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know the thing that people don ’ t realize when they compare all these big shows now , you know Beyonce or whatever , they ' re comparing it to what we did when tickets were $ 6.50 .
Alexxis : Oh yeah , I remember those days well . [ Laughter ]
Dennis : We put everything back into our shows and the more money we had meant the was the show was going —
Alexxis : — To be bigger .
Dennis : We had all these ideas all the way back when we were in high school but we couldn ’ t afford to do any of that . But then you know it ’ s too bad the Alice Cooper Group had a premature demise because we had finally got to the point where we were ready to just about sign for our contract , which meant we could negotiate a real contract which is when most bands really make money and that would mean we could finally do all of these ideas we have been wanting to do . Well , unfortunately the money didn ’ t go to everybody , but we had bigger and better shows in us , we had a lot of ideas that we hadn ’ t done yet .
Alexxis : I can imagine . Well the band is also in the Guinness Book of World Records for drawing the largest indoor audience for the show in Apollo , Brazil . What was that 158,000 ?
Dennis : Right . It was unbelievable . It was like an outdoor festival where there were people pretty much as far as you could see but it as inside a building and the building was still half full . It was the biggest building I had ever saw in my life .
Alexxis : Wow that must have been amazing !
Dennis : They still have concerts there but normally they will curtain off a smaller area . So it ’ s more like a regular concert but they didn ' t have the curtains when we were there , it was like this you would be going for a pretty good exercise to walk all the way to the end and back . Rock concerts in South America were new at the time , and when we did it , it was a very very out of control [ Laughter ] kind of a thing . Where the guys with machine guns were trying to keep everything in control by threatening the audience that they were going to end the show if they didn ’ t quiet down or whatever .
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Alexxis : Yeah , that must ' ve been really crazy because you said that you were riding on the back of those Police vehicles and stuff like that .
Dennis : It ’ s a military government and human life was not valued very high and the people in power like to keep proving they were in power and they could do anything that they want to do and could get away with it . The crowd and the people loved it , a Rock and Roll show coming to their country ! And you know talking about the dancing tooth , they loved the ( Tooth dancing ) down there .
Alexxis : [ Laughter ]
Dennis : Oh so after the show , we went back to our hotel which was in town . You know Sao Paulo is bigger than New York City . It ’ s this giant city in the middle of the jungle .
Dennis : So we ’ re in this hotel and we ’ re about four or five floors up and anyway so Cindy and l are in our hotel room and we hear these people chanting down in the streets . So we go out on the balcony and look down and these people are cheering and they ’ re cheering “ El Dente ! El Dente ! El Dente ” They want the tooth ! [ Laughter ] And Cindy ’ s like “ What the ?” “ No it means ‘ The Tooth ’ they ’ re cheering for you .”
Alexxis : [ Laughter ]
Dennis : And she ' s like “ What should I do ?” Anyway , this guy pulls up and we ’ re looking down the street and more and more people are showing up and saying “ El Dente .” And this guy is in a red sports car and he drives away and he comes back and he ' s got flowers , a big bouquet of flowers for Cindy and they ’ re all looking up . So we are out looking at this then we go in and Cindy ’ s again saying “ What should I do ?” And I said “ Well go out and wave to them you know , they won ’ t hurt anything .” So when she goes out on the balcony to wave to them you would have thought it was a Evita or something . [ Laughter ] People were cheering !
Alexxis : That must ’ ve been some kind of experience for her !
( Stay tuned next issue for Part 2 !)
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