From: Superflash
Initially I said I wouldn't see Kiss on this farewell tour. Too many things bothered me. The set list, what I thought was blatant lying on the part of Gene and Paul about certain things we were led to believe during the reunion tour, etc. But my girlfriend had never seen Kiss and she really wanted to go, and one thing and the other and we're there on a Wednesday night to see them. (Most of this is written as I remember it, without much regard to chronology.)

We drove for two hours to see them. The show wasn't sold out, but the 18,000 seater was close to a sell-out. I'd say there were probably 1,000 seats empty. Given that it was a Wednesday night could've had something to do with it--especially in the bible belt.

We missed Skid Row, which was fine with both of us. Ted was on stage when we got to our seats on the 17th row on the floor. The arena had the folding chairs crammed so close together, the 17th row was about ten feet from the stage. We were packed in.

Ted was Ted, and he constantly talked about this tour being about "saluting Kiss." Ted was loud. He was louder than Kiss.

But to Kiss. Before the show, Doc McGee (is that spelled right?) walked across the stage, talked to a couple of stage guys and walked off.

The stage was covered with a black tarp, and close to showtime, a black curtain was dropped with the Kiss logo written in gray letters.

The lights went out, and the usual spot light thing came on, the curtain dropped, and Kiss descended from the air. They took their time getting to their positions, and as the dry-ice machine pumped fog across the stage floor, they went in DRC. The sound was better than I remembered from the reunion tour. Paul's voice wasn't in the best of shape at the beginning, but by the end of the song he was doing fine. Ace flubbed the part right before the solo, where the band stops and Peter is playing by himself. He was playing the interlude riff. Paul walked over to him and patted him, and Ace looked over, then realizing his mistake stopped playing, just in time for the guitar solo.

One of the interesting things Kiss did with the video was show old footage of the band during Do You Love Me. The rest of the video stuff was cheesy, Nintendo-looking crap ( I suppose it came from their video game or something).

The band started strong, then lost some momentum. Sorry guys, but they sounded tired. Gene looked like he had put on even more weight. He is just not as menacing when he looks like he weighs close to 250. They finished strong; it was just in the middle that they sounded tired.

Something interesting happened. Ace walked completely off stage at the end of Calling Dr. Love. Paul said he hoped Ace would show back up. Ace did, and then Paul said Ace was going to talk about the New York Grove. Ace walked up to the mic and said, "How about the Arkansas groove?" Then he said, "Well, it's 2000. Let's do 2000 Man." He looked back at Peter, who raised his eyebrows at him, and counted on his drum sticks and Ace came in a second before Peter. But the song sounded okay.

Ace's solo was mercifully short, unlike the reunion tour. He quoted a lot of his own songs during the solo. He played a couple of bars of New York Groove, Ozone, Hard Times, and Parasite. As for the smoke, he just dumped all of it at one time. His guitar smoked for a long time, was whipped up into the air, and he came back and played a version of the Theme from 2001 to graphics with a cheese factor of 10.

Ace's playing was fine on the songs. He nailed every guitar solo. His solo was just a lot of noise. His singing was typical Ace: he wasn't sure what key to sing in so he sang in all of them. But you expect that from Ace. But his voice was better than I'd heard in the past, so it was no disappointment. He played Shock Me, which was really tight.

There was no real drum solo, thank God. Peter's drumming was very tight and controlled. It's strange, but Peter doesn't even look like he's really playing. I started watching him, and he looks like he's barely touching the drums. But it was good, but he definitely wasn't hitting like Tommy Aldridge from Ted's band. I'm not saying that's a bad thing--just an observation.

Peter didn't sing very much. In fact, he didn't sing Beth or Black Diamond. In fact, I only saw him sing on Dr. Love and a couple of others. Ace didn't sing that much either, as far as back up vocals. Pete did the whole, "Kiss loves you" at the end of Let Me Go, Rock and Roll.

Gene's voice sound good. He didn't forget any lyrics that I noticed. Paul was Paul. He imitated (mocked) Southern ministers in some of his early raps. "We got a spirit here that'll move you. You can feel it down to your soul," etc.

When it came time for Gene to fly before God of Thunder, he had to motion for the crew to lift him up twice. Then when they did, he was lifted about two feet, and then he stopped. He put his feet down and then he was lifted all the way up. He was listed a lot slower than when I saw them on the reunion tour. Aside from sweating, Gene didn't do a whole lot.

During Black Diamond, which Paul sang, Ace didn't do his solo-on-the-knees part, which I left me kind of disappointed. Ace played well, but his stood around like a house plant for most of the show. He sang part of Cold Gin.

Interesting side note: the guy sitting beside me, five chairs from the right aisle, was video-taping the concert. This guy had their make-up tattooed on his left arm. He had on the Kiss Army leather jacket, and it looked like he'd bought five t-shirts. When the lights went down, he fired up a joint, got his hand-held camcorder out and started filming. During the middle of Shout It Out Loud, security was on him. They took his ticket, tape, and kicked him to the curb. Definitely not worth the risk of missing the show for a tape. He handed his camera to his buddies, and later they put another tape in and they shot the last three or four songs.

When they came out for the encore, some guy had a laser and was flashing it against the video screen. I never saw him or her actually put the beam on anyone, but Paul came to the mic and said that in an audience "like this one, there's always one jackass" with a laser. He said that if "your mother" was here, she'd take it away, but if he saw it again, he'd shove it so "far up you, it'll come out your mouth. Are you acting your age or your shoe size?" Great one, Paul.

They finished and were gone. One thing I want to note: if Kiss is only playing songs that the majority of people want to hear, then why the hell are they playing Psycho Circus? The album tanked and the song ain't that great.

I went away, not feeling like I'd just seen the great show of my life, but it was good. I wished they'd done some other songs. There are plenty of big ones that they're leaving off: Hotter than Hell, Got to Choose, Strutter, C'mon and Love Me, I was Made For Loving You, Shandi, Parasite, Christine 16, I Stole Your Love. I think they're just not wanting to work any more with each other.

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