SCRANTON — He loses his head thanks to a guillotine. He skewers a baby doll’s head with a sword. He gets impaled by an iron maiden and blood spurts into the crowd. He hangs lifeless from a gallows.
The Alice Cooper show, however, is less about what he does and more about your reaction to it. That mission statement is right in the first line of one of his songs: “Welcome to my nightmare/ I think you’re gonna like it.”
Cooper, 61, brought the “Theatre of Death” tour to the Scranton Cultural Center’s Harry and Jeanette Weisenberg Theatre on Tuesday. That meant a catalog of hits and a trunk-full of props that could rival Carrot Top, but the evening, thanks in part to a loud, receptive sold-out crowd of 1,800, was far from a joke. From the moment Cooper’s silhouette appeared behind a giant curtain emblazoned with the tour logo to the heavy chords ringing out in the finale, Cooper and his four-piece band put on a riveting show that merged theatrical elements with hard rock in a way pretenders like Marilyn Manson can only dream of.
The first three songs, “School’s Out,” “Department of Youth” and “I’m Eighteen,” could’ve been saved for encores but instead worked as a smack in the mouth and a notice that Cooper was shaking things up. The show was bigger, bolder and better than a fine concert he played at the F.M. Kirby Center in Wilkes-Barre in 2007. The set was different, with giant A, L, I, C and E letters at different depths, circus-like platforms for each musician, as was the song list, which shuffled the order from the 2007 tour, eliminated some tracks and added some new ones, including selections from last year’s “Along Came a Spider” record.
After blazing through the trio of anthemic openers clad in leather biker pants and a black top hat adorned with a skeletal hand, Cooper reemerged in a military cap, brandishing a riding crop, for “Wicked Young Man,” a song from 2000’s “Brutal Planet.” With shades of Rob Zombie’s industrial sound, the song was light on melody and heavy on rhythmic drones and spoken-style singing; it ended with Cooper impaling a masked henchmen with a lance and another henchman fitting Cooper with a straitjacket. He sang the next song in the straitjacket before he was placed in a guillotine during a drum roll. Jimmy DeGrasso continued his percussive assault with high-pitched Octobans and double-bass-drum patterns before the blade dropped, lopping off the singer’s head which plopped into a basket. Of course, Cooper makes resurrection look like a parlor trick, and he came back, holding the severed head.
Fog machines cued the creepy opening notes of “Welcome to my Nightmare,” one of the better songs of the night. Zombies wandered the stage, attempting to take Cooper with them; he grabbed a girl in a white dress, took her backstage and re-entered carrying her lifeless body. “Poison” was another strong point, a glorious slice of hair-metal with more melodic drive than any of the ’80s bands. Cooper and the band — DeGrasso, bassist Chuck Garric, guitarists Keri Kelli and Damon Johnson — countered with the moody “The Awakening” from the “Welcome to my Nightmare” concept album.
After an extended instrumental showcase by Garric, Kelli and Johnson, a sexy nurse pushed Cooper, in a wheelchair and dressed as a mental asylum patient, onto the stage. The band delivered another highlight, 1971’s “Is It My Body,” powered by scorching, vintage AC/DC riffs. “Be My Lover” provided one of the more scintillating moments, with the nurse undressing behind a white screen. She tossed her stockings to Cooper, who wore one as a mask. After singing the end of the song through the nylon, he snuck behind her and strangled her with the other stocking. The fact that you could only see their silhouettes added to the drama.
Cooper sang the poignant “Only Women Bleed” wearing the nurse’s red wig, hat and jacket, her corpse in his lap. After a hangman placed the singer in a gallows, the re-born nurse, now in her underwear, did the honors, kicking Cooper, hanging him. He followed with the triumphant “Vengeance is Mine,” from “Spider,” “Dirty Diamonds,” “Billion Dollar Babies,” “No More Mr. Nice Guy” and the set-closing “Under My Wheels,” all played with flair, giving the end of the show an extra kick.
Back for the encore in shiny silver top hat and tails, Cooper led the band through a second rendition of “School’s Out,” popping giant confetti-filled balloons with a sword.
What Alice Cooper brought to Scranton was fun, frightening, loud and dynamic. He used key elements from his past along with some new twists and a locked-in, talented band to entertain. The man lives to get a reaction, and judging by the pumped fists, shouts and smiles of the sold-out audience, it was a mission accomplished.
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