Relive the hell with Shanebutler’s gallery

Everyone who attended Challenge Stadium on Tuesday night learnt an important lesson (even if they already knew). Alice Cooper may be a golf playing, god praying sexagenarian, but he can kick your ass in three seconds, at maximum. Cooper and his band did just that for over ninety minutes of theatre, death and some of the greatest rock songs ever written. The audience, needless to say, loved every single second.

The majority of that audience, however, had to sit through Electric Mary before their appointment with The Master. Electric Mary play perfectly acceptable rock songs, but there’s nothing even remotely original or interesting about them. A horribly awkward moment occurred when lead vocalist, Rusty, tried to amuse the audience but instead fell flat on his face. To close the set, each member of the band performed a solo, and eventually it was over. If you only entered the venue in time for Alice Cooper, you didn’t miss a thing.

As tension coursed through the venue, a brilliantly horrific banner rose to obscure the set, and finally the lights went down. The instant that the banner dropped and Cooper appeared, the crowd roared in rock and roll exhilaration. Apart from some expected aging, the man hasn’t changed whatsoever. He is still the sneering, menacing villain that the world knows and loves. Dressed in leather, eyes smeared with mascara and hair longer than anyone else in the band, Cooper was the image of a legendary rock and roll star.

Opening with a shortened version of School’s Out, and then directly heading into Department Of Youth and I’m Eighteen (which included a crutch made of bones), the hits came quick and solidly.

These were anthems that everyone in the crowd knew, and the majority sang along with every word. On stage, his crack team of musical commandos provided almost as much theatre as Cooper himself, and their playing was transcendent. A small gang of hooded characters also ran about the stage at certain points, fixing technical problems and providing props. Regrettably, during Wicked Young Man, one was stabbed straight through the abdomen by Cooper’s mic stand. Cooper, of course, had to pay the price and was thrown into a straitjacket by the rest of the hooded gang, just in time for The Ballad Of Dwight Fry, a show standard. This time, however, there was a twist. After escaping from the straitjacket, he was dragged to a guillotine where he met an untimely end.

The show at this point, was set in hell, and Cooper, not surprisingly, soon returned to the stage. Half a dozen classics from Welcome To My Nightmare and Alice Cooper Goes To Hell were included, as well as Poison, one of his biggest hits.

Alice found another victim during this segment of the show; his daughter, Calico. As the band performed Cold Ethyl, Cooper dragged out his victim’s “corpse” and proceeded to throw it around and dance with it. Payback came quickly though; During From The Inside, he was tranquillised by an enormous needle and carried off stage. The band played on, and each member delivered a knock-out solo performance.

During Nurse Rozetta Cooper was wheeled on stage (in an ancient wheel chair), by said nurse; again performed by Calico Cooper. In arguably the most entertaining segment of the show, Cooper played a Sanatorium patient. Nurse Rozetta’s taunting and teasing provided some serious eye candy for the guys in the crowd, but she too soon became a victim of the dastardly Master. After somewhat erotically attempting to grind off a chastity belt with an angle-grinder, spilling sparks all over the stage, a screen was erected in a spotlight and Rozetta began a strip tease… only for Cooper to seemingly strangle her to death soon after. Then came the classic ballads of Only Women Bleed and I Never Cry. Rozetta awoke as Cooper was taken to the gallows (wearing her hat and wig) and just when it seemed that she had forgiven him, she kicked away his stool and Cooper was hanged.

As the band performed Vengeance Is Mine from the latest album, Along Came A Spider Cooper returned once more, this time on a large staircase. Dirty Diamonds and Billion Dollar Babies came next, with Cooper throwing necklaces and money to his idolising audience. Once again, he was lead to his death. In the most spectacular of all his executions, Cooper was thrown into a metal box with an array of large metal spikes aimed directly at it. As Calico proceeded to charge the spikes into him, crushing him to death, the band appropriately performed I Love The Dead, and the crowd merrily joined in with the chorus.

Cooper finally returned for one major party of a finale. No theatrics, no drama, just all out fun classics No More Mr. Nice Guy and Under My Wheels. The band rocked out, perhaps harder than they had been for the rest of the night, and the audience was in ecstatic joy. School’s Out was reprised as an encore, this time in full.

A more than appropriate ending for an exhaustingly marvellous performance. It truly was good to see you again, Alice Cooper.

Relive the hell with Shanebutler’s gallery