KISS’ final tour review – a glorious, absurd triumph from kings of rock’n’roll theatre
By Elmo Keep / www.theguardian.com
Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney
In their final Australian tour, Kiss bring bombast and pyrotechnics to the masses with incredible costumes, fake blood and huge heels
From the moment they first graced a club stage in 1973, envisioning themselves as the star children of Alice Cooper, the Beatles and the New York Dolls, Kiss have introduced themselves as “The Hottest Band In The Woooooorrrrld!” even when no one had ever heard their name. Never has anyone better worn the adage: dress for the job you want, not the one you have.
“You wanted the best, you got the best!” booms a voice over the PA, and over the heads of 20,000 fans gathered at the stadium hosting the Sydney leg of the band’s End of the Road tour – an allegedly final string of shows that began in 2019 before being endlessly interrupted by Covid. Down comes a huge, black Kiss-emblazoned curtain as pyrotechnics erupt, fireballs shoot towards the ceiling and four grown men in shiny black and silver clown costumes stomp out in unison to the opening riff of Detroit Rock City. Paul Stanley wails triumphantly, “I feel alright/On a Saturday night!” and we do too, already beaming at the unfettered rock’n’roll theatre of the absurd that is Kiss. (Detroit Rock City is about a young fan dying in a car wreck in his haste to get to a Kiss concert – which seems a huge bummer of a way to start a show, but as with all things Kiss, you just don’t think too hard about it.)
Few bands have been as critically maligned as Kiss over their career, and no band has single-handedly done more to prove music critics redundant than they have, striding – perhaps a little more slowly than their younger selves – around the stage in front of a packed arena a full 50 years after they formed. They have always viewed critics as losers and critique as pointless. And, they are right: attempting to police what people enjoy is the last bastion of the bitter and defeated, of the self-deluded and the lame. The only thing Kiss cares about (apart from making more money, about which they care most) is their lifelong army of fans: the ever faithful Knights In Satan’s Service. And for them, they will deliver nothing but wall-to-wall hits for two straight hours at a volume beyond deafening.
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