The manager of the store (a huge KISS fan) and myself caught a cab to their hotel to meet them. The two guys with them were from Brisbane so they don't know Sydney roads. Bruce & Eric were on a tight schedule. It didn't help when we turned up a little late. Sydney traffic made it worse because it took 30 minutes to get to the store which is normally a painless 10 minute trip. Anyway we got to chat with them which was pretty cool.

We got to the store at 2pm (right on time). About 100 people showed up in the worst possible conditions. It was cold, windy and pouring with rain. And it is only one week till summer.

The instore went nice and smoothly. I got autographs and pictures taken with them which was great.

I drove with them back to the hotel in the black Tarago. Thank God there was no traffic, because they had to be at the venue at about 4.30pm to check their equipment and do the sound check. On the way back Eric told a joke saying how he was the first German to escape from a Jewish concentration camp!! Very funny.

There was lots of merchandise there. I bought an Eric Singer T-shirt. The clinic started at 8.45pm and went for over 3 hours. The started off with Creatures of the night. Bruce & Eric then took turns in entertaining the crowd with their guitar and drumming abilities. Both of them said they are really proud of "Carnival of Souls" and want it released. To end off they played songs by Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and then did Nothing To Lose to finish.

It was a great show and a great day!!!

I arrived at Selinas a bit late (it was an early concert), say 8.45, and as I arrived at the beach front, I crossed the road just behind a stretched limo- a Cadillac, I think with Bruce and Eric undoubtedly in the back. Cool- perfect timing.

The set started at about 9pm with Eric and Bruce casually walking on stage and getting ready to play. Then there was some guy trying to do a version of "You wanted the best" but for Bruce and Eric instead. They started out with a hard version of Creatures of the Night. It lasted quite a while, and like many of the other tunes played, there were no lyrics, just the two of them jamming. It sounded awesome.

After that song, Bruce kinda gave a small speech explaining that the intention of the evening was to be kind of like a convention tour/ clinic and so he and Eric would have about a 45 minute set each to answer questions, and play stuff for us. Eric was first. He looked like he was pretty laid back, cracking jokes etc. In particular he was joking around with this guy at the front, telling him that he liked WOMEN, not men and so he should stop coming onto him.

Eric confirmed that he was not going to be part of KISS for the near future, simply because he liked the freedom of being able to play whatever sort of music he wanted. Apparently he was even in this new advertisement with Alice Cooper where he is... ironing? Go figure, maybe Eric is following Gene as a thespian. Seems like he missed out on being in Wayne's World I with Alice Cooper despite being part of the touring band at the time. As he said, it was either playing on Revenge or being in Wayne's World. In retrospect, he joked, he would have made a packet from Wayne's World because of its phenomenal popularity... but who would give up the chance to be on a KISS record. Eric said that he thought he probably showed his most creativity when he was in the Badlands, since they were a band that started small and ended up big. He also said that he liked listening to many different groups, including led Zep, black Sabbath and Pantera. He then went on to play a KISS medley- once again, no lyrics, which was fine- and that was about it. Oh yeah, he also played the rhythm beat to a COS track- Hate. He said that they couldn't play anything from COS until it was released though. He offered to teach a rookie how to play Strutter, and so a girl- Debbie I think- got up on stage and managed to belt it out EVENTUALLY after Eric gave her a few tips. He was really friendly throughout the evening, and talked about the need to be a professional when you're in the music business, especially regarding the reunion etc. His one joke that I remembered: how are Michael Jackson and Pepsi similar? They both come in small cans.

Then Bruce came out and took over for his segment. He played quite a few different tracks from studio soundcheck sessions (or something like that) from the Revenge album. I think he played Unholy, Tough Love and Heart of Chrome. They sounded really good. He then fielded questions, and quite a few topics were brought up. He sounded rather sad about not being in KISS, although once again, the freedom to do whatever he wanted sounded appealing. The analogy of sitting on the bench was brought up a few times... The sound check sessions had Gene singing parts of Unholy, which prompted a wiseguy to yell-out "Karaoke!" To say that this was "Kiss on Karaoke" would be an injustice, but it certainly was a weird situation. Bruce also played a few new tunes, including Liar, Zeptune, 495 Jam, and For You. Apparently 495 Jam was written when Bruce was like 16 or something. Liar was a scorcher and should be a highlight of Bruce's new album,which he said would be coming out sometime next year. He also said that he and Eric played on the new Queen tribute album. He would not rule out joining another band or going solo, and said that he would play Eric in a band if it happened to be the right thing at the right time, but he stressed the fact that he didn't want to be like the "Good boys of KISS" who formed an alternative band to Kiss. He said that the Kiss family was great and told us like five times how much it meant to them that we all turned up. These are the diehard Kiss fans, after all! He stated once again that as far back as 1985, the reunion tour was mooted as a possibility and so he was not totally shocked by what has happened. He also stressed the importance of being a professional, and said that he was on good terms with everyone in the band etc. When some of the dudes in the audience started to get a bit defensive and started mildly criticising Gene and Paul, he even said that the reunion tour was very good, and that we should all go see it nevertheless (I hazard to guess that everyone there ALREADY had their tickets though). He then played a couple of licks from tunes called out from the audience- rarities like Boomerang, No no no, Tears are Falling and Forever. Someone asked for Who Wants to Be Lonely and he kind of shook his head and told us that even he needs to watch his own videos sometimes to remember how to play his own stuff, because the band as a whole had been playing so much old stuff in recent times. He said he was really proud of his new song "I Walk Alone" but that he couldn't play it tonight because of contractual reasons as well as the fact that it has a lot of weird and wonderful effects that couldn't be done on the simple stage available. He also mentioned his web homepage (both he and Eric have one).

Apparently, with the funds from this tour, he plans to buy a computer (a laptop I hope) so he can get on the web, improve his homepage and personally e-mail fans. He promised to put in heaps of photos from this Sydney show and said that he was working on making a tribute page to Eric Carr.

After a very short break, the guys came out with this local dude called Dario who played bass. He was alright I guess, but I wasn't really looking stage left.... They played a couple of songs from the artists who they felt influenced their own musical style the most: Jimi's Purple Haze, Jeff Beck, Led Zep (Out on a tile?) Bruce did sing a bit during the Jeff Beck song, as did Eric. It was weird to finally see and hear Bruce sing, after more than a decade of seeing him just play guitar. He sounded pretty good. They ended the set with a huge crowd favourite- Nothin' to Lose- with Eric Singer on vocals. I think his voice is pretty strong- I have heard him on a few convention bootlegs and he was cruising tonight. The whole crowd was singing along and it felt like a real KISS concert, just on a smaller scale. The gig lasted about three hours in total, including the end bit where they came out and chatted with everyone.

At the end, they came out and met the crowd, signing everything from posters to guitars and other items (people's chests? that's what I heard one of the fans intending to ask them to do). Posters were dirt cheap- only $5 and they were very happy to sign them and talk to us. I shook Eric's hand and asked Bruce what his favourite Kiss song was- "Too many really, but Unholy is one of them". All in all, the guys were JUST GREAT, hope they come back to Sydney sooner rather than later, the same fans will always come back for more.

An excellent show- different and refreshing- can't wait to hear COS- if anyone would let me know how I could hear some of those songs, it would be much appreciated.