Alice Cooper Clyde Auditorium 31-10-11

Alice Cooper on Halloween can it get any better? If you’re going to see him it may as well be on the single night of the year that feels as if it’s purpose built just so that Alice can come out and play with all his toys. So on a wet Monday night sees me off to Glasgow and the Clyde Auditorium better known as the Armadillo to the locals because of its shape. This is a first for me as though the building has been around for a while now I’ve never been to a concert there I’m normally in hall 4 of the SECC which sits right next door and is the normal large venue used by all the major touring bands visiting Scotland.

This is the last night of the UK leg of Alice’s Halloween Night of Fear tour and suitably it is Halloween, the venue is filling up nicely as I arrive with a very large proportion of the audience in fancy dress for the occasion everything from your traditional witches, ghosts and ghouls to Alice clones, zombie nurses complete with wheelchairs, Jack Sparrows and a very tasty batgirl :) The Armadillo is a modern purpose built 3000 seat venue which is beginning to look like all the inmates of Arkham Asylum are out on day passes.  The night’s music starts with a well received set from The New York Dolls with Pills going down very well, but it’s clear that all everybody wants is to see Alice Cooper.

The audience don’t have long to wait till the Vincent Price into tape starts running and it’s show time with the curtain dropping to reveal Alice on top of a tall tower with a spider armed coat on singing The Black Widow, his band for tonight comprises both old and new members the old is the return of Steve Hunter who played with Alice Cooper in the Seventies and the new and a first for the Alice Cooper band is Orianthi the first female member in the band. The rest of the group comprises of Chuck Garric, Tommy Henriksen and Glen Sobe and thanks to the good acoustics in the venue the sounds is clean and clear which highlights there musical abilities very well indeed.

Without any preamble it’s straight into Brutal Planet and Alice has joined the rest of the band onstage crossing from side to side clearly enjoying himself, then the classics start with I’m Eighteen, Under My Wheels, Billion Dollar Babies and No More Mr Nice Guy one after another not content with using his own props of which there are many (swords, blood splattered crutches and fake money to name a few) Alice takes a baby doll from a member of the audience beside me and uses that along with his own props for Billion Dollar Babies much to the delight of the member of the audience who brought it. Of course all these props pale into insignificance with the appearance of Alice’s snake one of the stars of any Alice Cooper Show wrapped around his body.

It’s a jump forward to the nineties and Hey Stoopid next a song I’ve always liked and the crowd by now are well into it singing along to every word. The band is very tight and Orianthi is showing that despite her young age compared to the rest of the band she is more than capable of holding her own against her peers when it comes to playing guitar.  The show is slick clearly very well rehearsed and even when there are problems and roadies have to make an appearance on stage as they had to tonight when there was a problem with Tommy’s pedal board they are dressed in costume so that they do not detract from the rest of the show.

As with all good things the time slips bye far too quickly and you suddenly realise that Orianthi is cranking out the riff to the most famous Alice Cooper song School’s Out which tonight has a nice excerpt of Pink Floyd’s  ‘Another Brick In The Wall’ added to it. The band leaves the stage to raptures cheering and cries for more and the crowd are not disappointed when a few minutes later they return to the stage and launch into Elected with Alice appearing back on stage waving a giant Scottish flag and wearing a Scotland rugby top beneath his silver jacket which he removes to reveal that it has his name emblazoned across the back which goes down very well with the patriotic Scottish crowd. The stage is now full of very large balloons which when Alice bursts them with his sword shower the audience in confetti which is hiding inside them.

In conclusion the show is slick, well executed and you never tire as there is always something different on stage to watch. Mr Cooper is a consummate master of his craft and knows exactly what the audience wants and expects of himself. His band is tight and never missed a beat during the whole show. Halloween will never be the same for me now unless of course I have the good fortune of being at yet another Alice Cooper concert on Halloween.

Band Members:

Alice Cooper                     Vocals

Steve Hunter                    Guitar

Chuck Garric                    Bass

Tommy Henriksen          Guitar

Orianthi                             Guitar

Glen Sobe                          Drums

Set List

1. The Black Widow
2. Brutal Planet
3. I’m Eighteen
4. Under My Wheels
5. Billion Dollar Babies
6. No More Mr. Nice Guy
7. Hey Stoopid
8. Is It My Body
9. Halo of Flies
10. I’ll Bite Your Face Off
11. Muscle of Love
12. Only Women Bleed
13. Cold Ethyl
14. Feed My Frankenstein
15. Clones (We’re All)
16. Poison
17. Wicked Young Man
18. I Love the Dead
19. School’s Out
20. Elected