Billed as "Alice Cooper's Hallowe'en Night of Fear 3", this was a golden opportunity for his Scottish "kiddies" to join Cooper in celebrating a festival he claimed to have "almost invented".
The punters went for it, of course, and the venerable old hall was positively groaning under the weight of assorted zombies, ghouls and the like.
It was surprising that Alice produced – for him – an almost restrained performance. Not restrained as in the usual definition of the word, of course. We still had the costumes, the props, the pyro and the glitter bombs. There were just fewer of them. For example, with no Killer sequence in this set, there were no hangings, usually de rigueur in an Alice Cooper show. The closest we came to it was during Feed My Frankenstein, when our anti-hero was strapped to a machine and vanished in a cloud of sparks and smoke, only to reappear in the guise of a 10-foot monster. The live boa constrictor made a welcome return, although what the poor creature made of being held aloft while the band belted out Devil's Food is anyone's guess.
That said, it was a fine show. The artist formerly known as Vincent Furnier was in excellent voice and showed no sign of slowing down. The reduced level of pantomime left room for more songs, including a dead rock stars section, which covered The Doors, The Who, Jimi Hendrix and John Lennon – and his excellent band did them considerable justice. From opener Hello, Hooray, via new material like Caffeine, to closer Poison, it was classic Alice. He was rock's first out-and-out showman and he remains the best.
HHHH
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