From: Frank
Hello all.

SELF INTRODUCTION
First, I am the same "Frank" that submitted the following reviews: No 136. - Oakland, CA - 3/23/00
http://www.kissasylum.com/views/tour2000/oakland1.shtml
No 802. - Mountain View, CA - 7/28/00v http://www.kissasylum.com/views/tour2000/mountainview1.shtml
Although I am japanese, I have been in the USA since I was 9 yrs old, so I've never been to a concert in Japan. I currently live in San Jose, CA, so flew to Tokyo especially for this concert.

Please allow me to thank my wife since this trip was her idea, allowed me to go to Japan alone, and she actually bought the tickets online at "UDO Artists, Inc.", the concert promoters for KISS since their first tour of Japan (1976 Rock & Roll Over Tour). I would also like to thank my father in law, since he was the one who actually paid for the ticket!

SET LIST
1 - Detroit Rock City
2 - Deuce
3 - Shout It Out Loudv 4 - Talk To Me
5 - I Love It Loud
6 - Firehouse
(Gene breathes fire)v 7 - Do You Love Me?
(retrospective video)
8 - Calling Dr Love
9 - Heaven's On Fire
10 - Let Me Go, Rock and Roll
11 - Shock Me
(Ace guitar solo)
12 - Psycho Circus
13 - Lick It Up
14 - God Of Thunder
(Gene blood spitting & flying, Eric Singer drum solo)
15 - Cold Gin
16 - 100,000 years
(Paul shooting T-shirts into audience)
17 - Love Gun
(Paul Flys to small platform in center of dome)
18 - I Still Love You
(Paul only)
19 - Black Diamond
Encores
20 - I Was Made For Lovin' You
21 - Rock and Roll All Nite

Basically the same as the US tour except:
- "2000 Man" replaced with "Talk To Me'
- "Beth" replaced with "I Was Made For Lovin' You"
- Drum solo back inside "God Of Thunder"

KISS had no opening acts (I understand this is the norm in Japan) and played for about 130 minutes (7:15pm ~ 9:25pm).

ATMOSPHERE
The place was packed! Nearly 60,000 people.
The crowd was very varied.
Young kids with their parents, salary men in suits, rockers/musician types, very cute girls with dyed hair, guys in their forties, as well as guys & girls in full make up & costume who were not old enough to have seen KISS in make up prior to the reunion.

Throughout the concert (unlike in the states), everybody (and I mean everybody) stayed close to their seats & enthusiastically participated in every aspect of the concert, screaming, clapping, & waving their arms.

To my surprise, my seat was on the arena floor, dead center and only 15 rows from the stage. I have never had seats this close to a KISS concert before, and this is my 17th KISS concert!

THE BAND
KISS was very tight! I said the same thing in my reviews for the other 2 Farewell shows I have attended but thinking back, KISS have always sounded tight.

They showed Eric Singer up on the big screen a lot and he looked very good. The make up was Peter's catman but you could still tell it was Eric from his swagger & stare (not to mention his playing).

Eric looked mean on the drums & looked very serious. However, when it was time to take their bows (right before "Rock and Roll All Nite"), Eric (along with Ace) was all smiles as they ran from one end of the stage to the other.

As reported earlier, the japanese version of the program is exactly the same as sold during the US tour except:
- introduction page written in japanese
- 1 page insert with picture of Eric in make up with a short message

Gene seemed to have some problems with his monitor as he kept signally somebody offstage to raise it up (Everything sounded great to me!).

After "God of Thunder", Gene washed some of the fake blood from his mouth offstage but in doing so, his hair got drenched and gave him a bit of a wet puppy dog look. He looked cute and demonic at the same time (you figure that one out).

"Talk To Me". One of my favorite Ace songs. Some of you may be fortunate to have the "Ego's at the Stake" album. It has an excellent recording of "Talk To Me" performed live at England's Wembley Arena during the European Unmasked Tour. Eversince then, I've always wanted to hear this song live and it was great!

Something new for me was during Ace's solo, his second rocket launched from the head of his Gibson Les Paul not only shot up near the flash pot & the white ballon filled with confetti but also triggered some fake overhead lighting to fall down to the stage.

As mentioned before, although this was my first concert in Japan, I had listened to several bootlegs of KISS' shows here and knew that they would utter some japanese to the audience but I didn't expect them to use as much as they did & very well at that:
- "Tokyo! Konban wa!" (Tokyo! Good evening!)
- "Minnasan, akushu akushu" (Everybody, clap your hands)
- "Anatawa utsukushii" (You are beautiful - directed at a young woman)
- "Doumo arigatou" (Thank you very much)
- "Saikou" (Great or Fantastic)

But what always never fails to impress me is Mr Paul Stanley. His awesome voice, dancing & prancing, rapping between songs, there is nobody that has his stage presence.

Just a quick thanks to KISS as well as everybody in the KISS Army. Although I never want this ride to end, I can't wait for the final concert.

Take care & thanks for reading.

PS: The talk is that the final concert will be in NY in April or May. Aren't they going to take the Farewell Tour to Europe?

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