From: Ken Gullic
Elo kiddies! As promised, a quickie summary of this Americans first trek to "The LAND OF UNMASKED!!!"

[for my COMPLETE review of the 4/7 Sydney show- please click on the "Ken Gullic" icon on the 4/7 menu... yes that's me!]

1) SYNDEY and AUSTRALIA rule!! Go there if you haven't! The people are so friendly, the city is like a very clean miniatue NYC located on a baytown in Arizona or something?!?! Worth the 14 hour flight from L.A.!!

2) THE SET LIST was the best part of both nights, though the second SYDNEY show was without: I STILL LOVE YOU (not missed) and NO MEDLEY AT ALL! (The show seemed to runneth over?!?) which was a bummer.

3) OTHER THINGS MISSING IN SYDNEY VOL. II: Eric spit out the gum early on (see my previous 4/7 review)... GOOD ON YA MATE!

4) GENE still messed up the lyrics to LET ME GO... starting with "I never knew I needed..." again, as on 4/7.

5) PAUL was hilarious when he said the usual "Looket awl these pee-pull heeyah tonite! You ah beeautiful... and looket awl these red seats too!" (The concert was about 80% sold out [even with the 2 for one deal... night one was packed, though!])

6) MERCH: for some reason, much better than the night before. There WAS an event t-shirt with BOTH dates on them... essentially the same as the American event shirts: KISS ROCKS SYDNEY! Especially cool, 'cause the dates on the shirt started with the 1980 SYDNEY UNMASKED dates! They also brought out the ACE 8 x 10's, autographed by Ace ("Rockin in Oz 2001" for $50 Au$$ie). Why this stuff wasn't out on 4/7 is beyond me?!?!

7) As I was in the third row tonite (thanks TT!!), I found myself surrounded by INXS members and hangers on.... sounds cool, but the show was starting- and they were scrambling for their seats as DRC started, and it was kind of annoying.

8) YES, KISS is still using THE WHO's "Won't Get Fooled Again" to drop the curtain. Always AWESOME!

9) THE SCREAMING JETS (opening act): pretty good actually. They work hard. All of these AUSSIE groups have this undertow of 80's New Wave power pop punk to them, with big harmonies. Some of their songs sound like AC/DC's "Jailbreak" as recorded by NEW ENGLAND. Something like that. A strangely awkward singer (good voice though) distracts at times, but the two guitarists (particularly stage right) work very hard to do the "rock out" poses of yore... and a good drummer too! A closer called "I Need Your Love" (or something like that... very AC/DC) is still in my head! Cool song.

10) The crowd: always enthusiastic, down under, especially about UNMASKED era stuff! SHANDI and TALK TO ME get as big of a response as anything. One of the press reviews complained that SURE KNOW SOMETHING wasn't played (agreed!). That wouldn't happen in the U.S.!

11) Speaking of things that wouldn't happen in the U.S.: MANY people in ERIC CARR make up! God did I feel like I was in an Inner Sanctum bootleg! Pretty cool.

12) No Vinnie make up, sorry- but one kid was in a cool air brushed painted Vinnie make up face shirt. SPEAKING OF COOL SHIRTS: one guy had a full body UNMASKED custom air brushed shirt featuring the album cover caption that showed all four members holding their masks, except PETER was replaced by a cartooned ERIC SINGER (circa Revenge) holding a PETER make up mask. VERY COOL! That should have been the offical AUSSIE 2001 t-shirt.

13) UTOPIA RECORDS: everybody was right. Very expensive, but I did get a very cool GENE SIMMONS bag (in UNMASKED costume) backed with the cover of the AUSSIE 1980 program. I also bought a complete UNMASKED on vinyl (w/all inserts) for the hell of it- as well as the BEST OF THE SOLO ALBUMS on vinyl- and other KISS goodies, like a great b & w 8 x 10 group shot from the 1980 Aussie press conference!

14) NOT MUCH IN THE WAY OF LOCAL KISS concert PROMOTION WAS NOTED ANYWHERE, but I did see posters at UTOPIA records.

15) Bought the new NEIL FINN album while down there (not out in the U.S. yet) and it's awesome! Will always remind me of this special trip!

16) Kinda got a little used to Eric Singer back there in Peter make up. He works hard, but the weirdness still matched the plus of his playing... to make it a "tie" in mhy mind- meaning it added and subtracted to the event.

17) I noticed that the PSYCHO CIRCUS montage was edited to not include Peter footage anymomre... whereas the DO YOU LOVE ME footage remains in tact (which means it is really weird to watch classic Peter footage with ES in front of it)

18) ONCE AGAIN: thanks GENE, PAUL, PETER, BRUCE, VINNIE, ACE, ERIC S., MARK and of course ERIC C. (RIP) and all of the professionals that work in support of KISS for providing much fun and happiness over many a year!! Even when I bitch about things, it's with total reverence and affection!

19) During PAUL's mini solo set, as he started [then literally seemed to forget] I STILL LOVE YOU... not an act! He turns around and it looks like he sneezes! You saw he shoulders jerk up as his head went down... it had to be the Starchild sneezing! ;)

20) FUNNIER MOMENT: during LET ME GO ROCK AND ROLL... where Gene usually introduces "ACE FREHHH...." (after Peter or Eric) he forgets that he's already introduced ERIC and sez it again: "ERrrrrric.... (pauses then recovers with), ACE..... AND PAUL!" Pretty funny.

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