From: Tesg
"We’re celebrating one hundred ten years of KISS tonight!"

So kidded Ted Nugent during a blistering set that showed exactly the opposite side of rock from Kiss Simple and effective. With one bass player, one drummer, two stacks of amps, and one big "Ted Nugent" logo, Ted owned the place. You won’t find many who disagree with his political agenda in a place like Oklahoma City, and the crowd ate him up. I’ve seen KISS shows where the crowd was less into KISS than this crowd was into Nugent.

Skid Row (I guess they’ve changed their name to "Skid Fucking Row" if you believe the lead singer) sucked, but what crowd was there by that time gave them a fairly warm reception. The lead singer just looked happy to be playing a venue that seated more than 50.

Before I go into the real reason you’re here, I have to talk about the Myriad. We pulled into town at 3pm, checked into our motel on the distant northeast edge of town, and headed downtown to see the show at about 5. Anytime we come to a show that is in unfamiliar territory, we like to be really early to check things out. This was our first time here. It won’t be the last. Whoa...I just realized that I've seen KISS 9 times, in 9 different venues.

We were surprised to find the facility, and ourselves parked under it, by 5:30. The building was littered with KISS fans scattered about the front entrance and inside the lobby buying merchandise. Four different entrances would open at 6pm, and everybody got in pretty much as quickly as they wanted to. No “one entrance only with a two-hour line” crap you find at a lot of mid-sized markets. And the floor staff was very helpful at directing you to your seat. A very well run facility, and a refreshing change from the last KISS show I attended at Five Seasons in Cedar Rapids.

Our seats were a very pleasant surprise Fourth row floor on Ace’s side. In the nine times I’ve seen KISS, I’ve never been near this close. What a difference! It’s a whole different world because it’s so interactive with the band. The girl in the seat in front of me was a young blonde with a body to kill for. She got up on her chair and spent the whole show dancing dirty. Gene didn’t take much time at all to go over to our side of the stage, lean over, and mouth “Show them to me” at her…, which she did. She also did for Paul, who actually smiled, shook his head, and said “No, don’t do that” at her. Funny. She got a LOT of band attention, as did another girl in the lower risers near us. It’s funny to watch from this vantage point because you realize that every time band members point in the crowd or are leaning up at the edge of the stage, they’re generally interacting with a specific individual.

Our flashing blond also had us in good position to get a LOT of opportunity to collect guitar picks. I ended up with two Ace picks and one Paul. The guy behind me got a drum stick from Ted Nugent’s drummer.

The stage has a lot of pieces from the previous two tours…the big center video screen is flanked by two KISS logos on either side. Two more video screens are mounted to stage left and right. Peter’s drum riser is six feet off the ground BEFORE rising, and is flanked by two sets of stairs like the mid-70’s tours. On either side of the stairs are stacks of amps themselves stacked in a stair-like fashion, giving them double-duty as stands for pyro. The first level could also feasibly be used by the band for running around but only during songs that don’t have fire involved. Only Ace ever dared to use it, and he only went up there once. The second level is covered in artillery, no way you could navigate around it. The lighting rig is a series of square boxes with the usual…Gene’s stand for “God of Thunder” and Paul’s extended rig to ride to the back of the arena plus a new twist, a stage which KISS lowers from at the show’s intro. (They actually lower it right after the KISS tapestry drops and the band boards it from the stage, then they rise it up, drop the curtain, and down they come.)

The show itself was far from flawless, as several technical glitches came into play. Paul started “Deuce” (our second song of the night) and had no sound. Amazingly, Gene and Peter came in right on cue and didn’t miss a beat. Another problem of unknown origin had Gene highly flustered, he pulled a roadie aside during a song and directed him to do something immediately and later made gestures offstage that didn't look any too happy.

The timing of the pyro to match specific points in songs was WAY off at the beginning of the show.

The boom mike on the right side literally broke in half (metal and all) and Paul had another roadie on stage replacing it mid-song.

The most blatant problem of the night was during the encore. Gene and Ace rise (as does Peter, for the second time) on risers built into the front of the stage. Ace got into the safety bar,Gene went up,Ace didn’t. He just stood there playing, looking befuddled, then he started cracking up. Paul ran over and kiddingly tried to pull on the bar to make it go up, which just cracked Ace up even more. Gene stood above on his riser and had a good laugh over the whole thing.

Songs were pretty much the standard through the tour. Ace did play “Shock Me” as well as "2000 Man" with his solo and pieces of "Parasite", "Snow Blind", and "New York Groove" thrown in. His target when he fires bottle rockets at the lighting rig is now confetti-filled balloons, which provides a neat effect. When he was switching guitars afterward, a third bottle rocket shot off over the first few row of the crowds. It was pretty clear that wasn’t supposed to happen from the response it got from Ace and his roadie.

For those keeping track, Peter’s drum riser DID rise this show, twice, all the way to the lighting rig.

Oh yeah, did I mention the show totally kicked ass? Despite the technical issues, the band was "on" and the show totally rocked. The crowd was pretty good, the house was full, and nobody (except my nitpicking) had any complaints. There wasn't another place in the world to be tonight. This was it.

Seeing the show from this vantage point was really special, a nice way to do the last tour. I feel like Ive seen it all now, but I’ll see it again anyway, at least once more (I have tickets for Moline), hopefully at least three more times.

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