From: K Jones
Hello Kissasylum! I just got back home to Portland, Oregon after flying down to see KISS in Anaheim and San Diego. What a weekend. My ears are still ringing and my eybrows are singed from all the pyro at the shows. Since there are plenty of reviews for the Anaheim show and everyone knows about the technical problems the band had, here is my review of the San Diego show.

My friend and I arrived at the show as Skid Row were playing their first song. We went to our seats, which were located on Gene's side of the stage, about 12 rows up from the floor. Awesome seats. The Sports Arena is very old, has a long history of classic rock shows, and is relatively intimate compared to many of the new arenas around the country like the Pond, Rose Garden, Staples Center, etc., so seeing KISS here was extremely cool. The Skids got a warm reception from the 40%(at that time)filled arena.

Next up was Terrible Ted and the arena was totally filled. Ted seems to be having no problems whatsoever warming up KISS freaks with his hour long set of killer hard rock classics.

KISS hit the stage at exactly 9:15pm to thunderous applause. I would say that the show was 98% sold out. Naturally, they opened with "DRC", and next up was "Deuce," which was different from the Anaheim show. The band looked like they were having fun and the crowd was really into it. They followed with the standard song set of the proceeding shows. Ace's solo after "2000 Man" was fantastic. He played the riffs to "Parasite," "Hard Times," and "Snowblind." He was definitely more into this show then the previous show, at least from my perspective.

The songs from the 80's sounded great and it was cool to see Ace and Peter putting there own unique stamp on them. Gene did not do the flying trick for "God of Thunder," as there are still problems to be worked out with that effect. I had not seen Paul do his flying trick before (one of the gliches in Anaheim) and it really looked great. The crowd loved it.

One drawback to this show were the large amount of drunk people staggering about as the show went on. A minor annoyance.

Before this show and the one in Anaheim, I had not seen KISS since the reunion tour in Portland. KISS really played their asses off and I seriously recommend anyone reading this to get to one or more of these shows. KISS really exudes a chemistry onstage that is rare in music. DO NOT MISS THEM ON THIS TOUR!

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