I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: August 9, 2014] Kiss

As I said, two years ago, I saw Kiss at this same venue and I marveled that Gene and Paul could still do all this while both in their mid 60s. But Paul’s voice sounded a little weak, and I wasn’t really sure that I wanted to see them again after that.

But here it is two years later, and I was back with my friend Matt and his family, and I’m going to say that the show was superb this year. Paul’s voice was in great form, the band seemed revitalized, even Gene seemed to enjoy himself.

Some changes were made on this tour.  I saw that in earlier shows in the tour they played some songs that I would have loved to hear–“King of the Nighttime World” especially, so I was a little bummed that they played a setlist that was pretty close (but not exact) to the last time.  What was surprising was what they left out–no “Shock Me” no guitar solo (I didn’t miss it) and no smoking guitar. So, “Ace” got short shrift, but there’s so much other spectacle that it wasn’t such a big deal.

The band opened with “Psycho Circus,” not a great song, but a fun an interesting opener.  They did not descend from the giant spider leg set up as they normally do.  We found out later that they were afraid that there was some kind of potential for malfunction, so they didn’t want to delay the show to fix it.  Which is fair enough.

Their projection screen was clear and amazing.  I generally don’t like the projection screens because it’s like not being there–just watching it on TV, but for this show it was very helpful (especially since pictures of the screen came out so clearly, there’s “Peter” all larger than life.

Then they broke into some old songs.  I loved hearing “Deuce” (which they didn’t play last time).  And it’s hard to deny the anthemic fun of “Shout It Out Loud.”  Although honestly, if they come back again, I would love if they mixed things up even more.  I’d love to hear some other old stuff, and of course, some more stuff from the second three albums.  I realize that the band only has a limited time and they can only play so much, but it would be awesome to hear “I”  from The Elder or “She” or “Rock Bottom.”  I understand they did play “Christine Sixteen” on this tour.  I would have freaked if they played it (they didn’t) as that is the song that got me into Kiss in the first place.

I enjoyed hearing “War Machine” and “I Love It Loud” since they are great crowd songs, but those could be mixed out with something else from that era.  And, man I really don’t like “Lick It Up.” And even as they take out other songs, they never stop playing this one.  There are so many other good songs on that album, I’d love to hear any of those.  Or even “King of the Mountain” from Asylum.

I’m torn between wanting them to do new things and enjoying the tried and true spectacle.  Of course, we want to see Gene breathe fire.  But it’s awesome that last time they played “Firehouse” and this time they played “Hotter Than Hell” for that segment.   And I would never change “God of Thunder” and Gene spitting blood.  I feel like this year’s version was better than ever.  Plus if they come around again in two years, I’d like to bring Clark and maybe even Tabby to see what a spectacle it is (hope the opener is someone I like), so they can’t take out the fire and the blood.

And then there is “Love Gun.”  And there’s Paul on the zip line. This year we were about 20 feet away from him, and it was great to see him shimmy around.  I took so many pictures. So they have to leave that in–although I guess the actual song doesn’t matter there.  I’d say he could do “I Still Love You” but he’d never be able to hold those notes any more. Maybe “I Want You.”

The big surprise was the reintroduction of “Hide Your Heart,” not my favorite song, but a sentimental one as Matt and I saw Paul perform it when he did a solo tour in 1989 in Wilkes Barre, PA.  And it’s fun to sing the nonsense chorus.

The end of “Black Diamond” was cut short this year.  Instead of doing the really long outro, they stopped and stood in silhouette, which I have to admit was pretty cool and quite striking.  See the photo on the left.  The drums rose up with the giant cat banner, and the three front men held their position in the smoke.  It was cool.

Paul’s banter was quite different this year as well.  I noted that in the last show he was saying basically the same exact things as he did at previous shows, which I thought was weird.  But this year he seemed to improv a bit–maybe writing his book has given him license to get more words out.  He had a weird moment when he was saying he got down on his knees and prayed to god every day.  I certainly did not expect that (for many reasons).  And he talked about how many people have brought their kids (and there were a lot).  And he really refrained from saying any of the old standbys (expect for “people!” and saying “Scranton” a lot (which is pretty cool, I admit)).

Paul told us that they were running late on time because of a curfew.  I ‘d never heard of a curfew there before but whatever.  So they didn’t go “off ” for the encore, they pretended to leave and then played “Detroit Rock City” which is always awesome.

I have often said that if I never hear “Rock n Roll All Nite” again I will be happy.  But I have to admit that when the song starts, and the drums rise up and the confetti flies, it’s always fun. And I can’t imagine them not ending a show with it.

We were able to get a very close parking space, which meant that we could walk out past the stage while they were taking it down.  I’ve never done that before and it was pretty cool to see the equipment going away and the huge structures that were assembled for it all.  I took this picture (left) of the backstage area–sadly no one was hanging around).

One of the fun things about Kiss shows is seeing everyone in makeup.

Some people do a quickie home made job, and some people go all out.  There was a guy in an Ace makeup that looked professional–he had the whole outfit and everything.  He was walking around after the show and people were taking pictures of him (I think I’ve seen him at pictures in other shows, too).  As we waited in traffic, I saw a little boy (maybe 5) dressed in a full Gene outfit (cape and everything).  I couldn’t get a picture in time.

But the one I did manage was this picture of “Paul” sitting on a car, texting.  I thought that was pretty funny

Here’s a comparison of my last three Kiss show setlists.  This year’s show felt very short to me (by my calculation, they may have only played for 75 minutes), and yet I see that they actually played one more song than last time.  I know they’re old men, but maybe next time they can get a less well known opener and play for a whole 90 minutes.  I promise I’ll bring my kids.

There’s a hilarious review of this show (as there was last time) from the Scranton Times-Tribune, with the writer calling Kiss a band from Detroit and making it sound like the drummer is singing “Lick It Up.”  There were some other odd lines in it as well.  But it is always nice to see that newspapers still talk about concerts.