Alice Cooper – Past and Present – 02 Arena – 25 July 2025Alice Cooper – Past and Present - 02 Arena – 25 July 2025 - Your Online Magazine for Hard Rock and Heavy Metal

Word: Adrian Stonley / Pictures (C) Robert Sutton Photography

Alice Cooper – 02 Arena – 25 July 2025

An Alice Cooper show is always going to be something special, and tonight is no different. As a veteran of numerous Alice gigs over the last forty plus years, I always wait in anticipation for the man to hit the stage to see what tongue in cheek horror he is going to unleash upon us. Tonight is no different.

The stage initially is hidden behind a large curtain as two characters dressed as plague doctors, complete with bells stalk the stage. As the curtain falls so the band tear into Lock Me Up from the Raise your fist and Yell album, and this is a tune that is not often played in the live environment so bodes well for a different type of set.

That said of course you are going to get all of the typical Alice accoutrements. The man is a legend and those here tonight realise they are in the presence of his unholy alter ego.

With Welcome to the Show from his last offering up next this is the perfect flamboyant introduction required, and even if there are a few in the audience who aren’t entirely cognisant of these first couple of tunes it is all put right as the band tear into No More Mr. Nice and I’m Eighteen, although tonight there is no snake introduced to the stage. This is just Alice and hi band doing what they do best.

As Alice stalks then stage looking for his next victim, the band, with Nita Strauss at the helm lay down the perfect deep and dark soundtrack to the villainous activity. Hey Stoopid and He’s Back (The Man Behind The Mask) takes us back to the eighties and a couple of his more interesting stage gags as firstly a photographer makes his way onto the stage, before having a microphone stand rammed through him, and then a second photographer, clearly not having learned from the dispatching of the first has her throat cut by a rampaging Jason of Friday 13^th infamy. It’s all typical Alice shock rock and delightfully hammy.

Feed My Frankenstein follows with another huge caricature storming the stage and tormenting the band before being dispatched by Alice in his own uncompromising style.

Go To Hell follows, with a backdrop of animated skeletons in top hats, whilst a dominatrix enters stage left, afflicting Alice with a whip before he turn it on her and drives her away, Alice, the cursed creature remains lord of the stage.

Poison brings everyone to there feet as probably his biggest hit is shredded beyond recognition and the band show exactly why they work with tis legend. There are no half measures here and the venomous guitar attack takes this song to another level.

With Alice departing the stage to the familiar vocal strains of actor Vincent Price as he decries the downfall of civilisation to our favourite eight-legged nightmare, as the band are given the opportunity to show what they are made of, yet we are not talking a raft of solo’s, although Nita does take centre stage to kick of this section. They are a band, and a team together and the musicianship is perfectly interlocking and melodious as the raise the roof.

A bedraggled Alice returns bedecked in a straight jacket for old time favourite ‘The Ballad Of Dwight Fry’ as a gimp with an electric prod takes great delight in tormenting him further, and unsurprisingly in true Alice style he wins over, breaking his bonds and turning on his tormentor. Yet the showmanship is not over as the inimitable gallows are brought forth and a number of creatures, including his wife Cheryl, bedecked as Madame Guillotine drives him to his inevitable fate. The music, a medley of Killer and I Love the Dead roars to a crescendo , until the arena is plunger into silence as the blade drops and Alice’s head tumbles into the basket. With Madame Guillotine picking up the bloodied head she raises it to the adoring masses before throwing it off stage and leaving.

But of course, Alice is Alice and he roars back on stage, now joined by Johnny Depp on guitar, looking as dapper as Jack Sparrow but playing his Hollywood vampire part on guitar, he crashes through the familiar opening chords of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid. Alice resplendent in an Ozzy t-shirt raises the roof with this tribute to the departed Prince of Darkness and for once the King of Darkness is prepared to stand aside.

The set ends with the obligatory Schools Out and Alice now dressed in shimmering top hat and tails, cane in hand takes control back of proceedings. Quietly in the background we become aware of further individuals entering the fray as the remaining members of the original Alice Cooper band, Dennis Dunaway, Michael Bruce and Neil Smith join proceedings. As Schools out is interjected with a snippet of Pink Floyd’s Another Brick In the Wall, which fits perfectly we are once more left wondering what makes this man tick. Whatever we all need some of it. Alice is still something else. The dark lord of tongue in cheek schlock horror.

The Revenge of Alice Cooper, the original Alice Cooper band’s first new album in more than 50 years, is out now on earMUSIC.

Our review and links to buy the album is below:

https://ear-music.shop/products/section/11756