Before that though, we get the return of another band. The New York Dolls. The Dolls have undergone some line up changes since RTM last clapped eyes on them two and a half years back – with a couple of them flitting off to join Michael Monroe’s band, leaving just mainstays David Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain to steer the ship. Things weren’t helped by the fact they have also released the dreadful “Dancing Backwards In High Heels” album earlier this year.
From the off tonight they are fighting a losing battle. The crowd is there to see Alice Cooper and although there is plenty of enthusiasm from the stage early on “Looking For A Kiss” displaying all their trademark New York chic, it soon dissipates. Most of the band look bored by the half hour mark and where Johansen used to be the epitome of Mick Jagger prototype, hip shaking cool, tonight he is a disinterested old bloke reading the lyrics. They play an hour, “Cuz I Sez So” the title track from their last album, is still awesome and they do an encore of the swaggering “Personality Crisis.” Guitarist Sylvain tries to get the crowd to start a chant of their name. No one does. They leave to polite applause.
For tonight, ladies and gentleman is part rock and roll, part circus. The stage show is different to last time (there is no Nurse Rozetta to chase lay down the law) the setlist is different to last time, but tonight is unmistakably Alice Cooper.
And it’s unmistakably brilliant.
The first half is low on gimmickry. After the aforementioned scaffold/flames cavalcade of “Black Widow”, it settles back into almost a regular gig. The vastly underrated Brutal Planet gives way to “I’m Eighteen”, “Billion Dollar Babies”, “No More Mr. Nice Guy” and “Hey Stoopid.” Frankly if this was any normal rock band in jeans and t shirts it would still have been incredible, but Alice isn’t really your jeans and t-shirts type of bloke.
So snakes come out, crutches are used, costume changes are had, swords are played with – and he hasn’t even got going yet!
After a some soloing from his talented band – guitarist Orianthi and Drummer Glen Sobel particularly impressive - the stand out track from the new Welcome 2 My Nightmare” record – “I’ll Bite Your Face Off” is aired (Alice wearing a jacket that says “new song” on the back) but things kick up a notch with the ever-brilliant Cold Ethyl as Cooper does all kinds of unspeakable things.
This being Halloween “Feed My Frankenstein” ends with a huge great monster on stage, after which it’s a white-knuckle ride to the finish, “Poison” is followed by “Wicked Young Man” during which Alice kills a photographer who has been his nemesis all night. But students of these things know the star of this show always pays for his crimes and he is beheaded in time-honored fashion.
Then he’s back, this time cast as the ringmaster of a giant rock n roll party that sees balloons appear for “Schools Out” and cannons full of streamers during the encore of “Elected.”
During the latter he says: “I know there’s problems all across England, but you know what? I don’t care!” And for tonight neither do we, because Alice Cooper and his band have done what they always do – and delivered one of the gigs of the year.
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