It’s hard to believe that the run of summer gigs at the Piece Hall is coming to an end, with just 4 more dates remaining; tonight would be my penultimate one of this run. I’ve seen some incredible acts over the past three months; 38 acts over a massive 42 dates meant this was the biggest year to date, and tonight was arguably the jewel in the crown of all of them.
Now the Piece Hall is no stranger to Hollywood and its stars, having previously appeared in Disney’s Marvel series Secret Invasion with Samuel L Jackson, but you would be forgiven for not realising it was the Piece Hall as it was CGI dressed up to look like a Russian plaza, but seeing pictures of SLJ in and around my hometown was somewhat of a surreal experience.
However, a different kind of Hollywood royalty would be rolling into town for this event, some of the biggest names in rock history and a Hollywood bad boy himself, Mr Johnny Depp. Named after a drinking club in the 70’s, Hollywood Vampires that is, not Depp where the aim of the game was to keep drinking till you could no longer stand up – thankfully nobody was to be wheeled off the stage tonight.
The Damned
Kicking things off tonight was certainly a band of UK music royalty, The Damned. A band that also harks back to the 70s and has twisted and evolved from their Punk Rock roots it was great to catch them again, having seen them at Bearded Theory earlier in the year.
I’m pleased to say they were as entertaining tonight as they were back in May, delivering a flawless performance of tracks from their 50-year history effortlessly. It’s shocking how underrated they seem in 2026, considering their back catalogue’s importance in several genres of music, such as New Rose being regarded as the 1st ever commercially released Punk Rock song and their Cover of Eloise becoming a massive anthem for the mid-80s Goth movement, both of which were delivered with the same power they had originally in tonight’s performance.
Hollywood Vampires
Hollywood Vampires consists of 3 core members, Alice Cooper, Joe Perry and Johnny Depp and their friends who dip in and out of the band as and when they’re available or not, though some may argue that Tommy Henriksen is the 4th member, as although he wasn’t involved in the initial recordings, he has been a member of the touring band from the very beginning.
The show was pretty much an instant sellout within minutes of going on sale, and of all the dates I’ve been down to at the Piece Hall this year, the VIP balcony ticket sales were certainly the highest I’d seen on this run such was the demand and that’s before Hollywood Vampires’ own VIP packages, which were also available!
The Theatrics began before the band even entered the stage with the video appearing on the backstage screen of a camera zooming through a snaking corridor of tables filled with candles through into a crypt with 4 coffins in it marked JD AC JP and TH where the lids flew off and the skelingtons of the band members appeared raising out of the coffins along to a Bouhaus’s Bella Lugosi’s Dead soundtrack.
Smoke then filled the screen only to clear, revealing the actual images of the 4 main members; however, my OCD immediately went into overdrive as the image of the actual members weren’t in the same order as the coffins, so that was it – nights ruined going forward…
Opening with a couple of originals, I Want My Now and Raise The Dead, it was into one of Coopers own with I’m Eighteen before moving back to a couple more of the Vampires songs where later on they’d be just one more. The other songs bar another one of Alice’s (Schools Out) and a few of Aerosmith’s (Livin’ On The Edge, Bright Light Fright and Walk This Way) would be songs to celebrate friends of the band members who were no longer with us and rather than it just being an upmarket Karaoke band each track got it’s own Vampires darker twist on it with Venus In Furs, Baba O’ Reilly (complete with a Glen Sobel drum solo), Heroes and Highway To Hell being particular highlights, it was very much a case of Shock & Awe as other than a short introduction into each song and the original artist behind it each performance was very much full on, even the giant balloons that were launched into the crowd didn’t stand a chance of survival once they got near the stage as they were swiftly taken out by Coopers cane. T
he show, which ended up just 10 mins shy of 2 hours meant the audience got one of the longer performances of this season’s run of gigs however, It’s worth noting that the nights performances ticket prices were very much at a higher level than usual, but I guess that’s the price of bringing the bigger names to a smaller capacity venue than they would normally play and when it’s on a level like it was I doubt few thought they didn’t get value for money.
So what did I think about it overall? Well I wasn’t too sure what to expect, I’d seen that the show doesn’t change gig to gig but when you’re there, you see the production values then you know why. Each part is a well-oiled cog, some bigger than others, but together the sum of all parts makes for what it is, and what it is is something far greater than it appears on paper.
You’re experiencing a show, not watching a gig, a mesmerising show that draws you in and keeps your attention from when the band walk on stage to when they walk off. I’d say you’re insane if you followed them around the country because you’d be watching the same thing night after night, just in a different town but that said, show closer, Jeff Beck’s Hi Ho Silver Lining was unique to the UK gigs and chosen as it was the only song Jeff sang lead vocals on, so that’s a bit of Vampires trivia for you.
As entertainment goes, tonight delivered big time. I walked out impressed from being somewhat sceptical to begin with, so Hollywood Vampires gets the thumbs up from me, and the show delivered way above and beyond my expectations; the hype, my friends, is real!
📸 Credit Cuffe & Taylor
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