Rob Zombie, Alice Cooper bring out live snakes and stage monsters at Wells Fargo Arena show

Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper’s concert in Des Moines Saturday night at the Wells Fargo Arena could easily be likened to a play.

There were wardrobe changes on Cooper’s part, characters that included a forked-tongue devil and a live snake on stage, theatrics like a fake beheading and props such as Zombie's skeleton mic stand.

Considering Cooper’s “shock rock” trailblazing ways, and Zombie’s long penchant for all things horror, nothing of their performance should come as a surprise to any fans.

By the time Zombie left the stage, capping their Des Moines stop on their Freaks on Parade tour with Filter and Ministry opening, he’d gotten a rather reserved crowd of 7,500 rocking out.

Here are eight of the night’s most memorable moments.

Two grand entrances: Alice Cooper is banned in Iowa and Rob Zombie calls out ‘Iowa’

Alice Cooper kicked off his set by bursting through a banner that looked like the front of a newspaper, the headline reading, “Banned in Iowa: Alice Cooper.” Cooper stood clad in his iconic black top hat, a belt hugging his hips with his name on it, his cane and heavy eye makeup. The first song of the night was, fittingly, “Lock Me Up” before he launched into “No More Mr. Nice Guy” and “I’m Eighteen.”

Zombie’s set started off far heavier with 2021’s “The Triumph of King Freak (A Crypt of Preservation and Superstition).” The curtain that hid Zombie, his drummer who was elevated several meters above the stage, and the rest of band fell as Zombie yelled, “Iowa.” The musician stood on top of a large skeletal head in the middle of the stage that read “Zombie.”

‘Snakebite’ becomes a possibility

Joining Cooper and his five-piece band for one song was a cold-blooded, scaly reptile.

Naturally, it was during the song “Snakebite.”

The snake, presumably a boa constrictor due to the rocker’s history with bringing the reptiles on stage, spent the song wrapped around Cooper’s neck, at times its head practically resting against his cheek or wrapping its body around Cooper’s hands, making the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer’s movements occasionally awkward.

Alice Cooper gets the guillotine by his wife

Near the end of the set, Cooper was led out on stage in a straitjacket, playing the part of man getting tortured by his captor until he broke free and fought back. After, he was joined by a woman, later revealed by Cooper to be his wife, Cheryl, wearing something akin to a Marie Antoinette Halloween costume. She led her husband to a large guillotine, where Cooper lost his head in front of thousands, his wife prancing around stage with it as the band launched into “I Love the Dead.”

The crowd is wished ‘Sweet Dreams,’ Alice Cooper style

The second to last song of the night was “Elected,” transforming the stage into a patriotic scene as red, white and blue streamers were shot into the crowd on the floor and visuals on the screens on stage showed posters that read, “Elect Cooper for President.”

“Thank you, Des Moines. Thank you, Iowa,” Cooper said, his clothes still sporting some fake blood at the beginning of the song.

He skipped the theatrics of an encore — the leaving of the stage, stagehands seemingly packing up equipment — and asked, “One more?”

There was no mistaking the crowd’s agreement.

One more turned out to be “School’s Out,” which ended his set playfully as giant, colorful inflatable balls were tossed into the crowd, some of which were popped by Cooper as they made their way back to the stage, bursting with confetti.

“May all of your nightmares be horrendous," Cooper wished the crowd. "Good night!”

More: Shock metal icons Gwar brought down the house at Wooly's on Tuesday night

Did someone lose a cow? Rob Zombie wants to know

“It’s so nice to be here in Iowa this evening,” he said. “Look at all the lovely people gathered to freak out.”

He told the crowd that they have a UFO situation on their hands.

“Anyone in this crowd tonight, have you been missing a cow?” Zombie asked. “Somebody must be a farmer who's missing a cow.”’

One audience member on the floor gestured to them in response, catching Zombie’s attention.

“You are? Yeah, I had a feeling it was you.”

Where did the cows go, according to Zombie?

A flying saucer.

And what were they doing?

His song, “Well, Everybody’s F---ing in a U.F.O,” answers that question. Zombie was joined on stage during the song by a giant, alienlike character with an ape-like body that it lugged around. That was just one of multiple creatures that joined Zombie on stage, including a devil with a forked tongue hanging out of his oversized, horned head during “Superbeast.”

Rob Zombie reflects on two milestones: ‘House of 1000 Corpses’ and ‘Hellbilly Deluxe’

Zombie’s filmography includes “Halloween” and “The Lords of Salem.”

But it was 2003’s “House of 1000 Corpses” that has gained a cult following, and during the show, a trailer for its 20^th anniversary played, announcing it would return to theaters in October.

Another milestone Zombie acknowledged Saturday night was that “Hellbilly Deluxe,” his solo album after his time in the Grammy-nominated heavy metal band White Zombie, turned 25.

He called that realization “shocking” and urged the crowd to “go off” in the way audiences did back when he was on tour for “Hellbilly Deluxe” years ago.

“Tonight you feel no pain,” he told the crowd. “Tomorrow morning when you wake up, you go, ‘Eh, probably shouldn’t have done that.’”

Women get a special shoutout during Rob Zombie’s set

After playing with the crowd to get loud, he directed his attention.

“Ladies of Iowa, there is no such thing as a party or a rock revolution without the ladies,” Zombie said, prompting cheers from the women.

He dedicated “Living Dead Girl” to them.

Rob Zombie needles Wells Fargo Arena crowd to get moving

In between songs, when Zombie tested the crowd in an effort to see just how wild they could get, his response made it quite clear how well they did.

“I don’t want to complain or anything, but my 85-year-old mother who still comes to the shows is f---ing crazier than that,” he said.

He urged the crowd to go back to the 1990s for one reason — to get rid of their cellphones and “pretend” they know what to do during a rock show for a moment.

“The reason there are no chairs on the floor is because we thought you would break them all,” Zombie said. “So break those invisible chairs, for Christ’s sake.”

It wasn’t the first time in the night Zombie remarked on the crowd’s lack of movement, but this time, Zombie’s words seemed to galvanize the crowd more effectively. Concertgoers on the floor began jumping up and down in time with “Thunder Kiss ’65,” from the rocker’s White Zombie days, as bursts of fire lit up the stage and two mosh pits formed on the floor.

The energy carried into the final song of the night, one of Zombie’s most well-known, “Dragula.”

Paris Barraza covers entertainment, lifestyle and arts at the Des Moines Register. Reach her at PBarraza@registermedia.com or follow her on Twitter @ParisBarraza.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Rob Zombie, Alice Cooper get theatrical at Wells Fargo Arena show