From: Peter Brett

I can't believe that it was 20 months ago that I saw KISS live in Portland on the reunion tour, but here we go again.....

It was a cold Monday night and I got to the show about 7pm. There was a good crowd and I had my necessities for every KISS concert; paper and pen to write the setlist down and some earplugs!

At about 7:35pm, the house lights went down and the back-up band(Econoline crush) came on to thunderouts applease(NOT!!!). They were ok but myself and the rest of the crowd weren't there to see them. They had about a half hour set and then they left.

At about 8:35pm, the house lights went out and the familar intro was heard: "ALL RIGHT PORTLAND, YOU WANTED THE BEST, YOU GOT THE BEST, THE HOTTEST BAND IN THE WORLD........KISS!!!!!! The curtain drops and there they are; GENE, PAUL, ACE & PETER in full color and in 3-D performing "Psycho Circus". I thought that the 3-D effects were pretty cool, but the glasses were just plain white with no writing on them. Just when "Deuce" kicked in, I dropped one of my earplugs and I thought; "This is just great, the 3rd song in the show and I lose one of my earplugs!" I didn't think to much about it because "Deuce" is my all-time favorite KISS song! It wasn't until "Firehouse" (2 songs later) that I found the other earplug.

The setlist was the same as in Boston, just shuffled around. There was one girl who I saw before the show who REALLY stood out, and when Paul swung out to the platform at the far end of the floor to sing "Love Gun", this girl came up to the platform. I was about 2 rows in front of the platform. On the reunion tour, I was closer to the stage and on Gene's side of the stage. At one point in the show, Paul made a comment to the people in the crowd concerning those red laser pens, he told the people who had them to put them away or he would "shove them up your ass!" KISS sounded great and played great; Gene must have thrown up a pint of blood before he flew up to the rafters. Ace had a great smoking guitar solo and he did a trick with his guitar that lights up that I can't even descripe. Peter had an awesome drum solo; although during the finale of "Black Diamond", he missed a couple of cues and Gene made the hand gestures showing what Peter was supposed to do. (I bet Peter got a good "tougue" lashing from Gene after the show) [HA! HA!}

All in all it was a great show and I couldn't believe that I was seeing KISS on the 4th stop on this tour. I REALLY didn't think that they would come this soon into the tour, if at all.

I did notice some flaws in the show that I know will be worked out as the tour goes on: some of the pyro was off cue. One of the two KISS logo signs on the stage ( the right one) has a block of lights in the "K" that didn't work. These were just minor things compared to the whole show itself, which was AWESOME!!!!

I keep thinking that after this tour, this may be the last time I see KISS live. What do you think???

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