Heaven and Hell, Alice Cooper, Queensryche show tour review in Hamilton

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Heaven and Hell, Alice Cooper, Queensryche

Copps Coliseum

September 19, 2007

I didn’t think it was possible to upstage Alice Cooper.

But there it was, a tidal wave of molten iron obliterating all that came before. This was Heaven and Hell, the woefully underappreciated Black Sabbath mark II back for another swing, and if anything a hundred times stronger than their previous attack on the Air Canada Centre.

Not that Alice was below par. Despite his short set, rock ‘n roll’s greatest showman (yup you heard me right) pulled all the stops, from the moment he stabbed his dummy counterpart to when he wheeled a full sized gallows on stage and hung himself. It was great theatre all the way, played against a set-list culled from every era of his expansive career. No one can command a stage like Alice Cooper, a man who understands stagecraft probably better than anyone in the industry.

But on the strength of songs alone, it was Heaven and Hell who carried the night (alas, poor Queensryche: bypassing their early stuff in favour of Empire and the Mindecrime sagas, they barely made a dent), chugging along like tectonic plates, massive and unstoppable. They started off with “Mob Rules”, a much stronger opener than “Computer God” which they used last time, and never lost momentum from there. Most of the albums Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules were played (though “Turn up the Night” was again a lamentable oversight) with only ‘93’s Dehumaizer getting short shift. The delivery was flawless. Tony Iommi’s riffs and the titanic voice of Ronnie James Dio make a fearsome combination, and tonight they were in exceptionally fine form and unusually (for those of us who grew up with tales of discord in this lineup) good humour, joking with the crowd and each other, rattling off “Die Young”, “Falling off the Edge of the World”, “I” and the seminal “Neon Knights” with great energy and determination. Even the slow numbers, like the new song “Shadow of the Wind”, which at the ACC just sounded plodding, sounded just soul crushing here, putting any modern doom band to shame.

The most powerful moment though, had to be the song “Heaven and Hell” itself, an epic song made greater by what was probably one of Tony’s longest and grandest solos. No Malmsteenesque wankfest, it seemed rather a logical expansion of the song, every bit as revealing as Ronnie’s lyrics - an unscheduled detour into the band’s heart of darkness. It was awe inspiring.

A Heavy Metal tour de force all around.

!!!!1/4

-Steve Dylag

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