Watch Joe Bonamassa and Johnny Depp jam Alice Cooper classics with the shock-rocker's original line-up
The all-star band jammed School’s Out, I’m Eighteen and more at Alice’s annual fundraiser
Alice Cooper held his 18th annual Christmas Pudding fundraising concert in Phoenix on December 14, and among the many treats of the evening – Rob Halford performing a handful of Priest classics, Nuno Bettencourt shredding through Get the Funk Out – was one particular standout: the surviving members of the Alice Cooper group taking the stage with electric guitar help from Joe Bonamassa and Johnny Depp for a five-song mini-set.
The Alice Cooper band members – guitarist Michael Bruce, drummer Neal Smith and bassist Dennis Dunaway (lead guitarist Glen Buxton died in 1997) – joined their former singer for run-throughs of No More Mr. Nice Guy, Be My Lover, Under My Wheels, I’m Eighteen and School’s Out.
JoBo in particular looked to be having a great time onstage (and with that setlist, how could you not?), adding tasty – and impressively restrained – leads to Under My Wheels and I’m Eighteen. And if you’re more interested in seeing the man you named the world's best blues guitarist tear it up a bit, just scroll to the end of School’s Out for some Les Paul pyrotechnics.
Proceeds from the event directly benefit the free music, dance, arts, and vocational programs for teens 12-20 at Alice Cooper’s Solid Rock Teen Centers.
Get The Pick Newsletter
All the latest guitar news, interviews, lessons, reviews, deals and more, direct to your inbox!
Rich is the co-author of the best-selling Nöthin' But a Good Time: The Uncensored History of the '80s Hard Rock Explosion. He is also a recording and performing musician, and a former editor of Guitar World magazine and executive editor of Guitar Aficionado magazine. He has authored several additional books, among them Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, the companion to the documentary of the same name.

“They told Gibson four days before the performance. I know they were working on the guitar nonstop”: Chappell Roan’s guitarist reveals the story behind the Grammys’ show-stopping – and last-minute – mirrorball Gibson Les Paul

“Somebody will get mad at me, but it’s the closest thing to Beck, Clapton and Page. What was in the water we were all drinking?” Billy Corgan names himself and two other ’90s guitar gods as the ‘metal Yardbirds’