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Alice Cooper/New York Dolls

London Alexandra Palace

A hard and heavy Halloween spectacular from the king of schlock

Zombie cheerleaders, blood-splattered surgeons, slacker Draculas in Download T-shirts; it's always fun to find yourself at a gig where the audience puts as much effort into their outfits as the people on stage, and Alice Cooper's Halloween Night of Fear doesn't disappoint. For the New York Dolls, however it could be just another low-key headlining club show, rather than a special guest slot at a fright fest in front of 10,000 punters.

David Johansen, in particular, takes it all in his stride, an ebullient presence cracking wise about the protestors a few miles south outside St Paul's Cathedral, or delivering lewd remarks about some of the more, shall we say, saucy members of the crowd in their graveyard get-up of stockings, suspenders and ample cleavage. Their touring line-up bolstered by the inclusion of warhorse guitarist Earl Slick, the Dolls strut through an hour-long set of the old and the new.

Songs from their most recent album, Dancing Backwards In High Heels, are especially lively, teh likes of Kids Like You and For You Baby possessing a greater swagger than the studio versions, although almost inevitably it's the closing Personality Crisis that elicits the most howls of approval.

Despite having a larger venue and stage to command than during his Halloween knees-up at London's Roundhouse last year, it's a curiously subdued Cooper on this outing, relatively frugal in terms of props and pantomime. There's little in the way of interaction with the audience, with guitarists Orianthi Pangaris and Steve Hunter (the latter back in the line-up for the first time since the late 70s) doing most of the communicating.

Of course, it could be argued that a more aloof Alice plays to the strengths of the songs, his detachment from his surroundings more in keeping the persona at the heart of Halo Of Flies or Clones. It's a slightly more in-yer-face Alice for hardy perennials Elected and Under My Wheels, but still at a cautious distance, while the slightly silly I'll Bite Your Face Off (the only track from the recent Welcome 2 My Nightmare album to be given an airing) has a tendency to sound like an 80s Spitting Image parody.

For the most part, Cooper is in magnificent voice, his ghoulish growl on Billion Dollar Babies and Hey Stoopid undeniably impressive for a man of 63, even if the cracks and croaks do sneak through on the balladeering of Only Women Bleed. Still, it's a show that ticks almost all the requisite boxes, and the appearance of Blighty's very own Arthur Brown, complete with flaming headgear, for an encore of Fire is a nice touch.