A grander stage

Courtney Love flashed the crowd. Ace Frehley’s guitar blasted off into outer space.

Alice Cooper was attacked by evil clowns.

Motley Crue passed around a “Topless Cam.”

You can’t say it’s been a ho-hum 10 years of concerts at the Spokane Arena.

Here are a few of the highlights, and lowlights, in the words of the reviewers who were there:

Kiss, September 1996: While (Ace Frehley’s) fingers were blazing up and down the neck of his Les Paul, the guitar ignited. (It was all planned, of course.) And as the screeching notes reverberated throughout the building, the guitar blasted off into space. (It was bolstered by a pulley.)

Gene Simmons regurgitated blood that oozed down the front of his bat suit. As a green fog emerged on the stage, he spread his wings and flew up to the lights (helped by an extra-strength cable). High above the crowd on a small stage, Simmons’ gravelly vocals navigated through the raucous “God of Thunder.” (Joe Ehrbar)

Melissa Etheridge, December 1996: Etheridge borrowed a fan’s soap bubbles and blew bubbles over everyone in her band. Then she said, “By the way, yes, I am a L … L … Lawrence Welk fan.” (Jim Kershner)

Loverboy, September 1997: (While singing one of their hits) frontman Mike Reno, looking like an overstuffed squirrel in black jeans … asks, “Do you like the way he rocks and the way he rolls?”

My answer: no. (Winda Benedetti)

Barry Manilow, November 1997: “I looked like Big Bird on acid,” he quipped while talking about some old photos he came across of himself in a Copacabana shirt. (WB)

Aerosmith, April 1998: There stood Steven Tyler in all his ruttish glory – an enormous top hat adorned with a feather, flesh-tight pants, leopard-print shirt and multicolored long coat.

Ever the lusty devil, Tyler crouched down and crooned cooler numbers to the breathless young girls in the front row. During “Living On The Edge,” he plucked a rose from one woman’s hand, bit the head off it and spit the leaves out. (WB)

Garth Brooks, July 1998: Before Brooks came on, the announcer called out something about “battle stations” and “G minus five minutes” as banks of floodlights began shifting into place amid a cloud of fog and flashing lights. This all finally revealed a drum set placed inside a “Star Wars”-like shuttle of plastic glass and steel. Then Brooks rose up. (Chris Wille)

Marilyn Manson and Hole, March 1999: Manson bared his butt while Courtney Love bared her breasts.

… It’s the kind of image that tattoos itself in the memory circuits: Marilyn Manson standing center stage, his fire-red hair wildly sprung, a black corset tied around his midriff, skin-tight silver pants lowered around his knees, his privates covered only by a black codpiece held on by a G-string and his feet clad in gargantuan black platform heels.

(During Courtney Love’s performance) In one of Spokane’s more loathsome displays of bad manners, someone threw a shoe that smacked Love upside the head.

“Did you throw that at me to hurt my feelings?” she tearily asked the audience.

“No,” they tried to assure her.

“Because I gave it up to you, Spokane, and I don’t give it up to very many people.”

A teenage girl behind me burst into tears of sympathy. (WB)

‘N Sync, April 1999: ‘N Sync was lifted over the crowd one last time to say goodbye, performing several midair flips. It was totally awesome. As their feet touched stage, the lights went out, replaced with orange fireworks.

All in all, I had a gum-smacking good time. (Alexis Minter, teen reviewer for Our Generation)

Elton John, May 1999: Yes, it was a three-hour piano performance that included two encores, with Sir John himself a vision in a pink and sparkle-embroidered suit.

But when John belted out the lines “I remember when rock was young …” I had to wonder, Do you? Do you really remember? Because I was starting to think you’d forgotten. (WB)

Neil Diamond, August 1999: The evening got off to an inauspicious start when some nonbeliever drove up and down past the Arena parking lot and repeatedly yelled, “Neil Diamond stinks!” (or a word that also begins with an ‘s’ and ends with ‘k’). (JK)

Alice Cooper, September 1999: Cooper released enormous balloons over the crowd and pummeled a life-sized jester doll. He changed costumes several times, dressing like a ringmaster and then in a shirt that dubbed him “Alice Spice.” He wielded a sword through “Billion Dollar Babies.” A clown draped a giant live snake around his neck for “Be My Lover.”

Before launching into “School’s Out,” the clowns strapped Cooper into a wheelchair, painted his face and then placed him in the sarcophagus. The troublemakers stabbed the coffin with swords. Bad clowns!

But then, one of the clowns walked to the front of the stage and SURPRISE!! stripped off his suit to reveal Alice Cooper! Wheeee! (WB)

Korn, March 2000: If you were not among the thousands of disaffected, angry teens at Sunday’s Korn concert at the Spokane Arena, you now have one more reason to feel disaffected and angry.

You missed an ear-punishing, full-on sensory assault – and that was just the scene from the writhing mosh pit in front of the stage. (Heather Lalley)

Creed, June 2000: Creed, a Tallahassee, Fla., foursome with a bevy of hits off their first two albums, kicked off their set with “Ode.” But first came the flames and a booming explosion of fireworks, the first of many sparkler showers during Creed’s show. When all your songs sound the same, you’ve got to reclaim the audience’s attention somehow. (HL)

Dixie Chicks, June 2000: Chicks ruled in more ways than one Friday night at a packed Spokane Arena.

Before the first note was played, the other chick power became clear as Arena officials scrambled to convert some men’s restrooms into women’s. Estrogen was everywhere. (CW)

Sarah Brightman, November 2000: (Brightman) appeared after the 20-minute intermission, hovering above the stage by wires and flanked by two mid-air dancers. An enormous glowing globe on a pedestal sat center stage. (HL)

Classical Mystery Tour (Beatles impersonators backed by the Spokane Symphony), December 2000: It wasn’t quite 1964-style Beatlemania, but it was close. There was, in fact, middle-aged screaming.

It’s the first symphony concert I can remember in which the crowd demanded an encore through the medium of stomping. (JK)

The Barenaked Ladies, March 2001: The fivesome, plus a tambourine-playing man dressed in a chef’s outfit (honest), walked onstage through the mouth of a giant head, right over the tongue and right under the fleshy uvula. (HL)

Tool, Nov. 2001: And then there were the two contortionists, who dangled from the rafters by their ankles midway through the two-hour set.

Strange? Sure. Pretentious? A bit. (HL)

The Eagles, June 2002: If I were to pick the typical audience member, it would be a 45-year-old guy, slightly graying, slightly balding, slightly paunchy and just ever-so-slightly dorky. I looked around and felt completely at home, the way Sacajawea must have felt when reunited with her tribe. (JK)

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, November 2002: “We’re very proud to tell you we’re here tonight on this tour with no corporate sponsorship whatsoever,” Petty told the crowd near the show’s end. “We’re brought to you by you. Seems like a pretty good arrangement, doesn’t it?” (HL)

Cher, December 2002: Leave it to Cher to put on a nice, intimate concert for her farewell tour.

Just the diva herself, a small troupe of acrobats, a life-sized mechanical elephant and 12,000 or so of her closest friends. (HL)

Linkin Park, April 2003: Halfway into an absolutely electric performance, Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda reminded pit dwellers of two basic points of concertgoing etiquette.

One: “If someone comes crowd-surfing by you, don’t grope them. That is not cool.”

And two: “If someone falls in the pit what do we do?”

“Pick them up!” the crowd responded. (Isamu Jordan)

Kid Rock, May 2004: Fireworks, cage-dancing women and American flags – Kid Rock’s mix of countrified rock, blues and white-boy rap was equal parts cabaret show and tribute to his heroes.

And the two-thirds full Arena audience – a collage of trucker hats, cowboy hats, tube tops and muscle shirts – was loving every minute of it. (IJ)

Shania Twain, June 2004: Meanwhile, she signed autographs, lots of autographs. And I mean during songs. In fact, during verses. Twain worked her way constantly around the big in-the-round stage, signing autographs with one hand while holding the mike with her other. (JK)

Rod Stewart, August, 2004: Can a 59-year-old man preen?

The answer is an unqualified yes. Not only that, but he can also strut, prance and repeatedly slap himself on his bottom.

Whether he should is another question entirely. (JK)

Motley Crue, March 2005: … The audience was greeted onstage by an evil-eyed clown that looked like something out of an issue of “Spawn.” Then the stage, draped in a circus-style tent, opened up to the Crue and a cadre of leather-bikini-clad dancers, who would later spit fire and shoot sparks between their legs.

The Crue continued to blast through old favorites such as “Looks That Kill” and “Dr. Feelgood,” with great momentum until the “Topless Cam” was passed around by Lee and Sixx while women in the audience flashed their breasts. (IJ)