From: Steve Steele
Every time Kiss has played a big show in Houston, they have always played at The Summit. So my friends and I were disappointed that they were playing at a smaller outdoor venue. The place was the Woodlands Pavilion (The Dallas Starplex is exactly the same arrangement). Not only is there less seating than your typical arena, but the stage is smaller too. In fact, the two large side screens seemed to be placed at odd angles to the audience because of the shape of the stage and seating arrangements. I was on the 10th row all the way to the right and one screen was DIRECTLY over my head. Actually it was kinda cool to look straight up and see a HUGH image of Gene's face above me.

Despite the shortcomings of the venue, and the threat of a major rain storm that was looming (it started raining heavily within 30 minutes of the shows' close), this was the best Kiss show I've ever seen. I've been a Kiss fan since about '75 and I've never seen them rock as hard or perform so smoothly as they did this night. They looked like they were having a lot of fun and it came out in their performance.

I was especially looking forward to seeing Ted Nugent. Ted started out a little slow, a lot of the center section was still empty, but after a couple of songs the seats were full and Ted TOTALLY ROCKED the place. Everyone was into Cat Scratch Fever and Stranglehold. Dude is still sharp! Got to see him again.

I saw the Kiss opening night show in Phoenix on VH1 and thought is was awful, so I was a little concerned that I wouldn't get my money's worth for the $125 x 4 tickets I purchased. I was wrong. The mistakes were minimal and the sound was great. What made this show good was how on Kiss were. Kiss has to be seen in person to really be appreciated.

Ace was very cool, playing very smoothly with a lot of soul. Ace, I think, is very underrated as a soulful rock soloist. He has a very laid back way of bending stings and plays behind the beat a lot with his strumming. Very cool. He also lost some weight for this tour.

Gene looked and acted like the Gene from the Destroyer era, which is an improvement from the later hunched over softer Gene. The old Gene was menacing, roaming around the stage, putting fear into everyone. During God of Thunder, when he was hoisted up above the lights, everyone started chanting Gene, Gene, Gene... He seemed to like that as he said, "OH YEAH!".

Paul was doing his whole sentimental routine, "We love you", and "Don't ever forget about us". Whatever! That stuff makes me roll my eyes! Otherwise Paul was great. He did what he does so well without getting to mushy. I guess kind of like early Kiss Paul.

I could hardly see Peter. Seeing how lightly he plays these days (compare his playing now with his playing in 75') he's not much to watch anyhow. Plus, I can't stand Beth. I don’t remember any of them using the stairs either. That might be another reason I didn’t pay attention to Peter.

I would say that most people were into Ace and Gene. They definitely were "on" the most. There was a face painting both that I took my 11 year old nephew to. Oddly, most everyone I saw had their face painted as Ace.

Kiss seemed more into playing and performing than they have in a long time. They definitely showed they were the veterans. As a performing musician it was a little intimidating but very satisfying. Before this tour I was ready for them to hang it up. The money centric attitude turns me off. But after seeing them live on a tour that they care about, it’s obvious that they should forget about making movies and comic books, and should instead go on tour every couple of years and rock their asses off like they did this night.

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