Saturday 25/10/09 Alice Cooper @ The Orpheum Theatre, Boston MA

Alice Cooper is well-known for pioneering the genre of shock rock, melding theatrical excess with a love of comic book horror stories splattered against a garage/psych/metal musical backdrop. His influence on people like Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie are well-documented, but he's also had some of the bigger underground/noise rock paying attention as well. The Melvins covered two of his songs on 'Lysol', hardcore legend John Brannon's Easy Action lifted Alice's second LP for their name as well as covering "Public Animal #9" during his Laughing Hyenas days, and Amphetamine Reptile head Tom Hazelmyer's band Halo of Flies belied a familiarity with 'Killer', his fourth record. But what's the AC of today like?' Is his blackened soul now just a dingy grey? Has he been killed on stage one time too many, snuffing out his musical spark as well?  I was set to find out.

The show starts with a large scrim obscuring but not obliterating a silhouette of a murder scene, as a knife is taken and plunged into a hapless victim. Scrim billowing to the floor to reveal a crumpled figure lying on the drum riser, Alice climbs down, brandishing his cane to ward off anyone in a ten foot radius, mans the mic and starts the evening's entertainment. And if the man also known as Vincent Furnier can still do one thing, it's entertain. He knows people are there to hear the prime cuts from the early to mid-70's work, and he does not disappoint. The signatory opening riffs of 'No More Mr Nice Guy; gets the crowd charged up, and they don't let up.

It'd be hard to argue with the setlist, as the arm-pump/devil horn quotient was riding high during 'Under My Wheels' and 'I'm Eighteen' and Alice camped it up in 'Be My Lover.' If someone puts out the amount of records Alice has done (and that total stands at twenty-five right now), it's hard to avoid some fallow years. 'Dirty Diamonds' and 'Vengeance Is Mine' were reminiscent of the kind of bland metal that MTV would serve up in the 90s during 'Headbanger's Ball'. Luckily we were served 'Halo of Flies' next and despite the tepid drum solo at the end from Eric Singer (on loan from Kiss) it sounded great.

A couple of wilfully misogynistic songs were doled out next, with Alice popping blood capsules left and right across the complicit stage performer during 'Only Women Bleed'; 'Cold Ethyl' followed, a tongue-in-cold-cheek ballad about necrophilia. The feminists were not burning their bras in the aisles. 'Dead Babies' would push the boundaries of good taste a bit further as a bloodied baby doll (complete with trademark eye makeup, eliminating any paternity question) was pulled out from the pram Alice was pushing around stage, after his handy work of hammer and spike had been employed. Maybe thirty-six years ago that would have horrified people, but the days of shock rock have long moved on from even the likes of Throbbing Gristle and Whitehouse, and Alice knows he's not being particularly edgy; it really had more of an exaggerated vaudeville flavor, including his straitjacketed trip to the gallows for his crime.

The spectacle came to a rousing close with a blistering 'Billion Dollar Babies', Alice flicking pierced dollars from his saber and onto the crowd, and the closer 'Elected' was particularly relevant, with fake Obama and McCain clashing on stage as a caricature of GWB looked on from the drum riser. A troubled man for troubled times indeed.

The show in pictures: