Alice Cooper, The Cult and Creeper, May 25 2022, London 02 – Review by Dawn Osborne

Creeper are a new band for me and first impressions are memorable. Singer Will Gould cuts a striking figure with a body like a ballet dancer. Tall with a jet black quiff and razor sharp cheekbones he knows how to strike a pose (and facially looks a bit like Alice Cooper): with his sense of theatricality it’s not hard to guess why he is chosen for this gig.

It’s a rock n roll/pop punk kinda vibe with goth sensibilities. Hannah Greenwood on keyboards with her jet back bob like Louise Brooks and short black skater skirt with doc martins comes forward to do a pretty good duet for ‘Midnight’. They finish with the very poppy ‘Anabelle’. It’s a short set only five songs. They struck me as a bit of a teen popularity band at the moment, the dashing good looking vocalist and material with less substance to back it up, but it’s the first time I have seen them and so I will reserve judgement after a set that barely gave them time to warm up.

Ian Astbury of the Cult took to the stage with plenty of attitude and looking good in shades, black leather and a jet black man bun. Not taking no for an answer he verbally assaulted the crowd to get them up and going and he did have a certain amount of success with an early evening UK crowd who perhaps needed a push to stand up so early in the evening. It’s a retro set tonight, starting with ‘Sun King’ and ‘Automatic Blues’ from Sonic Temple (four out of the first five songs were from this album) and then ‘Sweet Soul Sister’ with a lovely soulful solo from Billy Duffy.

They gave the audience what they wanted in terms of hits and once they hit ‘Lil’ Devil’ mid set they are in their stride.They were sounding like they did on record live and, since that is what the crowd have come to hear, it is a bullseye, although he did seem to be a bit impatient to get the crowd to orgasm without any foreplay. During ‘Wildflower’ he asks them ‘Why are you all behaving? Jesus Christ!’. He does go out of his way to engage with the crowd reaching down to them and getting them to react. He’s certainly not complacent and clearly has an idea of how an old school rock star should be. However his positively aggressive, repeated physical assault upon his tambourine during ‘Firewoman’ kicking it to the back of the stage is a bit alarming and distracting, certainly giving a slightly unhinged or, at least, incredibly frustrated vibe.

Just before ‘Revolution’ he got out a Ukrainian flag in support of their position in the war and the crowd seemed sympathetic and appreciative. He took his hair temporarily out of his man bun and prayed in an emphatic Buddha style pose. The three massive hits from ‘Love’ followed ‘Revolution’, ‘Rain’ and ‘She Sells Sanctuary’ during which time his slightly aggressive attitude to the crowd and his tambourines continued. Fortunately the force of the music transcends any antics and they get a great reaction from the crowd. Finishing with ‘Love Removal Machine’ Astbury left the stage with the Ukrainian flag draped over his shoulders like a cape. A diva undoubtedly, but it’s definitely better in my book that the languid complacency exhibited by a lot of younger bands. Certainly from the old school Lemmy way of thinking that people come to see Rock Stars not the boy next door and Astbury did succeed in appearing to be from another planet, so I guess Lemmy will be looking down with approval.

Alice Cooper came on in a stove pipe black topper twirling a black white-tipped cane gesticulating to the crowd. Retreating to the back behind the semicircular gate with skulls for the guitar solos and the appearance of the huge wrinkly long haired Frankenstein’s monster he easily gives the impression of being master of all he surveys. ‘No More Mr Nice Guy’ follows and he’s already throwing his cane to the crowd causing a feeding frenzy. It’s hard to believe he’s over 70: he looks the way he always did and his Barnet all still his own is still as impressive as it was in the 80s. Cue ‘Bed of Nails’ with a blistering solo from Nita Strauss which elicits screams from the audience. Alice still looks virile in his black leather and perfectly capable of doing what he threatens to do in that song. The crowd are already going wild singing every word, they’re clearly all proud owners of the ‘Trash’ album.

‘Hey Stoopid’ with it’s rousing intro has the crowd singing unprompted. Wearing a Hollywood Vampires jacket and brandishing a rapier Alice climbs down to the front of the crowd to get even closer.

Tommy Henricksen comes to the fore and does the haunting intro to ‘Fallen in Love’ with Alice on mouth organ, before the rest of the band join in, Ryan Roxie taking the Rock n Roll style solo. I was totally lovin the extended mouth organ passages played by Alice which gave a poignant old time feel to this retro number.

‘Shut Up and Rock’ gets a traditional whammy style 80s solo from Ryan Roxie. This runs into a breathless version of ‘Go Man Go’ and ultimately ‘Under My Wheels’ which sees Ryan Roxie doin that one legged horizontal guitar hop much loved by Andy McCoy.

Nita Strauss dons a black hood for her guitar solo appearing at the back of the haunted castle set, before coming front centre stage for a finger tapping whammy laden fest which leads into ‘Roses on White Lace’ for which Alice has a blood soaked large white fencing style shirt and Cheryl Cooper makes her first appearance as a bloody soaked white haired ghost bride sharing a dramatic screen like kiss with Alice behind the semi-circular gate with skulls.

I was delighted to see ‘I’m Eighteen’ one of my very favourites with Alice coming on brandishing a grimy looking leg crutch.

The crowd really go wild for ‘Poison’ with a huge cheer. Alice is wearing a wine red velvet tail coat and has a riding crop which is shortly gifted to a lucky person in the first few rows. The show has been quite prop light at least for Alice so far, but in Billion Dollar Babies Alice as well as his sword originally owned by Errol Flynn in ‘Captain Blood’ there’s the giant inflatable baby with Alice Cooper make up and a trebuchet launching hundreds of Alice-headed dollar bills. RyanRoxie did a manic solo from the ramparts of the castle high up at the back.

Following the Black Widow Jam (with an amazing extended drum twirling Drum Solo from Glen Sobel) Alice returns for ‘Steven’ in a white straight jacket accompanied by some very alien looking bald children. Cheryl dressed as a Spanish Infanta very unwisely hands over the baby to Alice. Needless to say he ends up on the Guillotine during ‘Dead Babies’ and there’s still a pretty convincing illusion of his head being taken off and held up for all the see. Cue the rest of the band singing ‘I Love the Dead’, Ryan Roxie finishing with a dizzying twirl.

Alice is back for ‘Escape’ And ‘Teenage Frankenstein’ as a Zombie complete with the long haired Frankenstein monster this time for an extended appearance.

The encore is, of course, ‘School’s Out’ with Alice in White tails and topper and pure white cane accompanied by Chris Wyse, fellow Hollywood Vampire, huge amounts of bubbles, balloons and confetti including the now traditional ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ refrain. Not having spoken thus far in the show Alice introduces the band, including Nita Strauss as ‘Her Majesty – Guitarist of The Decade’ and Cheryl ‘who’s mine all mine’. Referring to the two year gap since the band were here due to ‘the Plague’ and with a wish ‘May all your nightmares be horrific!’ it’s all over!!

Twenty songs and Alice is still making it look easy!! Still a legend, a phenomena and looking super fit it looks like Alice has another twenty years in him at least. No need for an avatar or hologram here. We’ll take the real thing please!!

Dawn Osborne