Last year was a successful one for Alice Cooper, he released Paranormal to critical applause and chart success, breaching top tens across the world, claiming fourth spot in Australia and Germany, third in Switzerland and sixth in Sweden and the UK. On December 7th Cooper and his band stopped off at the Olympia, Paris for the final date on the Paranormal Tour, with the end result being his first live offering since Live at Wacken in 2014.
The setlist on the double album A Paranormal Evening at the Olympia, Paris (earMUSIC) is, essentially, a crowd-pleasing array of hits, fan favourites with a few deep cuts spanning from 1971’s Love It To Death to the modern-day. ‘No More Mr. Nice Guy’, ‘Poison’, ‘Feed My Frankenstein’, ‘I’m Eighteen’ and the obligatory encore ‘School’s Out’ are all here and accounted for, served up to a hungry Parisian crowd by a band with three guitarists; Ryan Roxie, Tommy Henriksen and Nita Strauss. They all get to time to show off their soloing skills, especially Hurricane Nita Strauss, in the wondrous slice of eighties Heavy Metal that is ‘The World Needs Guts’.
Three Welcome to my Nightmare tracks get an airing; ‘Department of Youth’, the demented love song ‘Cold Ethyl’ and ‘Only Women Bleed’ – all demonstrating that despite his 70 years of age The Coop is still in fine voice. After the latter two he breezes through his new song ‘Paranoiac Personality’, with its funky ‘Go To Hell’ esque stomp. In between these some rarely played tracks are dusted off – the Iraq War pun (now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d write) ‘Woman of Mass Distraction’ and ‘Pain’, a welcomed surprise from his overlooked, cocaine-drenched, New Wave, record Flush the Fashion.
A Paranormal Evening… is a great album well suited to both hardcore fans and casual listeners alike, showing a well-rehearsed band on the top of their game, although, as Alice’s live shows are such a theatrical affair you are only getting half the story with this offering, you should see him live or pick up Brutally Live or Theatre of Death: Live at Hammersmith 2009 for the full blood-soaked, visual g(l)ory.
7.5/10
THOMAS THROWER