ATLANTIC CITY, NJ—The show started out with Z02 warming up the crowd at The House Of Blues in Atlantic City, New Jersey. They played a set and it was pretty good. Lead singer Paulie Z has a lot of charisma and a great vocal range. His brother David Z (bass) and Joey Cassata (drums) all do a nice job backing him up. By the time they left the stage they had sufficiently lathered up the crowd for Alice.
The backdrop was a picture of Cooper’s eyes and then fans saw his silhouette and they were ready for an action packed show. Cooper opened the show up with the song “It’s Hot Tonight” and the band was rocking out and setting the tone for the evening.
The second selection was “No More Mr. Nice Guy” and the audience sang a good portion of that much to their delight. When he sang “I’m Eighteen” he defiantly held his crutch high in the air, and amazingly enough, he doesn’t need that to get around since he is still quite mobile. Drummer Eric Singer shined on this song and Cooper showed off his harmonica skills.
The show had a running theme, as usual, which did include various dancing girls and some acting and some surprises this go ‘round.
Guitarist Kerri Kelli had a nice solo during the tune “Is It My Body.” During the next song, “Woman Of Mass Distraction,” there were searchlights and bull horns as if Cooper was a convict on the loose. The lights were purple, the girls were present and Cooper sounded very sadistic.
The song “Feed My Frankenstein” was very enjoyable. Cooper was doing the famous monster’s walk, and there was a memorable dual guitar solo that Kelli and Jason Hook nailed.
Cooper threw beads at the audience during “Dirty Diamonds” and for “Vengeance Is Mine” he wielded an Excalibur sword!
During “Welcome To My Nightmare” three Geisha’s were slutting around, spitting and pointing guns at the audience. There was a wicked bass solo from Chuck Garric who played his instrument with a drumstick!
“Schools Out” was played before the encores proving that Cooper had a few more bullets left in his gun that evening. Donned in a white top hat he played the first encore, which was “Billion Dollar Babies” then he played “Poison” where he was wiping his sweat with dollar bills and he ended the show with “Election.” Wearing a biker outfit and an American flag hat while he was belting out that song, three women dressed in Barack Obama, John McCain and George W. Bush masks got into a wrestling match onstage (Bush was the referee) and it ended with McCain jumping into the waiting arm’s of Obama as they shared a kiss.
Cooper has a new album called Along Came A Spider and he did play a few selections from that and all in all this show gave fans their money’s worth and then some.
