From: Kevin Drinan

I flew across the country to see this concert, and spent more money than I wish to disclose. Now that I am back home and have had time to evaluate everything, I have decided that it was DEFINITELY worth it!!!

First, I want to address the 3-D issue. It was not quite as great as we were led to believe from all the hype. It was interesting.... eyecatching at best. My biggest problem with it was that 90% of the pre-recorded 3-D footage was of the band members pointing their guitars at the crowd. Cool once....even cool a 2nd or 3rd time.... but after 2 hours it seemed really stale. It also gets to be a bit annoying to keep putting on and removing the glasses every few minutes. Gene's blood spitting routine was very cool with the 3-D effects though.

I had never been to Dodger Stadium. It's a really great park, very big. There were some empty seats in the back, but considering the size of the place, it was a great turnout. Unfortunately, I feel the L.A. crowd was a little too laid back. They just didn't seem to be into it as much as they should have been. We had seats about halfway back on the field, right near Gene's mom, Shannon Tweed and Gene's kids. Gene's mom was really getting into the show!!

The Kiss car was parked outside the stadium, underneath the giant blow-ups of the band. Looks really nice.

All of the T-shirts were specific Dodger Stadium designs, and every single one looked excellent. The tourbook even has the date of the show on the cover.

The circus acts ranged from mildly amusing to incredible. I'm curious to see how they set it up in an arena, since at this show it was all done on the field. They performed both before and after the Smashing Pumpkins, and were actually much more entertaining than Billy Corgan & co.

When the Pumpkins came on, they showed promise in that they were dressed in their Halloween costumes. They were introduced as "The Beatles", and walked out in Beatle suits and wigs. Corgan even played a black & white Rickenbacker, D'arcy a Hofner bass, and James Iha a Gretch. They opened with "Money" and even bowed like The Beatles at the end of the song. Too bad they didn't just do THAT the whole time....instead they spent most of their set making noise. Not very interesting.

After the circus concluded, Kiss came on and kicked ass. I think that's been well established by all the other reviews. The announcer began the show with "ALLRIGHT AMERICA!!! You wanted the best...

Peter's drumming was VERY solid. He hasn't played this well in years. Ace nailed virtually every solo. Paul was in fine voice as usual, though he really should think about warming up more before the show. He sounded rough on "Psycho Circus", but later in the show sounded better than ever.

As for the set list, I thought it was pretty good. All of the new songs sounded great, although Ace seemed to be having trouble reaching the higher notes in "Into the Void". "Within" sounded amazing!! I'd like to hear more from the album in future shows.

We only got 2 classic songs that weren't played on the last tour, "Nothin' to Lose" and "She", played back-to-back. Both sounded as good as they ever have, and I was thrilled to hear them. Let's hope they dig up a few more later in the tour. I'd still love to hear "Makin' Love", "Ladies Room", "Parasite" and "Got to Choose" among others.

This show had more pyro and fireworks than any Kiss show I've ever seen. It made Tiger Stadium look small.

We got home just in time to see the Fox broadcast of the show (on tape on the west coast). They showed "Psycho Circus", and later "Shout It Out Loud". When I got home to Boston I watched the tape of the broadcast here, and instead of "Shout It Out Loud", they broadcast "Let Me Go, Rock and Roll". I wonder why??

All in all, the big Kiss weekend was awesome. We even saw Union perform a club show Thursday night (They were awesome as usual). The Kiss concert came and went too soon, though. Can't wait to see them again.

KISS ASYLUM -- KISS Museum News Archive Features Tour Dates Photos