Welcomed to spend the night with Alice Cooper via a PA voiceover just before opener “Brutal Planet,” the crowd gathered this night in the City of Light is pretty much primed for the original, and still reigning, shock rock king on A Paranormal Evening At The Olympia Paris Live 2018.
This 18-song collection reveals 70-year-old Alice Cooper fronting a band of heavy players that includes Ryan Roxie, Tommy Henriksen and Nita Strauss on guitars, Chuck Garric on bass, and monster drummer Glen Sobel. Although Cooper does sound pretty strong here vocally, every member of his band, save Sobel, sings (or shouts actually) backing vocals, forming a solid front line of choruses as well as heavy and hard hitting rock and roll. They manage this especially well early on during “Woman Of Mass Distraction.”
We get quite the mix of Cooper classics throughout. There are riveting takes at older gems like “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” “Under My Wheels,” and a breakneck “Billion Dollar Babies.” Deeper cuts like “Department Of Youth” and “Cold Ethyl” from Welcome To My Nightmare are freshened up and unleashed. Others hatched on albums like Flush The Fashion, Constrictor and 2017’s Paranormal give you some idea of how much ground Cooper and his band can cover.
Later in the set there is a sly read on a signature Alice Cooper conceptual piece from 1971 called “Ballad of Dwight Fry.” The band jams through “Killer / I Love The Dead,” before ending the set with his two most enduring rockers — “I’m Eighteen” and “School’s Out.”
Who knows how long we will have Alice Cooper out there, making music and playing the stages of the world? The man does love his golf, but he isn’t about to spend the rest of his days at the country club. We have A Paranormal Evening At The Olympia Paris Live 2018, a tough, loud live version of what Alice Cooper is still capable of.
~ Ralph Greco, Jr.
