Alice Cooper, Bristol Colston Hall, Oct 26th 2011

Alice Cooper’s Halloween Night of Fear
Bristol Colston Hall
Wednesday 26th Oct 2011
Alaina Henderson

With Halloween in the air, things are turning scary. The Father of rock horror himself Alice Cooper is in town to get things started properly.
Bristol’s Colston Hall is subjected to the shock rock treatment tonight. As the freaks, zombies and monsters gather, Alice takes us through his greatest hits, plus a few new songs. Snake laden Cooper starts off with ‘The Black Widow’ and later ‘I’ll bite your face off’ from the new album ‘Nightmare 2’ which goes down surprisingly well, with the crowd singing along to every word. Alice sports a jacket emblazoned with ‘new song’ on the back, just in case you didn’t know. The blood really gets pumping when the band belt out ‘Feed My Frankenstein’ which if everyone is honest, is what they were waiting for. With that, a 15 foot monster bounds onto the stage, lurching towards the crowd with his freaky Frankenstein features. Quite scary stuff in a jovial sense; but at a show like this you want to be freaked a little bit.
As expected with any Alice show, the gore keeps coming. The penultimate song ‘School’s out’ featuring a snippet of the perfectly fitting Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ begins with his own decapitation. With that, the executioner takes the head, sucks the dripping blood and sprays the first 6 rows of the audience. Nice. All part of the fun of the fair where Alice is concerned.
The show ends with hit ‘Elected’ while Alice is adorned in silver top and tails, trailing the England flag. Confetti and balloons blanket the crowd, adding to the ‘Wild Party’ atmosphere that Alice is campaigning for.
To witness classics from his heyday such as this, plus Poison and ‘I’m Eighteen’ live is not to be missed. That mixed with the theatrics and fun filled nonsense all makes for one hell of a show.