From: Rich Graziano

just caught the show at the meadowlands on sunday the 22nd. i'm a huge fan of kiss and i don't want anyone taking offense but these are my feelings on the show.

It seems the shine, illusion, pizazz, whatever has worn off slightly. the kiss mystique wasn't there. maybe it was my seating location (which wasn't bad) or the fact that my blackstage pass didn't work (i spelled it correctly, black, its a story for another occassion).

At any rate if kiss doesn't start mixing the set lists, they may wear out their welcome. the one thing kiss does not want to happen is to fall to the ranks of all these modern day bands, which play small but not sold out venues.

i have to say musically they were tight, ace played his ass off. the pyrotechnics, paul's jumping and dancing, genes usual self and peter's new born drumming was great. adding "i was made for loving you" is a waste. who wants to watch ace play the same two strings for 4 minutes while peter and gene have coffee. i would rather have heard "rock bottom" or "watchin you" which they played on the last tour. if they were going to add a song they should have played something like "take me", "mr. speed", "ladies room", etc. one staple song that should always be played is "new york groove", but then that would probably overfill the quota handed down by gene and paul.

the 3d effects were very good for a first time try (even though gene said things would be coming from every direction i only saw effects on the main screen), but taking out the circus acts, in my opinion took away the whole concept idea which would make this tour different than the last. the reason for leaving the circus acts out was the fact that some venues wouldn't fit the equipment. i don't go for that. this tour was so well planned out, you think they would have planned for some kind of scaled down version for smaller venues.

you think kiss would shake things up just for the fact more people will buy tickets to multiple shows. not to mention the pricing for the ny/nj shows are completely out of control compared to other nearby arenas (ct, ma, pa). the meadowlands show wasn't sold out, to me that shows that kiss may be vulnerable to fan disappointment. no one wants to sit in the rafters for basically the same tour as last but anybody would sit in the rafters if they played anything goes type of shows.

i'm sure my opinion will change friday when i see them 26th row center in nassau (but not everybody can sit in the first 30 rows, think about it.). by far i want as many new albums (and a comprehensive box set) as possible and many future tours. i just wish kiss would take a few risks and forget about their perfectionism.

death to the laser pointer.

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