Kiss News

By Ted Shaw, The Windsor Star

CLICK here to view The Star's KISS Photo Gallery.

From the shrill opening chords of Modern Day Delilah to the confetti storm that accompanied the closing number, Rock and Roll All Nite, Kiss proved again Wednesday at Caesars Windsor's Colosseum its rock circus is one smoking show.

The band that claims to be the hottest band in the world had the burners cranked up for Windsor.

Even lead singer Paul Stanley remarked at one point, "Never have two countries been closer in the spirit of rock 'n' roll than right here in Windsor and in Detroit Rock City."

Detroit Rock City, of course, is one of Kiss' enduring favourites and the crowd reacted with roars of approval.

The show is a spectacle from start to finish and the band doesn't leave you enough time to take a breath as it gears it up for 16 of its best-loved songs.

Gene Simmons, 61, the star of reality TV and the trademark of the Kiss phenomenon in his Demon makeup, continues to amaze with the energy of a 20-year-old.

Stanley, at 59, is no less amazing, as he takes charge from the time he hits the stage.
By Ted Shaw, The Windsor Star

From the shrill opening chords of Modern Day Delilah to the confetti storm that accompanied the closing number, Rock and Roll All Nite, Kiss proved again Wednesday at Caesars Windsor's Colosseum its rock circus is one smoking show.

The band that claims to be the hottest band in the world had the burners cranked up for Windsor.

Even lead singer Paul Stanley remarked at one point, "Never have two countries been closer in the spirit of rock 'n' roll than right here in Windsor and in Detroit Rock City."

Detroit Rock City, of course, is one of Kiss' enduring favourites and the crowd reacted with roars of approval.

The show is a spectacle from start to finish and the band doesn't leave you enough time to take a breath as it gears it up for 16 of its best-loved songs.

Gene Simmons, 61, the star of reality TV and the trademark of the Kiss phenomenon in his Demon makeup, continues to amaze with the energy of a 20-year-old.

Stanley, at 59, is no less amazing, as he takes charge from the time he hits the stage.

The much-younger and newer sidemen, Tommy Thayer on guitars and Eric Singer on drums, round out an act that never seems to age in terms of appeal and enthusiasm.

One longtime fan, Chatham's Rob Richardson, 34, saw his first Kiss show in 1986 with his older brother. Now he's passing the torch to his eight-yearold daughter, who couldn't join dad on this night because of the age restriction at the Colosseum.

"But she just loves them," said Richardson. She even has a drumstick courtesy Simmons at one of Kiss' outdoor shows in London.

Highlights Wednesday included Love Gun, a surefired hit with any audience, that features a machine-gun attack on the drums by Singer and Stanley's lead vocals.

It led into the Simmons solo, God of Thunder, which includes the stage blood oozing from his mouth and prominent displays of his axe-shaped bass.

Shock Me provided a solo slot for lead guitarist, Thayer, who has taken over for Kiss original, Ace Frehley. The exploding guitar and fierce battle with the drummer remains as a reminder of the old days.

Kiss has no shame when it comes to laying the pyrotechnics and effects on thick. It's like baroque heavy metal.

There were nods to their rock ancestors. Stanley played the opening notes of Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven in the intro to Black Diamond, while the encore performance of Lick It Up featured a middle section quote of The Who's Won't Get Fooled Again.

Posted by Chris Alexander

As many Fango readers know already, your editor is indeed a card-carrying member of the Kiss army (literally; the card is in my wallet, in front of my driver�s license). I have been a serious fan since I was a little boy, borrowing Kiss records from the library, eventually saving up my allowance to get my first slab of vinyl�which was, oddly, THE ELDER (because of this, I still have warm ties to that controversial, commercially DOA 1981 rock opera�in fact, it might be my favorite in the catalog).

I bought as much Kiss krap as I could find�I had posters, flags, hats, shirts. I would draw pictures of Gene Simmons (as I�ve said before, especially in the cover feature in FANGORIA #298, Simmons� Demon persona was my first monster) and wished I was Paul Stanley. I loved the mythical otherworldliness of the band�the visual aesthetics which were part garish, full-color, sexed-up Hammer horror movie and part Barnum & Bailey circus. I loved the music, which was screechy, fast, dirty, sometimes epic (THE ELDER, again), anthemic and full of a kind of lunatic energy. Coupled with a love of monsters, comic books and science fiction, this love for Kiss would put me on the path�for better or worse�that I�m on today, and�especially considering I�ve since passed all this passion on to my kids�I cannot see this enthusiasm ever ebbing.

So perhaps I�m biased when reporting on a Kiss concert. Blinded a bit by love. But who cares? Here I sit in a hotel room in Ontario�s Casino Rama, a monolithic entertainment center two hours outside of Toronto in the semi-rural community of Orillia, the day after watching Gene and Paul and succeeding Catman Eric Singer and Spaceman Tommy Thayer blow shit up. The Rama stop is part of Kiss� relatively brief �Lost Cities� tour, which sees the band hitting off-the-beaten-path arenas across Canada and the U.S. for what is, in essence, likely a warmup for a bigger tour that will launch later in support of their impending new studio album, a follow-up to 2009�s ultrasuccessful SONIC BOOM.


Posted by Chris Alexander

As many Fango readers know already, your editor is indeed a card-carrying member of the Kiss army (literally; the card is in my wallet, in front of my driver�s license). I have been a serious fan since I was a little boy, borrowing Kiss records from the library, eventually saving up my allowance to get my first slab of vinyl�which was, oddly, THE ELDER (because of this, I still have warm ties to that controversial, commercially DOA 1981 rock opera�in fact, it might be my favorite in the catalog).

I bought as much Kiss krap as I could find�I had posters, flags, hats, shirts. I would draw pictures of Gene Simmons (as I�ve said before, especially in the cover feature in FANGORIA #298, Simmons� Demon persona was my first monster) and wished I was Paul Stanley. I loved the mythical otherworldliness of the band�the visual aesthetics which were part garish, full-color, sexed-up Hammer horror movie and part Barnum & Bailey circus. I loved the music, which was screechy, fast, dirty, sometimes epic (THE ELDER, again), anthemic and full of a kind of lunatic energy. Coupled with a love of monsters, comic books and science fiction, this love for Kiss would put me on the path�for better or worse�that I�m on today, and�especially considering I�ve since passed all this passion on to my kids�I cannot see this enthusiasm ever ebbing.

So perhaps I�m biased when reporting on a Kiss concert. Blinded a bit by love. But who cares? Here I sit in a hotel room in Ontario�s Casino Rama, a monolithic entertainment center two hours outside of Toronto in the semi-rural community of Orillia, the day after watching Gene and Paul and succeeding Catman Eric Singer and Spaceman Tommy Thayer blow shit up. The Rama stop is part of Kiss� relatively brief �Lost Cities� tour, which sees the band hitting off-the-beaten-path arenas across Canada and the U.S. for what is, in essence, likely a warmup for a bigger tour that will launch later in support of their impending new studio album, a follow-up to 2009�s ultrasuccessful SONIC BOOM.

Casino Rama looks like a kind of First Nations spaceship; it�s angular, labyrinthine and larger than life. This is the second time I�ve seen the band rock this unusual venue, and it�s such a strange place to see them, really. And I mean that in a good way. You drop into any big-city arena to see Kiss and it�s what it�s supposed to be, a deluxe rock-and-roll show. Here at Rama, as you step away from the clinking carnival hypnotism of money-sucking electric bandits and step into the compact 5,000 seat-auditorium, it feels like you�re literally on another planet, completely self-contained and somewhat surreal.

After a brief backstage visit and getting a photo snapped with the band, myself, my wife Carrie and Fango writer Kelly Stewart trickled inside to see the sold-out show�my fourth in two years, I might add�and when the Kiss curtain dropped and that drone began and that scream came over the PA: �Allllllll righhhhht Casino Rama�yoooooou wanted the best! Youuuuuu got the best! The hottest band in the world, Kiss!��as it always does�I felt like that 8-year-old kid again. Coming days after the headline horrors of senseless mass murder in Norway, and the endless assorted ills that choke us daily, this was certainly the balm needed to distract.

And that�s the real beauty of Kiss. Whether you adore their shtick or abhor it, Kiss exists to do one thing: entertain. After owning the planet in the mid-1970s, enduring internal turmoil, lineup changes, revolving trends in commercial hard rock, unmasking, breakups, putting the makeup back on and then more internal turmoil, the band as it stands now is a tight, taut, well-oiled machine designed to tear you apart. Someone said to me once that before you die, you have to see two things: the Grand Canyon and a Kiss show. And it�s true.

Seeing middle-aged men (the youngest member of the band, Thayer, is 51) strut around in spandex and monstrous boots may seem ludicrous to some, but Kiss has always celebrated the impossible, refusing to be defined by the conceptions of what others think they should be. Simmons still stalks the stage in his armor and bat wings, drinking kerosene and spitting fire from a medieval sword, vomiting blood and worming his legendary tongue around (no levitation this time, unfortunately) and becoming that mixture of Godzilla, Dracula and malevolent ogre that has given the band much of its iconic presence. In fact, as Simmons has aged (he�s closing in on 62) and the creases in his skin absorb the greasepaint, his Demon act has become, dare I say�creepier. When those lights turn green, and that bass starts to throb, Simmons looks like some sort of ancient gargoyle, and even though he has become a ubiquitous presence in pop culture, it�s still so damn alien and scary, especially when the act morphs into Simmons� signature song, the lumbering �God of Thunder.� And it�s also so clear to see where later acts like GWAR and Slipknot found perhaps their greatest sources of stage-presence inspiration.

Stanley has had hip replacements and is approaching 60, but is still a force of nature: fit, commanding and�something that rarely gets noted�a frankly blistering guitar player. And his voice�which, coming at the tail end of a tour, as this show did, sometimes bears the rasp of excessive strain�was in topnotch shape and is still (perhaps just behind, or maybe tied with, Robert Plant) among the greatest in rock-and-roll history. Thayer�s burden has not only been to fill the long-departed Ace Frehley�s silver tights but to shadow his string-tripping signature guitar stylings, and it�s a shame that, again, his own abilities are often not as celebrated as they should be. But on such recent tracks as �Modern Day Delilah� (the show�s opener), his furious work on the lead riff is almost out-of-body, it�s that articulate and exciting. And when the show stops midway for his solo�where rockets shoot from the neck of his ax and rupture the light fixtures, and Singer battles him with demented drum solos and rocket-launcher antics, it�s definitely a show highlight, ridiculous and brilliant.

Outside of a few missing tricks (the aforementioned grounded Gene, no opening risers), the show was still Kiss as they exist today, in top form, taking no prisoners.