KISS
Sonic Boom
Over Europe
2010

It’s been well over 30 years and even I didn’t think that it would happen.

I've mentioned before how I became a KISS fan via a Scotch C90 tape of KISS Alive II and I saw them at Manchester Apollo in ‘84 on the Animalize tour. Back then Mark St. John had just recorded the album but Bruce Kulick had to step in to do the tour and later to become a full time member. Even then I couldn’t believe that they'd play a venue as small as a theatre in Manchester. This was only my second concert, I'd seen Iron Maiden on the Powerslave tour the week before. The support band for KISS was Bon Jovi back when they were fresh faced little scamps.

KISS played the M.E.N. Arena on the Psycho Circus tour but I didn’t go along. I'd bought the CD and was interested in the reunion with Ace and Peter but I was listening to Nine Inch Nails and lots of other genres at the time. And then they did a Farewell Tour, which was less of a final farewell and more of a bye bye to the two original members who had started to become a pain in the ass. That’s from what I've read.

So last year they did the Alive 35 shows with Tommy and Eric in the band. Things were going so well with the current lineup that they decided to record an album again, 10 years after the last one. All analogue, no ballads, no outside writers, just the four of them writing songs and it’s amazing.

Of course I didn’t go alone. I knew Zoe would like to come along, which meant seat tickets, because she is only little and wouldn’t see much of the show from the floor of the arena. To save Zoe reenacting the whole show, song for song, note for note to her mother when she arrived home I bought Lorraine a ticket too. This was via a Classic Rock pre-sale the day before the tickets were available to the public. Between last November and today there’s always been the question, “Who are we going to see?”. Even when I told them the date and that we were going to Manchester. I don’t think it really sunk in until we were cutting through Boots to get to the Food Court when I stopped and asked my sister if she thought she might need ear plugs.

We had something to eat, wandered around the Arndale and then headed out to the M.E.N. I bought two programmes, Zoe and Lorraine would have to share and we walked around inside the arena. We looked at the merchandise stalls, but none of us bought anything and watched people getting their faces painted. After we'd done a complete circuit of the arena we headed down to find our seats. Not bad seats at that, block 105, Gene’s side of the stage in the corner.

You really have to either admire or feel sorry for a band opening for KISS but Taking Dawn were the opening act. Admire them for the fact that they have a chance to play to half full arenas. Feel sorry for them because no one is really there to see them specifically, they’re just the distraction before the main event. They played typical eighties metal, all flaying hair and bobbing heads. Coming from Las Vegas is a novelty simply because I can’t think of any other band that hails from there.

There was a cheer when the curtain with the KISS logo on it was lowered to cover the stage. People were queuing on the stairs near us to get to the floor. Looking around the arena did seem to be more or less sold out. This was supposed to be the first date in England until more dates were added due to demand. This was certainly the first concert I've been to where children, probably as young as six or seven, were attending.

Set List

Modern Day Delilah

Cold Gin

Let Me Go Rock 'N' Roll

Firehouse

Say Yeah

Deuce

Crazy Crazy Nights

Calling Dr. Love

Shock Me

I'm An Animal

100,000 Years

I Love It Loud

Love Gun

Black Diamond

Detroit Rock City

Encore

Lick It Up

Shout it Out Loud

I Was Made For Lovin' You

God Gave Rock And Roll To You

Rock And Roll All Nite

The lights finally dimmed, the video screens showed the first part of the Modern Day Delilah video (with thunderous footsteps), then shots of the band walking to the stage with Doc McGhee. I must have heard the intro hundreds of times on the Alive and Alive II records but it doesn’t come close to hearing it in person.

The curtain comes down, all the screens are on, the bombs go off and Gene, Paul and Tommy are lowered to the stage on a huge platform playing the start of Modern Day Delilah. For any other band playing the single from their new album as the first song would be considered a miss step but the track is so strong that it’s a perfect opener.

From then onwards it’s just a blur of classic songs, new songs and the vast spectacle of it all. Gene stalking around the stage flicking his tongue out as if it were the only way to consume oxygen. Tommy cranking out the riffs and solos and making them his own. Eric keeping it all together with his power house drumming. But it was Paul who impressed me the most. He must be the greatest front man of any genre of music. Covering all the stage and more, playing with the guitar between his legs, flicking guitar picks, strutting and dancing around, being able to pronounce Birmingham and Glasgow correctly (no mean feat for an American) and singing absolutely note perfectly as well. All four of them were just amazing.

Only two little niggles: Shock Me, as a song written by Ace and being so heavily linked to him, should only really be sung by him. Tommy should have sung When Lightning Strikes instead. I'm An Animal, that Gene sung, I'm not a huge fan of and should have been replaced with God of Thunder. But that’s just me.

Zoe even started to loosen up towards the end, playing air drums and air guitar, but quite rightly not at the same time. Both of them managed to stay standing for the full two hours. I could remain seated and still see all the stage. Being on the tiers for the first time did make things seem kind of strange, as if you’re watching a concert instead of being part of it. On the floor, near the stage, your whole field of vision is filled instead of just a small part of it.

For the last song of the encore, Rock And Roll All Nite, Gene and Tommy were high up on platforms, Eric’s drum riser had lifted up and they must have set off every bomb, firework, fire jet and confetti canon that they had. It really was a sight to behold.

Walking back to the car Zoe said that when they froze at the end of one of the songs she thought it was going to take them a while to straighten up! Ageist yes, but quite funny nonetheless.

I can still remember Harry Sime recording KISS Alive II for me on to a Scotch C90 tape. I don’t think any of us are going to forget tonights show any time soon.

Reviews
CityLife Review
New Beats Media Review

Interviews
106.1 Rock Radio interview with Gene
Part One mp3
Part Two mp3
Absolute Radio interview with Paul – mp3

YouTube
Let Me Go Rock ‘N’ Roll
Crazy Crazy Nights
Black Diamond
I Was Made For Lovin' You
KISS Jet leaving Manchester Airport
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Photos
Gigwise Photos by Shirlaine Forrest

flickr
set by Andy Miszkiel
set by Danny Payne Photography
set by Big Franko
set by Jon Lister
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Gene Simmons
Family Jewels

Having just finished watching the first season of Gene Simmons Family Jewels I have to wonder what took me so long. I love The Osbournes and have both seasons on DVD (still waiting for the last seasons to emerge) and I enjoyed the MTV Cribs show that Gene did back in 2002. I can only imagine that I was scared of it being corny, I mean I just idolised KISS when I was a teenager, what if it wasn’t any good? Honestly I needn’t have worried.

Yes, Gene Simmons is a rock god outside the home but inside his family just treat him like a father and… boy friend. The ‘M’ word gets mentioned a few times. Shannon even sets up a fake wedding, rabbi and all. But they seem happy not being married. Happier than married people do.

Watching it you have to compare it to The Osbournes but Family Jewels is certainly more orchestrated, with Gene’s intro and the sofa interviews shattering that fourth wall. But it’s only the same as the KISS Exposed ‘reality’ segments, you don’t expect the band to live in the same house surrounded by scantily clad women. As the show goes on you do start to think would Gene spend that long promping his hair, but does he really wear that red romper suit in bed? Or is that just set-up?

One thing for sure is they don’t have as many pets or visitors as The Osbournes. The only regular visitor is Tracy Tweed, Shannon’s sister, and Courtney Love look-a-like. It’s funny how they both call him ‘Genie’.

Back when I was collecting their records with my pocket money it was a very rare sight indeed to catch them on TV, which I think made any footage I did see all the more magical. I'd never think that Gene did his own supermarket shopping, let alone did any cooking. But Scott Ian of Anthrax is in one of the shows, he’s being interviewed for a magazine and is outside with his KISS records under his arm and a car pulls up to the house and Scott says, “Gene drives!”. Almost as if Simmons should be carried around everywhere on a sedan chair with women throwing rose petals into his path.

During one show Gene puts on the costume and the make-up in the house. Of course it was only since the reunion shows that I realised that they actually did this themselves. Some of the sofa chats have Shannon sat next to him in full KISS garb and she’s calling him Genie and is taking the mickey. His son Nick is probably the one who pulls Gene’s leg the most with Sophie and Shannon coming in a close second.

After the end of season cliffhanger (Is Shannon pregnant? Is Gene going to go through with the facelift?) I can’t wait for the next two seasons to arrive in the post.

Amazon.co.uk

I've been a KISS fan since Harry Sime (not his real name, that was Nick) asked if I wanted to tape KISS Alive II. We met on a Friday night and cycled out of town to his house. I had a brown Scotch cassette tape in my pocket and we made the recording on his fathers Sharp Hi-Fi. Back in those days this was just a turntable, tuner and single cassette deck, all horizontal, way before manufacturers decided that stacking these things was the way forward. I remember his father being none to keen on me using a cassette that had already been recorded on. But he relented. We looked at the album cover, at the fire and the blood and Harry told me the names of the band members. When the taping was done I cycled back home not realising quite how important that tape would be and how it would change my life forever. Well, maybe not my life but definitely the direction of my musical taste. KISS Alive II was the first record that I bought with my own money. Philip Evans and myself both went to Terry Blood’s record store in town and we both bought a copy one after the other. I stayed loyal and bought all the albums, then started buying a few of the singles. But the singles were nothing to write home about, just copies of songs that I already owned in plain covers. With the pocket money burning a hole in my jeans I bought Alice Coopers Greatest Hits and my musical taste spread out from there. But I always bought any new KISS album when it came out and went to see them on the Animalize tour when they played Manchester Apollo.

Back when I first started listening to KISS the chance of hearing them on the radio was remote, seeing them on television was remoter still. Until late one Saturday night there was a program showing American rock bands on BBC2 and KISS were included. To say that we, Mr. Evans and I, were excited is putting it mildly. I think at this point we might had been fans for a year or more and had never seen KISS move. We had only seen photos on albums covers and in magazines. They only showed about a minute or two of footage from an Alive II concert but that was enough. This was all back in the days before VCR’s and back when televisions were built in wooden cabinets. The memory can play tricks over time but I'm sure I remember Gene curling his tongue around the microphone. Then again I can’t even remember what song they played.

Now Gene Simmons has had two series of Rock School on Channel 4. Who would have thought it!

When I first heard about the Speaking In Tongues DVD I was undecided about buying it. I had started to buy some the KISS DVD’s but was still a little unsure as I think the cheapest I found was £18. So I put it at the top of my Amazon rental list and it stayed there for at least 8 months. Then I found it on Play.com and finally bought it for £7.99 which, for only an hour I suppose is still a little steep. But with the rental disc being nowhere in sight it was a no-brainer.

The footage covers a lecture tour that Gene did in Australia back in 2004. He has become something of a motivational speaker, just telling the audience of fans that what has worked for him, in his life, may also work for them. This is done with a ‘take it or leave it’ attitude. He isn’t forcing these ideas down your throat, he is just telling his philosophy on life and how to make the most of it. This is all inter-cut with pictures of Gene when he was younger, a tour of his house with his children, making of the Firestarter video and the A**hole launch party. So the Simmons wit and wisdom is, I guess, a little thin on the ground.

The way that the film is presented is pretty bad. It looks as if someone has used some no-budget Windoze editing software and hacked it all together. Some of the actual footage is of pour quality and to make matters worse each of the famous Simmons quotes are zoomed across the screen in large letters many times after they are said, just to ram the point home, as it were. Split screens also zoom around and it just becomes annoying after awhile.

Luckily Gene is entertaining throughout: funny, smart and business savvy beyond belief. The hundreds of scantily clad ladies also help to make the hour pass quickly.

Basically, if you are a huge KISS fan then you’ll own this already. If want to know more about what makes Gene tick then read KISS and Make-Up which will entertain and inform you more for less money. If you've just seen Gene in Rock School and think that this is going to be a similar product then you had best avoid this like a woman whose only ambition is marriage.

Money is not the root of all evil. LACK of money is the root of all evil!Gene Simmons

KISS Podcast

I seem to be spending more time tinkering with the site than actually writing stuff for it.

Yesterday I managed to get the badges and the themes back and added some more links.

Talking of links I added a link to KISS Online and had a browse down the main page and found the KISS Podcast website. I had heard about podcasts before but had never been interested enough to download any… until now. The site itself looks great and I downloaded the first 5 shows and was listening to them whilst working on the site. Definitely worth checking out if you’re a KISS fan. The next version of iTunes looks as if it will support podcast content so that should save me downloading another application.

GarageBand

Speaking of music… When Uncle Steve first demonstrated GarageBand he said you could plug your guitar straight into a Mac and record and play along with the other tracks. Since I saw that keynote I've been dying to try it out to see if and how it works. Tonight I gave it a try. I had to re-string my guitar, clean it, buy new plectrums, a cable to tune it and a Griffin GarageBand Guitar Cable to plug it into the iMac. Stringing it was fine. Tuning it was troublesome as the needle on the electronic tuner was flicking all over the place as if it was picking up radiation so I tried to tune it manually. It sounded okay to me so I tried the new cable and GarageBand. I added a new track, switched the monitor on and it started to feed back. The only options on that window are to select the input, which is either Channel 1 (Mono), Channel 2 (Mono) or Channel 1& 2 (Stereo). They all seem to feed back. I think I’ll try again when I've managed to get the damn thing tuned correctly.

Update – I've managed to get the link working from my guitar to GarageBand. You have to go to System Preferences and the Sound option and change the sound input from Internal Microphone to Line In. It works great. I even tuned my guitar using GarageBand instead of the erratic tuner. All I have to do now is find my guitar strap and it will be time for some serious rockin'.