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Alice Cooper Heavy Metal Bag Lady!

Marquee, London

I'd expected to have to fight through writhing masses of Alice fans to get anywhere near the Marquee tonight. Instead, Charing Cross Road still seemed surprisingly unceremonial, if somewhat cleaner than usual - apparently some kind of trash-collecting procedure was on the cards. Mr. Nice Guy was helping keep Britian tidy.

The dingy corridor inside was lined with a combination of shiny black bags bulging with central London debris and black-clad bulging humans huddled on the floor. 'Billion Dollar Babies' was blaring out of the speakers by the time I geared myself into squeezing to the bar.

There's a method in getting to see the Marquee stage in these jam-packed days, as 'Sold Out' seems to mean something akin to 'we can fit a couple of hundred more punters in as long as you pay cash...' The most logical 'method' is to avoid all temptation of fresh air and plough straight through to the back, grab some fresh air substitute in the shape of cold lager, and continue the search for the hurricane's eye.

Wedged into an eye-like crevice Alice looked very fragile and not very scary at all. Famous for cross-dressing throughout the Seventies, the late eighties once again saw him looking remarkably similar to Cher, although the drag wasn't deliberate. Anyone squeezed into a twenty two-inch waist pair of crimson PVC slacks and a skimpy t-shirt looks girlie to me. And a small nose job would have nicely rounded off the subtly made-up face framed by big hair. I don't think Richie Sambora would fancy him though.

Slowly and elegantly stalking, he was cool about letting his 'new' backing boys out-strut him. Exuding youth-gone-wild sex-appeal with lanky, long hair, lanky long legs and teenage pouts the three teenage princes would have done anything to please their king.

So would the crowd. Seething and singing along they loved all the hymns and the old faves were ravished as greedily as his recent chart-topping hits. 'Eighteen' was followed by 'Under My Wheels', but 'School's Out' reminded everyone that it really was that long ago - cute how the teenage princes yelled along in chorus frenetically banging along their little heads.

Towards the end of the fifty minute set, Alice explained briefly why some people thought him a public health hazard, but with his almost fatherly fondling of a Barbie dolls head and the absence of all lynching and blood when he rounded off with 'No More Mr. Nice Guy', it was hard to imagine anyone bearing a grudge against this wonderful person.