Alice Cooper Ignites Hellfest With a Thunderous Performance of “Poison”
The 2022 edition of Hellfest unfolded over two sprawling weekends in Clisson, France, after two pandemic-canceled years, with hundreds of bands across multiple stages and a surge of metal and hard rock headliners. Against that scale, Alice Cooper’s theatrical machine slotted perfectly into week two, delivering a tightly scripted shock-rock spectacle that balanced nostalgia with showmanship for a massive festival crowd.
Alice Cooper hit the Val de Moine festival grounds on June 24, 2022, as part of his Detroit Muscle Tour, a late-night set that started at 9:55 p.m. and ran about seventy-five minutes. The setlist stacked signature cuts and fan favorites, ensuring momentum never sagged and positioning “Poison” at the heart of the run.
Although many clips circulate online labeling it a “cover,” “Poison” is not a cover at all—it’s Cooper’s own 1989 single from the album Trash, co-written with Desmond Child and John McCurry, and produced by Child. The track became one of Cooper’s biggest hits, peaking at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 2 in the U.K., cementing its evergreen live appeal.
The Hellfest lineup supporting Cooper that night reflected the modern, triple-guitar firepower his shows are known for. Onstage were guitarists Nita Strauss, Ryan Roxie, and Tommy Henriksen, with Chuck Garric on bass and Glen Sobel on drums—players who’ve road-tested his catalog for years and can pivot from precision to mayhem on a dime without losing the groove.
Multiple festival write-ups singled out the staging: elaborate set pieces, multiple costume changes, and the macabre illusions that have defined Cooper’s live language for decades. Reviewers noted vignettes like the “dying bride,” a dramatic beheading sequence, and a rain-spattered crowd that refused to budge—visual theater enhancing the music rather than distracting from it.
Structurally, Hellfest 2022 placed “Poison” deep enough in the set to arrive as a payoff after a run of era-spanning cuts. The song followed “I’m Eighteen” and a featured guitar showcase, amplifying its impact by letting tension build through earlier classics before unleashing the late-’80s anthem with maximal crowd energy.
The nuts-and-bolts performance data paints the same picture of economy and impact: a festival-length 1:15 set, a crisp start near 10 p.m., and a finale that funneled thousands toward a cathartic sing-along. At Hellfest scale, those timings matter; they force an artist to compress an arena show into a festival-friendly blockbuster—and Cooper’s camp executed.
One reason this particular “Poison” performance endures is that Hellfest filmed it professionally and Cooper later folded the entire show into the 2023 Road release as a bonus Blu-ray/DVD. That made the festival rendition canon—no longer just a night in Clisson, but a widely distributed document of his modern stagecraft.
Ahead of Road’s arrival, Cooper’s team pushed out official live clips from the same Hellfest set—most notably “School’s Out”—as teasers, putting the look, sound, and pacing of the production in front of fans who hadn’t braved the French summer. The promotional cycle underscored how polished the festival capture really was.
Guitar dynamics are a key to why “Poison” lands so hard live. The Hellfest setlist positioned a Nita Strauss spotlight before the song, priming listeners with athletic, melodic shred before dropping into the sleek, Desmond Child-shaped hooks of the Trash era. It’s a programming trick: make the band the hero, then let the hit detonate.
Critics on the ground highlighted how the theatrics married the music, rather than sitting beside it. At Hellfest, the horror-theater motifs—guillotines, sinister characters, and grand guignol tableaus—functioned as visual punctuation for riff-driven rock, with the band’s tightness keeping the production from drifting into camp. That balance is why “Poison” thrives on a festival mainstage.
“Poison” also carries its own built-in narrative juice. As a late-career chart monster that helped power a commercial renaissance, it bridges generations in the festival crowd—older fans who remember 1989 and newer ones raised on playlists where the chorus still feels immediate. That cross-demographic recognition was palpable in Clisson and is audible on the official live release.
Hellfest’s double-weekend architecture magnified moments like this. The festival packs overwhelming volume into a single site—hundreds of bands, six stages, and jostling headliners—so an artist has to carve out a distinct identity to stick. Cooper’s crew did it with story-driven staging and a setlist that smartly spaced familiar hooks like “Poison” across the arc.
The decision to immortalize the entire Hellfest set on Road turned a strong festival showing into a reference performance. Retail listings and reviews emphasize that the Blu-ray includes the full concert with upgraded audio mixes, and track lists confirm that “Poison” appears alongside the expected canon, making this version the go-to document for the era.
Most important, labeling this rendition a “cover” misreads its significance. “Poison” is Alice Cooper’s own late-’80s juggernaut, and the Hellfest 2022 take presents it as living repertoire—slick, heavy, and theatrically framed by one of rock’s most reliable live bands. In Clisson, the song wasn’t borrowed; it was reclaimed yet again, in front of a rain-kissed sea of black T-shirts.
