From: Frank Briskie
First a note on the opening acts. As someone who has sat through some really terrible opening acts on the Reunion and PC tour, Skids and Ted were a very welcome change of pace.

As cited by others, the technical glitches were glaring. Paul and Gene's cables were the biggies (By the way, they used the box that Gene throws the sword into to get Gene down!), but there were many others. Throughout the whole night, there were 2-3 segments (20 lights each) of both KISS signs that weren't working properly, and there were probably 20 lights on the stage that were out as well. Ace's guitar smoked a lot, but never came close to catching on fire. At one point, I think after Paul scare on the ropes, he needed a different guitar. A tech came running out with a new one, took Paul's old one, and ran back to the side with BOTH! Paul was like, "Huh?" Worst of all for me was the opening. I watched the opening night in Phoenix, and was jazzed that they finally had a killer announcer for the "You wanted the best...." thing. Well last night, I think they used that kid from the 6th Sense, or possibly Kathy Lee Gifford. Damn!

Aside from all the production errors, the boys otherwise seemed in fine form. The lights that did work were really awesome, the pyro was cool, and that monitor was just crystal clear all night long (MUCH better than the reunion tour). The sound was a little rough at first, but got better as the night progressed. I enjoy Paul's chatter, but I wish he wouldn't pimp every song, especially Lick and Heaven's…just go right into it.

A few times, they projected something other than live shots on the screen. During "Do you love me" they had a pretty neat montage of KISS. It was great to see all that stuff, but it was a little jarring watching something that wasn't in sync with the music (hard to describe…you get so used to images changing to the beat of the music, that when it doesn't happen, it seems really odd). They also had a short animated clip of the Prowler spinning donuts in front of an approaching semi during DRC. Nice touches.

Overall, I thought G, P, P, & A attempted to put on a really good show, and for the most part succeeded. However, as a writer ahead of me pointed out, this was a cheap night for no one. For that kind of money, these technical glitches are really inexcusable, and I don't fault the band at all for that (like Gene WANTED to be swinging in the breeze?!).

If you know your red wire from your black wire, submit your resume to Doc McGhee…I have a feeling there are some openings today!

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