From: Dave

Well, I'm a few days late writing this, but this is due to an illness over the last few days. But, better late than never...

This was the first time I had been to the Nutter Center in Dayton, and I have to say, this place is SMALL! The stage was definately a smaller version of what they have been using. I would guess this place holds probably 8,000 people or so. You have the floor, and then the other seats are divided into sections, but not levels. Just one continuous level from floor to the top. I would say there were less than 100 empty seats, which isn't bad considering this place is tricky to find and out in the middle of nowhere for the most part.

Econoline Crush played this show, too. I went in expecting them to suck, but they actually weren't too bad. Although I thought they looked a bit stupid, they were musically pretty tight. All of it sounded the same to me, though, but I must say, they beat the hell out of the crap that Kiss had touring with them in 96'. And the lead singer's voice was pretty good, too.

So on to the good stuff... And keep in mind, this was from 22nd row floor, a far cry from the front row seats I had in 96' ... The set list was the same as all the other shows. I don't remember the exact order, but nothing seemed out of place. The band were really tight, except, of course, Within was STILL weak. They could have replaced that song with any other, and it would have sounded better. Gene's voice was a bit hard to hear on it just because of how it was sung, but at one point he ripped the wind screen from the mic so it would pick him up better. At the end of the song they played a sort of jam section leading up to Peter's solo, and it was really cool and tight as well. Peter went on to do his solo and he REALLY sounded strong. I can't wait to read his article in Modern Drummer right after Christmas.

The 3D stuff wasn't too bad. It wasn't by any means a disaster, but it did get a bit repetitive, as well as the fact that there was ALOT of stuff from the Psycho Circus video (and some footage that wasn't). I must say, there was a part where Ace looked into the camera and shoved the guitar neck forewards, and it really DID look like it was jumping out at you. But for me, that was the highlight of the 3D stuff. What wasn't repetitive just plain looked blurry and out of focus.

Another notable part was when Gene flew up to do God Of Thunder... He went up alright, but when he went to yell into the mic, there was nothing. I saw him look down at the sound guy, motioning for him to turn the mic up, and he looked PISSED! Seems like something like that happens every show. I remember in 96' Paul was mad at a sound guy running his monitors. I SURE wouldn't want to work for them! But back to Gene - while he was up there, I noticed that the whole rig that was supporting him while he stood up there was rocking back and forth. Seeing that he's got a major problem with heights, that must have been really nerve racking, no matter how pumped up he was.

One thing I can say about the show, it was LOUD! REAL LOUD! I could feel the bass from where I was, so I can imagine how it was up front. The light show was the best I have ever seen from Kiss. Maybe my memory is bad, but it seems like they had much better lights than they had during the reunion tour. The Kiss signs looked really nice, too, but the screen in the back wasn't too impressive. It was very large, but it just had a much worse picture than the reunion tour. Maybe that was because it was one big screen instead of several small ones.

I was really impressed with they pyro this time, especially the fire during 100,000 Years and God of Thunder. There were times that I actually saw the flames hit the lighting truss, and it happened more than once. Right after Rock And Roll All Night, the lights went out, and - no kidding - there was a light ON FIRE on Gene's side of the stage. I know it wasn't meant to happen. It burned for a good 4 or 5 minutes, and it was almost pitch black in there, so I know it wasn't my imagination. To my surprise, no one did anything about it (what could they do?), but when Peter went into Beth, it went out, so no big deal. I don't know, maybe it WAS supposed to happen, but knowing Kiss, if it was part of the show, they would have put a spotlight on it :)

For the closing songs, the last song from the set was Rock And Roll All Night, then Beth, Detroit Rock City, and finally Black Diamond. I have seen this mentioned in other reviews, but I didn't know what they meant till now - Paul did this guitar thing at the beginning of Black Diamond. Those who have bootlegs from the 70's know that he used to do a distorted, heavy version of the intro at some shows. And those who have seen the Animalized video know that during that tour he did a thing where he would get one side of the stadium competing with the other, to see who was louder. Well, what he did was combine the two. The it was cool, but the problem was that he was WAY TOO LOUD, WITH TOO MUCH TREBLE! I mean, DAMN, my ears were actually hurting. But other than that, the song went off well.

I did want to make one last point - although Kiss were in full makeup and outfits, I could tell even from the 22nd row that they looke EXHAUSTED, right from the start. I have never seen them look so tired. And it wasn't just one of them, it was ALL of them. I guess they took the month of January off for a reason. I hope that it isn't catching up to them, but it looks like it might be. But even though they looked tired, they still put on a great show. I must also say, though, that I don't know how they will out-do themselves next time. I know that if they don't DRASTICALLY change the set list or the stage show, there will be alot of dissapointed fans, including myself. The reunion show that I saw was cool, and this show was, too, but I didn't get to see them multiple times last tour like I wanted to, and if I had, that tour combined with this tour would have just been way too much of the same thing. Even the outfits - it was cool that they were different, but they weren't NEW...

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