Alice Cooper – ExCeL 2008

artist website

venue

impulse buy

For the first of eight concerts making up the British International Motor Show Music Festival, with styles ranging from hard rock to pop, Alice Cooper brought his theatrical show to the specially erected arena at the ExCeL centre.

The organisers constructed the concert arena at the back of the immense ExCeL car park, much of the rest of which was occupied with racetracks, stalls and other motor-related amusements. The arena itself was more or less square, with the large stage on one side and temporary grandstands on the other three. With this they did a very good job, with full stage lighting it felt like a genuine open-air arena, although the seats on the sides could perhaps have benefited from being at more of an angle to the stage, rather than at right-angles.

The shows carried no support acts, so the crowd were required to wait until around 9pm for Alice to start, but with his new (concept) album Along Came A Spider having come out in June, and the merchandise for this tour leg carrying the artwork from it, everyone was anticipating a new-look set based around story. It therefore came as somewhat of a disappointment that Alice played the same ‘Psycho Drama’ set he played last year on his headlining tour with Motörhead. Not even one new song.

This may have been because he expected a crowd consisting mainly of people who only knew the greatest hits, given the event this show was part of, but even if that was the case, why promote the new album with the tour merchandise, but not with the show? The show itself was of course flawless as usual, particularly outdoors in the fading sun. But that didn’t help the feeling that we were missing out on something more.

As with previous tours the undoubted highlight of the set was the extensive medley (currently without the inclusions of Killer and Devil’s Food) which kicks off with Only Women Bleed and runs through several moments of theatrics and other songs including Steven and The Ballad of Dwight Frye, all linked together effortlessly by Alice’s band. In these instances the music because that much more involving somewhere; a genuine performance piece. Keri Kelli’s Spanish acoustic guitar solo ahead of an excellent Desperado also proved a high point.

The promise is that Alice will complete a full tour in 2009 with a set which will include a large portion of the new album and a stage show to match. It’ll be a long time coming when it finally does arrive.

“ Not even one new song ”

Setlist: It’s Hot Tonight / No More Mr. Nice Guy / Under My Wheels / I’m Eighteen / Is It My Body / Woman of Mass Distraction / Lost In America / Feed My Frankenstein / Be My Lover / Dirty Diamonds / Muscle of Love / Keri Kelli solo / Desperado / Halo of Flies > Bass & drums jam > Eric Singer solo > Jam / Welcome To My Nightmare / Cold Ethyl / Only Women Bleed > Steven > Dead Babies > The Ballad of Dwight Frye > I Love The Dead / School’s Out // Billion Dollar Babies / Poison / Elected

Photo(s): Andy Lye

Written by Andy Lye
More: Gigs, Hard Rock, Alice Cooper