Crack

Crack is walking towards the Colston Hall on a relatively wet and miserable night, but that doesn’t prevent a smile passing from cheek to cheek as we visualise Alice Cooper jumping out of some oversized neon Frankenstein, clad head-to-toe in leather and taking his rightful place onstage as a rock demi-god. When Crack arrives with friends we’re greeted with what we can only imagine is a standard greeting outside an Alice Cooper gig: “We’re not worthy! We’re not worthy!”

How could we not reference Wayne’s World here.

Anyway, as we find our seats at Colston Hall, it feels uncannily like the recreational room of a retirement home. I’m surrounded by weird, pissed, over- excited, out-of-control old people, but it’s great – except for the particularly unusual man to our right, who Crack firmly believe has a sex dungeon, or works as a professional man slave. Fruity.

Anyway from start to finish you get all the showmanship you would expect from such a legend. He comes out on a 14 ft. skeleton podium, playing Black Widow. He then goes through classics such as Eighteen, Billion Dollar Babies, No More Mr Nice Guy, Poison, School’s Out. The passion with which people seem to be enjoying the show is colossal. He is a gimmicky, shock-rock pastiche, parody master, and everyone here tonight is joining in. Chin- strokers at an Alice Cooper gig are less than welcome. The highlights include: brandishing a rapier covered in dollar bills and flinging loads of cash monies in to the crowd, a boa constrictor round his head/neck, and dancing round the stage kissing a mannequin. “If that isn’t fucking entertainment,” Crack shouts in unison, “what is?”

The ultimate highlight, though, may be during Feed My Frankenstein when all the old-timers start going wild before a man in a massive Frankenstein outfit runs out on stage. Crack looks at his compadre for the evening, and erupts in hysterical laughter.
This was exactly the sillines we had expected – he even did his guillotine trick onstage. It was a truly entertaining night. If you get the chance to lose all your pretentious inclinations, do it to Alice Cooper. Yes, it’s an utter novelty set, but it’s done so well and with so much charm. It’s not always about being serious, especially on Halloween.


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Words: Mystic Greg