For Mike Tesmer and me, the summer of 1972 started with our graduation from Upper Sandusky High School. We assembled in the gymnasium, and senior members of the choir under the direction of classmate John Helge, sang the Carpenter's song "We've Only Just Begun (To Live)." And indeed we had.

After the ceremony, we scattered to our family celebrations then one by one reassembled at Meyer's Lane, also called Mawer's Lane, just west of my mother's hometown of Harpster. It's still there, now Township Highway 116, a one-mile-long stone road with no houses that dead-ends on the south at SR 294 and on the north at TH 65. It seemed to serve no purpose other than to give farmers access to their fields, and small town teens a place to gather late at night.

By the time Mike and I arrived with our 12-pack of Stroh's, parked cars lined the road as far as we could see. Friends clustered around cars with beers in hand, talking, radios blaring in the night. The soundtrack of our lives still revolved around CKLW, the Big Eight, a clear channel AM station in Windsor Ontario, across the river from Detroit. CKLW and Zeke, to be more accurate. Zeke was a local band that covered rock music of the day in a most excellent fashion.

It was through CKLW, then Zeke, that we came to know and love the music of Alice Cooper. Although the band's members were high school classmates in Phoenix, Alice (nee Vince Furnier) was born in Detroit and the band was based there at the time of their breakout hit "I'm Eighteen." As a Canadian station, CKLW was required by law to play a certain percentage of music by Canadian artists. Alice Cooper were not Canadian but their producer Bob Ezrin was. This gave the station pretext to play their music and their career took off, as CKLW was known as a bellweather station. Zeke covered several of the songs from their Love It To Death and Killer albums; "I'm Eighteen", "The Ballad of Dwight Fry", "Caught In a Dream" and "Be My Lover" were staples of their shows.

Soon after graduation, Mike and I heard that Alice Cooper would be playing at Akron's Rubber Bowl on their School's Out tour. We were eighteen, school was out, and this was our band. We sent for four tickets, at $4.50 each. Our plan was to ask two girls to go along, but we never did. I won't reveal their names because they may read this story and lose their focus trying to re-imagine Mike and me as the sort of guys who would think of such a thing. The concert was set for August 5, 1972. I no longer have the tickets but recently found an image online of a ticket stub from the show.

Earlier that year, my father had bought a brand new Chevrolet pickup truck, light blue. We were tenant farmers and money was hard to come by, so this was a big deal. I begged him to let me drive it to Akron for the concert. He gave in. Our plan was to sleep in the truck after the concert and drive back the next morning. We'd never been to Akron before. We didn't know anyone there or any place to stay. But the truck had an open bed. Fortunately, another of our classmates, Randy Schwilk, had a small camper business with his father Jimmy, who agreed to rent us a cap for the truck, three days at $5 a day.

On the day before the show, I drove the truck to Schwilk's on US 30 just west of the railroad tracks in Upper. They secured the cap with C-clamps and I was on my way. Mike joined me out at the farm as we prepared to make this truck our home. It lacked even a radio, so we grabbed the 8-track player from my car and wired it directly to the battery using lamp cord run over the hood and into the driver's side door. Similarly we ran wiring into the bed for speakers. We tried without success to squeeze a couch into the back and settled for a mattress instead. And finally of course loaded a cooler of beer.

Next morning, we headed east on US 30. Just beyond Mansfield, we passed two hitchhikers, a young couple holding an Akron sign. We circled around and stopped. They were headed for the concert too. I opened the tailgate and they climbed aboard, admonished not to touch the cooler. We needn't have worried; they were more interested in the mattress.

We arrived in south Akron via the interstate and exited at Waterloo Road, SR 224. I had no way of knowing that in five years I would be living less than a mile away. The Rubber Bowl is in southeast Akron, near the municipal airport and the old Goodyear blimp hanger, just off Waterloo Road. It was a horseshoe-shaped stadium built into the side of a hill, and was the football home of the University of Akron Zips from 1940 through 2008. It shared the hillside with Derby Downs, site of the annual All American Soapbox Derby.

This being the first weekend of August, our concert coincided with the finals of the Soapbox Derby. The parking field featured an interesting mix of derby families and Alice Cooper fans during an era when the term 'generation gap' still had some meaning. Mike and I made the most of it, drinking beer on the tailgate of my truck with music playing on the 8-track as we wiled away the sunny afternoon. I'd been letting my hair grow since the day before senior pictures the previous fall, so was beginning to look a bit hippy-ish. Passing derby parents and their kids were giving us wide berth.

Mid-afternoon, we noticed a crowd was starting to build at the stadium gates, so we closed up shop and joined them. Once in the stadium we staked out our positions on the football field, about 100 feet from the stage and off to the right. The concert was scheduled for 7:30 so we still had some time to kill. The weather was beautiful and the atmosphere was festive. We soon noticed a sweet pungent smell in the air. It was foreign to us but required no explanation.

The sun was getting low in the sky when the PA faded and an announcer came on stage to introduce the opener: Dr. John the Night Tripper! We had no idea who he was, and squinted disbelieving into the sun, which was directly behind him as his silhouette emerged. Short, robed, bearded, covered with beads and wearing a large headdress, he boogied across the stage to his piano as syncopated rhythms of New Orleans R&B filled the air. We were not prepared at all for this, but quickly settled into a head-nodding groove as the music and second-hand smoke infused our minds. He was touring in support of the album Gumbo, his April 1972 release of New Orleans standards. Given the circumstances and passage of time, I don't recall what he played, but notable songs from that album include: "Iko Iko", "Let the Good Times Roll", "Stack-a-Lee", and "Little Liza Jane."

We were soon knocked out of our mellow state and onto our feet as the J. Geils Band charged on stage and hit the opening chords to the Smokey Robinson-penned "First I Look at the Purse." Its driving riff is nearly identical to Humble Pie's take on Ray Charles' "I Don't Need No Doctor," from their Rockin' the Fillmore LP. Very high energy stuff! This was J Geils before they gained fame and notoriety with songs about centerfolds, love that stinks and bowling ball wives. Led by Boston DJ and vocalist Peter Wolf, they performed hard-rocking versions of blues songs composed by artists such as John Lee Hooker and Otis Rush. This was the tour that produced their classic "Live" Full House recorded in April 1972 at Detroit's Cinderella Ballroom. Mike and I were stunned by their set and later agreed it was the highlight of the evening.

The energy was flowing now, the crowd was 35,000 strong, darkness had set in and elaborate props were being arranged on-stage. Although we were outdoors, the air was heavy with smoke. We were all on our feet, packed and pressing toward the stage. The Alice Cooper show was about to begin.

The lights go out, the opening riff of "Public Animal #9" fills the air, the spotlight flashes on, and there he is. It was surreal. Fright makeup, leather vest on bare skin, tattered black leotards, knee-high leather boots. He stalked the stage like a demented carnival barker, growling lyrics. The band was at the top of their game and at the height of their career. In the past 18 months they'd released three seminal albums of the hard rock genre, Love It To Death, Killer and School's Out. I don't remember the set list but found one online from later in the tour. Mainly the hits from those three albums: "Caught in a Dream", "Under My Wheels", "Be My Lover", "I'm Eighteen" and so on. The music was incredibly loud.

But their performances go beyond rock to combination theatre of the macabre and morality play. Alice later claimed that much of it was satirical, but we weren't so sure at the time. Alice always played the villain, but the villain is punished in the end. Alice was hanged, guillotined, pummeled with garbage cans. Lanky drummer Neal Smith, playing in his hometown, leapt completely over his drum set to join the melee during "Gutter Cat Vs. The Jets." Alice incorporated lyrics from "American Pie" into "I'm Eighteen", chanting "Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry" over and over. During "School's Out" a helicopter hovered over the stadium, was spotlighted, and soon started dropping its cargo - posters and panties! They're falling everywhere and people are lunging for them. This makes perfect sense to anyone owning the original School's Out album. The LP itself is encased in a pair of panties (I got the pink ones) and enclosed in an album sleeve that flips open as the lid of an old-fashioned school desk.

After "School's Out" they left the stage to thunderous ovation, returning to play their new single written for the upcoming presidential election, "Elected." Off they go again and the stadium lights come on.

We filed out of the stadium into the cooling night. A guy was selling knockoff black and white Alice Cooper posters for $1 and I bought one as consolation for not catching any of the chopper swag. We arrived at the truck and decided to wait until traffic cleared. We were simultaneously charged by what we had witnessed and been a part of, and mellowed by the second hand smoke we'd been breathing most of the evening. Nothing to do but sit on the tailgate and reflect over Pepsi and Stroh's. Our ears were singed.

Eventually traffic cleared and we headed west on Waterloo Road then I-76. We pulled over in a rest area (which no longer exists) about 10 miles west of Akron for the night. Every picnic table was covered with sleeping concert-goers; others were scattered around the ground in sleeping bags. We retreated to our comfy mattress in the back to catch a few winks before heading back to Upper the next morning.

The summer was not yet over for Mike Tesmer and me. More evenings at the Gaslight, Zeke concerts, and cruises up and down Sandusky Ave lie ahead. The summer ended in mid-September when I headed off for Bowling Green to begin the rest of my life. Mike stayed in Upper for a year, working at Stephens Lumber to save money for college before leaving himself to Columbus. But these were the best of our times together, and we would remember it as the Summer of Alice.

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This essay was inspired by the March 14, 2011 induction of both Alice Cooper and Dr. John into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The J. Geils Band was nominated this year but not elected. The original Alice Cooper band performed at the induction ceremony.

The best way to vicariously experience the music of this concert is through the Dr. John album Gumbo, the J. Geils Band album "Live" Full House, and the Alice Cooper album Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits.