From: Michael Bournazian
Greetings from Montreal. Got back 3 hours ago from my trip to Ottawa, so while my memories are still fresh, I’ll write this review.

Firstly, my personal opinion is that this show was much better than the Montreal show I saw last June 22. For starters, the sound in Ottawa was excellent, my ears are not ringing as I type this and I was not wearing earplugs. In Montreal, the sound was only good up until Firehouse, then improved to very good but never anything to write home (or to Kissasylum) about.

Secondly, performance-wise this show was much better too. It ran more smoothly and all band members seemed more into the show, especially Paul and Peter. Your typical Ottawa crowd is usually less rowdy or enthusiastic than Montreal, but Ottawa definitely showed love and appreciation throughout the whole show last night, and Kiss definitely felt it.

Some interesting moments during the show were as follows:

-Great opener with Detroit Rock City, I could actually here the guitars clearly this time as opposed to in Montreal.

-Paul spoke some French after Deuce but did not overdue it. He also kept his rap short, in Montreal it was long and drawn out. In fact, almost all his raps during the evening seemed trimmed of fat.

-Excellent versions of I Love It Loud, Shock Me and Firehouse. Ace’s twirls during Shock Me are cool!

-Let Me Go, Rock ‘N’ Roll brought us the only real musical screw-up when the band didn’t quite kick back into the song near the end after the drum and bass break. Still a great song and the show lost no momentum because of it.

-Ace’s solo was both strong and weak. At times he seems to be struggling to play, and at other times he was on it.

-Psycho Circus and Lick It up went over well. In fact, all the Eighties songs went over great (sorry diehards, but it’s true!).

-Unlike the Montreal show, 100,000 Years did not have a drum solo by Peter which I thought sucked. But in a way, Peter was showing much-improved chops all night long, so maybe he didn’t need a solo.

-Right before starting Beth, Peter said he would appreciate it if the laser pointers would be put away. I assume he got his wish since he didn’t accost the crowd when the song was done ;-).

-Now things get interesting! During the bows, Paul grabs a banner from a kid in the front row. It’s a great drawing of all four members, and they each take turns putting their John Hancock’s to it. Paul returns it when they are done, and the look on the kid’s face on the screen was moment to remember indeed.

-Paul then asks what Ottawa would like to hear. I had read some of the Syracuse reviews where they screwed around with some song riffs but never played a full song. Eventually, they did Rock And Roll All Nite. Not the case in Ottawa! I don’t know about any show since Syracuse, but last night, Ottawa got I WAS MADE FOR LOVIN’ YOU as a second encore. They started playing the riff then stopped. Peter was not behind his drums, and Paul said they needed a drummer then could play the song. They started again with Peter kicking in, but I was still skeptical as to whether they would actually play the whole song. By the time they reached the 2nd verse, I was convinced: from then on, I soaked it in for all it was worth. IWMFLY will never be my favorite Kiss song, but last night was my very first time hearing it live and I’ll never forget it.

-From there, they kicked into Rock And Roll All Nite. Personally, the fact that I heard IWMFLY right before made RARAN even better, as opposed to the regular Beth and RARAN. A great version of the standard to close the show.

I am so happy I saw this show, for it gave me a chance to see a better show than the one I saw in Montreal, and it gave me one last(?) time to see Kiss. Thank you Paul, Gene, Ace and Peter from the bottom of my heart!!

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