Theatre of Death
Article by Bindi Lavelle

Brisbane Exhibition Center 22 August 2009
The banner looms over the stage, a silhouette can be faintly seen, the banner drops and Alice Cooper bursts into School's Out. Everyone jumps up and sings along with abandon. The atmosphere is electric.
Alice carves is way through the stage, which is decorated with giant shiny red letters spelling out a-l-i-c-e in a childlike scrawl. Alice is backed by a band as tight as a twig wedged into a water fountain that sprays water all over your face.
However it's not too long before Alice impales one of the executioners wondering about the stage. And of course Alice was punished and a guillotine was brought on stage to do so.
Theater of Death is the embodiment of the tag line, “They keep killing him ad he keeps coming back”, Alice is killed by a giant hypodermic needle, guillotine, he is hung and shoved in an iron maiden too.
There was an impressive song selection, covering all the phases of Alice's long and illustrious career; a splendid and spectacular mix of crowd pleasers like No More Mr. Nice Guy and Poison, as well as old favorites Dirty Diamonds ( which saw Alice flinging necklaces into the crowd) and Billion Dollar Babies which involved a sword, fake money and baby dolls. Another highlight was the dark heavy version of his latest single Vengeance is Mine.
The performance was much more than I had hoped for: a great Aussie band, Electric Mary opened with some totally killer rock. And of course Alice Cooper showed us why he is a rock icon. Theater of Death was the ultimate stage show, providing the audience with the maximum amount of rock and theatrics.