From: J.E. Barrow
Sullivan Arena, Anchorage AK. Well first off, the Sullivan is not the best place to have a concert, it's about the size of a shoebox, but up here in the AK it's all we have. I would say there were 6-7 thousand people there, which is pretty good! It has been 20+ years since KISS has been here, so we were expecting a good show and I feel we got it. Here are my critical comments (I guess)..There was no risers or cherry pickers, no flying Paul, no rising drum kit, no Peter solo, no flying Gene, small stage, and no video screens. Out of those, I wish there was a Peter solo, I enjoyed his solo on the reunion & PC tour. I'm sure we'll hear more on this later why there wasn't one. As always, there where many people talking about it when we were leaving. I feel Peter's playing was very tight and was the best overall out of the four. The other things missing I could live with. It reminded me of one of the 77 shows before we had all the big tech video screens and so on. The platform risers would have been cool, but this place is so small there was no room for any of the above except a PC solo.

The pyro and the huge balls of flame where great and we got our fill of them!! We had great seats and you could actually feel the heat off the flames!! I would say over half the songs played had some type of pyros going off!!The sound was good and as in any show there were mistakes but nothing major about going off on like some like to do!! Hey it's a live event and things will happen, gives us something to talk about! Ace's guitar solo was great! Creative and fun (2001 theme!). The smoke was a plenty and the rockets were better and louder! He hit most of his solos note for note!! His singing was OK except he'd miss singing into the mike alot!!

The set list was just like Vancouver except 2000 man was an encore (switching places with In to the Void). The 3 80's songs sounded AWESOME!! I'm not a big 80's fan but I think these sounded the best overall! Maybe because I haven't heard them live in 15 years, anyway they sounded great. Lick it Up was my favorite. Like most people, I won't complain about the song selection. Yes, they could have played different songs from they're arsenel, but hey who cares!! I was with 5 other people (including my wife) who have never seen KISS and this was the best show they have seen and we're all over 30 and have kids!! So that kind of teenage reaction to see them have was priceless!! Could the show have been better, well since I a KISS concet vet (77 was my first), Sure. But was it bad?, Heck NO!!! Considering the venue, they did a memorable and professional job. Gene and Paul were the top pro they are, except Paul needs to practice his catching of his mike and guitar!! (ha). For this being the second show after a long lay-off it rates very high, better than many other bands who have been on the road for months!! KISS is KISS, if you complain, gripe, or whine are you really a KISS Army member!!??? For being 45+ yrs. old these guys do it better than any other band out there!! Great show.

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