From: Geoff King
I have been waiting a long time to see Kiss. A friend and I were talking in early November about what to do for the New Year and we thought about concerts and Kiss came up. Checking out KISS ASYLUM we learned that they would be playing in Vancouver, British Columbia Canada. Hmmm, only about 3 hours from where we were in Olympia, Washington. This is looking good!!!

My friend couldn't afford the trip unfortunately, but I ordered my tickets the morning they went on sale. I picked reserve seats as I don't care for general admission anymore. With my luck I figured that I would get nose bleed seats, but it really didn't matter. This is Kiss and it'll be a show! I was surprised at how easy it was to get a hotel room booked, though I probably could have gotten one closer into the downtown area, but figuring this was downtown Vancouver, I didn't want to deal with the traffic. Everything was set to go, we were heading up Friday morning, the night of the concert.

Two days before the concert my girlfriend goes out to the car and notices a nice puddle of coolant. Oh great, just what I needed! Repair shop doesn't find any major leaks, puts dye in coolant system, and don't take it out of town, especially up to Canada. Great!!! No what? Mom hands me keys to her 1978 Chrysler New Yorker. Now, if you are not aware, this car is about 20 feet long, two door no less. It's giantic, we call it the Disco Barge. Now, if you also not aware, Canadian roads are about half the size of U.S. roads. (ie 4 lane U.S. equals 6 lane Canadian). Nor has this car been driven farther than about 40 miles. We get the oil and coolant changed and I am hoping it'll at least get us there!

We get everything packed and check to make sure we have everything. We head out at about 10am for a good 3 hour drive up to Vancouver. Car is running fine, and we hit the road! Now, if some of you hadn't been paying attention, the U.S. Customs had just caught several people with explosives coming across the border from Canada into Washington State. So the border crossing was gunna be interesting. The drive from Olympia to the border was fast and uneventful! About the only deal was heavy rain in Bellingham. We get to the border and basically nothing has changed going into Canada. They ask the same four or five questions, and if yer not African American or acting totally bizarre then send you on your way.

YEEE HAW! Digging out the ancient 1996 Expo Vancouver Map we start planning where we need to go to get to our hotel. Our hotel ended up being on a major road, Kingsway, which I believe ends up turning into Canada 1, the major east-west Canadian highway. After figuring out the block numbers by making a couple wrong turns, we're on our way to the hotel. Through many blinking green lights and psudeo three lane roads our home on the horizon! We get into the hotel and fortunately, not many other people are there. They upgrade our room to the executive suite, which is basically a two room suite. Living room with seperate bedroom. Very nice! It's the Quality Inn Metro Town hotel BTW.

Now that we're settled in our hotel room, safe from the totally insane traffic we decide to wander over to the Safeway grocery store across the street. Mind you I didn't pay much attention to the full parking lot, seeing as this is Vancouver, one of the largest cities on the west coast of North America. Quickly did we realize that something just wasn't right after getting into the store. It was a MAD HOUSE! I mean, TOTALLY INSANE! People were grabbing stuff off the shelves, the line to the spring water fountain was wrapped around two lanes, the battery shelf was picked clean, no bread, this place was being RANSACKED! These people were totally freaking out over Y2K!!! We got out of there in one piece with some FUME Doritos, pizza pockets and some motrin.

Back to the hotel, I am watching the news channels on TV to make sure the world really isn't going to hell. Absolutely nothing going on, major fireworks shows, yet another marketing sham of the millenium. We head down to the hotel resturaunt. Was totally dead, just re-opened. Much down some ribs and my girlfriend had a giantic stir-fry. We embarass the waitress cause she mentions how every is going crazy and we tell her we're from Washington State. We tell her we're going to the Kiss concert, and she gives the look like she wanted to go.

After the decent meal we wait a little longer and decide to head out early cause I have no idea where the BC Place stadium is. I can remember it during the 1996 Expo, but things change in 15 years ya know and I had been up to Vancouver for the Comdex about 2 years before this. We head out in the disco barge and get quite lost in downtown Vancouver. I remember Gastown from Expo and Comdex, and manage to get there. Luckily we turn down the right road which ends up taking us right past the stadium and now it's where to park? The first sign and person standing out there I whip a hard left into the place. It ain't easy parking this disco barge so I pick a spot with some space to the right of the car. You might have seen it, giantic white Chrysler near the H entrance.

Oh yeah!!! We're here!!! It's KISS!!! It's the last day of the 1900's!!! Too fucking cool!!! Our tickets say B entrance so we head up the stairs to the other side (always the case). We reach the entrace and a small crowd has formed. Some guys are lighting off fireworks, a few others look huddled up roasting some BC Bud. Which by the way, BC has fairly lax marijuana laws and it's rivaling Amsterdam.

We get in line and the crowd is very pleasant. A guy in front of us is munching down a sandwhich from Subway and there's a crowd in front of us and a family with two kids behind us. And there's a gal sitting down next to a lamp post with a sign "I hitchhiked all the way across Canada (or US)..." Everyone is in a good mood, didn't notice any fights, it's all good. Then an crowd comes up to the booth our line is next to and the main guy is having a cow. Turns out the guy either owns or hads rights to one of the private booths and per his contract he is supposed to be let in an hour and a half earlier than the normal seated people. After arguing with the lady in the booth a couple security people come up and they get let in a half our before we do. While this crowd was gathering, I noticed a few Hells Angels within' it. I believe those were the ones lighting off the fireworks whom another person mentioned in their review. The crowd at the front of the line starts playing with the kids and getting them all psyched up for the concert. The kids were having a blast with the crowds attention, mom is being protective. It was all in fun. I hope the kids had a good time.

Finally!!! The doors open a little past 8pm! It's a madhouse!!! RUN BE FREE!!! It took us about 5-10mins to get into the door even though we were less than 30yards from it. By the time we got in people were sucking down the beer. Which, if any of you ask the question; Why was it in Canada? I dunno about you, but beer hasn't been served at major concerts in Washington for years. The other reason is I believe the roadie Union in the U.S. has time limits to how long the concert can be. However, I don't believe these were the main issues of why it was in Canada... I'll give my opinion later...

We find our seats. They aren't nose bleed seats! We're up pretty high, right next to the private booths (about 5 or 6 rows down), and it wasn't jam packed and the people we sat next to were all very pleasant. I could tell the floor was a mad house. There was a group doing dragon bong hits from hell the entire concert. I figured they had to be using some sort of battery operated aqua pipe. I drooled but maintained sober the entire trip, which I felt good about.

Promptly at 8:30pm or so Nickle Back started. This is a local band and they rocked! I really liked them and will probably look for their CD. A little too static and should take some lessons from Kiss on not standing in place. They played about 15 minutes, three or four songs. There wasn't much of a crowd yet so it was dead. Next up was Lit, can't remember when. These guys seemed not to be happy or just plain suck. Something wasn't right with the sound and it took them an extra 10 minutes to start playing, and I believe they only played three songs, in which the instruments were still making noise while they were walking off stage. Yet another affirmation that the new bands need to pay attention. Next up was Big Wreck. WHO? I guess I am out of the scene, but never heard of these guys. It wasn't bad, lots of bluesy guitar action. Pretty static, kind of boring, drink the beer fast music. Not many people paid attention.

ON WITH THE SHOW! Promptly around 11pm the lights go out and the video monitors roll. Advertising the Immortal cartoons and then they quickly go through a history of Kiss. It was pretty neat! And then the moment I've been waiting for since I was 7, watching the TV commericals. PLEASE MOM PLEASE!!! It was SO COOL!!! The lights, the fireworks! The Hottest Band In The World!!! KISS!!!!!! My girlfriend said I lit up like a kid in a candy store and was like that the entire concert. I felt like it! It was everything I had imagined, and even more because it was the last day of the 1900's. Spending it with one of the greatest and most sucessful music band in history. The crowd was great too! We sang along to almost every song that they played which I thought was great, and especially when recording for a live album! How apt! It was the most fun show I have ever seen! The band was having a blast too! You could totally see it from the video screens. I was so glad that I chose to go see Kiss. I feel fortunate enough that they chose to play in an area that was easily accessible to me, although I probably would have flown anywhere in North America to see this show. I'm sorry if any of you missed it and wanted to see it. I understand that feeling, as I have missed so many of their shows. I will be definately thinking and dreaming about this for a long time!

On the way out I picked up a couple t-shirts, some psycho circus ones. Here's the key to buying stuff like this. Stare at the shit from a distance and know what you want, and just shove your way up there and get their attention. Money talks, standing around creates crowds. I got two t-shirts in less than 5 mins. If it took you longer, yer doing it wrong.

Once outside it was freezing rain, just on the brink of snowing. Made it difficult to see and the disco barge took up two lanes until I could see better. It ended up snowing just a tad bit Saturday night. My biggest disapointment was that about 90% of the stores were closed in downtown Vancouver on Saturday. We went up in the tower thing and I saw a couple people with Kiss t-shirts. Too bad the city didn't realize there was gunna be a couple extra thousand tourists. I am sure the shop keepers who were open cashed in on us all. It was definately a fun trip, and I feel sorry for the saps who got caught up in the end of the world schtick. Perhaps us Kiss fans can cash in? The world will end when Kiss does? Prepare now! BUY! BUY! BUY! Official End Of The World Kiss Bunkers! You reading this Gene!?!?!

And now my ending monologue. A lot of people sure are picking apart this concert. As if it's an Olympic event. Missed a chord here, mic didn't work there. I don't believe putting on a show and music is what that's about. It's about that show then and now, when it happens. I noticed that most people mentioned that most of the shows were different in some way. Hmmm, gee, who could have guessed that? Perhaps we're getting too custom to the studio releases that we are forgetting what live music is about. I personally didn't expect perfection, I expected to be entertained and to see a show. And most definately I did. I certainly wouldn't expect Gene, Paul, Ace and Peter to think I am perfect. And, I noticed that no one mentioned Paul's speech about the show. That, they had no plans for a Y2K concert and it was setup fairly quickly. Sounded as if it was a suggested inviation to host a concert. I figured that as much since as it was only announced in November. I am quite certain that this was a very quickly planned show. I felt it was a show for their fans and their appreciation of their fans.

Have fun! You can catch me on IRC EFNET Servers as SnowBlind

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