From: Richund
Gary Graf was right -- I was ASTOUNDED at the lack of audience response. Kiss played here on the HITS tour and got a great reaction, so who knows what was going on? The heat inside? The fact that NO BEER was being sold since the arena's on a college campus? Don't know. The first three songs were great, everybody was into it, and then Shock Me started the slow down. If anything came on the screen (the animation, the vintage clips), the audience would stand staring at the screens until it was over. I mean, that's understandable and all, but you CAN clap and watch at the same time! And Paul could (and did) whisper a few times between songs and there was NO problem hearing him.

The music itself? Fantastic! They sounded great, and Ace especially kicked ass! Peter may as well have been tapping the drums with his index finger for all the energy he was putting into playing, but the mics are kicked up enough to compensate. Gene was Gene, but I couldn't help but feel that his usual folded-arms stance, usually done to cheers, was being done because he didn't know what was up with the audience. Or the sound. Or the lights. And Paul was fine. He didn't dance around quite as much as I thought he would, but overall no big letdown.

You've heard about Gene's foibles on the lighting rig...but consider Paul's problems with Love Gun. In order for him to come out to us, we had to scream loud enough to register on the "red zone" of a sound meter (shown on the screen). So we yell and the sound meter goes up a little bit. We yell some more, and the sound meter wavers closer to the red mark. Finally it goes over, even though we're no louder than we were. ONE LAST TIME TO MAKE NOISE! And the sound meter goes off the damn charts! Even though we weren't yelling any louder...huh! So Paul flies out and plays to...a fairly empty back of the hall. Whoops! Sure, people flocked to the circle stage, but it probably wasn't any deeper than 6 people thick, and there was a lot of empty space on the floor. Ouch. But he was a trooper and played just fine.

One last thing. Ted went over BIG. Bigger than Kiss. Much better response, many more cheers...and he was louder than Kiss, believe it or not. He played great, although his politics don't match mine at all.

Kiss does deserve an apology! Their performance was damn good, but the crowd and the facilities were below par for them. I've seen them from Dynasty on, and this wasn't one of the best shows I've seen. It may have even been the worst, based solely on the crowd response. Well, I did my part! My throat is still sore after 3 days!

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