Let’s just get this out of the way right up front. They killed Alice Cooper FOUR times on stage on Saturday. FOUR! Do you have any idea how impressive that is? I don’t think you do! Most performers can’t even be bothered to kill themselves on stage ONCE a night let alone FOUR! Alice has been meeting his maker on stage for years now and it is still thrilling, exciting and hilarious. There is a band of gimps initially appearing looking like stage hands but it soon transpires they are trying to kill Alice. The hanging is a classic, as is the guillotine. The gimps get him into an Iron Maiden full of spikes at one point and impale him with a giant SYRINGE (full of – œ_Poison_’ of course). It’s all great Theatre of the Macabre stuff.

I have seen Alice Cooper in concert quite a lot. The first time was back in 1978 on the Welcome to My Nightmare tour. He was a crazy alcoholic, drug hoover back then and his show was a mind-blowing mix of Broadway style showmanship, Hammer Horror ghouls and shockery, great songs and dirty rock and roll music. Alice Cooper turns turned sixty one this year. These days he is a golfer. And a born again Christian but he is still one of the best rock shows you will ever see.

The difference between Alice and his imitators (and Marilyn Manson I am looking directly at you) is Cooper has always been more than a circus act – he has always had great songs. On Saturday Alice went back as far as thirty eight years. Cranking through the hits as well as dusting off a bunch of obscure tracks for the die-hards.

One of the great opening riffs of all time Schools Out from 1972 rips through Thebby and the curtain drops, Alice looks great in his leather outfit. He was never pretty and the years have just served to make him more Alice Coopery. The audience is up on its feet from the start. Straight into Department of Youth from the classic 1975 Welcome To My Nightmare album, in fact he ends up playing seven out of the eleven tracks on Nightmare. Which begs the question, next tour why not just do all of Welcome to my Nightmare from start to finish as the first act and then do the other stuff as a second act? You are right in thinking I am a genius for coming up with this idea and should be given a job telling my favourite acts what to do with their careers.

He digs deep into the back catalogue this evening with songs from 1971’s Love It To Death (_18, Ballad of Dwight Fry, My Body_) and Killers (_Dead Babies, Killer, Be My Lover_) albums and right up to Vengeance Is Mine from last years brilliant Along Came A Spider. Spider is a sterling album harking back to the concept albums (_Lace & Whiskey, From The Inside, Nightmare_) he was famed for in the 1970s, with all the songs telling a complete story. With Spider he plays the role of a serial killer who removes a leg from each of his victim (yes he’s building a spider) and the material well written, performed with sinister precision and great tunes. When he performs Vengeance tonight he appears a top a large moveable staircase with a leather jacket with extra spider arms and it looks fantastic.

That he did a bunch of songs off Goes To Hell and From The Inside, two of my absolute favourite Cooper albums was a pleasant surprise. I’m Guilty, From The Inside, Nurse Rosetta and combining Only Women Bleed with I Never Cry worked a treat. The tail of the set gets grittier and ends in a run of Dirty Diamonds, Killer, I Love The Dead, No More Mr Nice Guy and Under My Wheels, before a Schools Out reprise.

There are props and costume changes and shtick from the gimps and the crazy Nurse (played by his daughter), he treats the audience with – œpearl’ necklaces, – œbillion’ dollar notes and his traditional balloons full of confetti. It never breaks pace, it never gets boring, you never lose interest, and there are no duds. Surprisingly the only song from his Trash era is Poison, clearly a crowd favourite, with the reaction being so huge I was surprised that he didn’t chuck us a Bed of Nails, but no matter. When I check the time I can hardly believe my eyes. Alice has crammed 27 into just over an hour and forty minutes. Nothing seemed cut or rushed, but Cooper’s mastery of the stage, his mesmerizing on-stage persona and an enviable songbook of material makes him an absolute master showman. I look forward to seeing Nightmare in its entirety next time Alice.