebrating the musicians who helped shape rock ‘n’ roll—particularly those who aren’t around anymore.
That’s why a set can jump from The Doors to Motörhead, AC/DC to Bowie, The Who to Aerosmith and somehow still feel coherent.
It’s basically a musical trip through one enormous record collection.
Except the people playing the songs happen to include some of the musicians who helped create that history.
Not bad, is it?
🤘
The Riff Report Verdict
At Montreux Jazz Festival isn’t about perfection.
It’s about rock ‘n’ roll.
And there’s a difference.
You want perfectly recreated studio recordings?
Stay home.
This is about musicians standing together on a stage celebrating songs they love.
Sometimes those songs belong to them.
Sometimes they belong to friends.
Sometimes they belong to heroes who aren’t here anymore.
That’s what gives Hollywood Vampires their charm.
Beneath the celebrity names and gothic branding is essentially a group of music obsessives saying:
“This song is bloody brilliant. Let’s play it.”
And at Montreux, that’s exactly what they did.
Nineteen tracks.
Ninety-ish minutes.
Rock history everywhere you look.
Lemmy gets remembered.
Bowie gets remembered.
The Doors get celebrated.
The Who get celebrated.
Aerosmith gets its moment.
Alice Cooper gets to remind everyone that School’s Out remains virtually indestructible.
And Johnny Depp gets to demonstrate once again that he’s considerably more comfortable holding a guitar than some people still give him credit for.
Is it polished?
Not always.
Good.
Rock ‘n’ roll shouldn’t always be.
Sometimes you just need loud guitars, great songs and a room full of people having a bloody good time.
THE RIFF REPORT RATING
🎸🎸🎸🎸🎸
5/5 GUITARS
Legends playing legends. Loud guitars. Dead friends remembered. Rock ‘n’ roll celebrated.
Hollywood Vampires turn Montreux into the world’s greatest supernatural pub gig—and thankfully, somebody remembered to press record. 🧛♂️♠️🔥🤘
Michael is the founder, editor, and chief riff wrangler behind The Riff Report, an independent Welsh rock and metal publication built by fans, for fans. With a lifelong passion for loud guitars, unforgettable live shows, and the incredible community that surrounds rock and metal, he created The Riff Report to celebrate everything that makes the scene special—from legendary headline acts and grassroots venues to rising bands that deserve to be heard.
A familiar face at festivals across the UK, Michael spends much of the year covering events including Download Festival, Bloodstock Open Air, Steelhouse Festival, Firevolt, Plumpton Revival, and many more. Whether he’s battling the Welsh weather on a mountainside, surviving a weekend in a muddy campsite, or squeezed against the front barrier with thousands of fellow fans, he’s always searching for the next great story to share.
As editor of The Riff Report, Michael writes festival guides, breaking news, album reviews, gig reviews, interviews, opinion pieces, nostalgia features, and behind-the-scenes stories from across the rock and metal world. His writing combines honest opinions, humour, and a genuine love for live music, bringing readers closer to the bands, festivals, venues, and people that keep the scene alive.
Michael is particularly passionate about supporting independent artists, local venues, charities, and the wider UK rock and metal community. He believes every band deserves a chance to be discovered and every festival has a story worth telling. Through The Riff Report, he aims to shine a spotlight on both the biggest names in rock and the future stars waiting to break through.
When he’s not writing or interviewing artists, you’ll probably find him exploring festival campsites, photographing live shows, chatting with fellow fans over a pint, or planning the next road trip in search of more riffs, bigger crowds, and unforgettable moments.
Above all, Michael believes rock and metal are about more than music—they’re about community, friendship, and creating memories that last a lifetime. That’s exactly what The Riff Report exists to celebrate.
Proudly Welsh. Proudly Loud. Always chasing the next great riff. 🤘
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