John Katsilometes | Las Vegas Sun
Chris Morris
During a show last month with his band The Dirty at Tuscany’s T Spot Lounge, Franky Perez unexpectedly spun a yarn about Paul Stanley.
Stanley, who keeps busy with his primary job as the vocalist and co-overlord of KISS, is not part of Camp Freddy or Royal Machines. But he did take in a Camp Freddy show at the Roxy in L.A. in December 2011.
Perez, from the stage that night at Tuscany, recalled Stanley’s arrival at the Roxy.
“He shows up at the backstage entrance without a pass, and these kids at the door, they don’t know who Paul Stanley is,” Perez said. “So, one of them asks, ‘Sir, we need to see your pass.’ ”
Then, as if drawing attention to a work of art, Perez motioned to his face with his hand.
“And Paul Stanley says, ‘This … is my pass.’ And walks in.”
Try that sometime at a big show. Maybe a KISS show at the Joint in the Hard Rock Hotel. It won’t work, not unless you have the superstar conviction of Paul Stanley. He wasn’t wearing makeup that night. No need.
“This … is my pass.”
There will be no mistaking the identities of those onstage at the Joint for the first KISS residency ever in Las Vegas. The band takes over the 4,000-capacity music hall for a run starting tonight and ending Nov. 23. The lineup is Stanley and Gene Simmons, the omnipresent co-founders, with Tommy Thayer on guitar and Eric Singer on drums.
Stanley says to expect “more” from the band during this series of concerts.
“That’s what we’re challenged to do, always,” he said during a recent phone interview. “So, the idea was to bring a bigger show into a smaller venue, and I think we’ve done that. This is a completely different stage, different show than we’ve done on tour, where we played 42 shows to 600,000 people. This is a show and set specifically put together for our Vegas run.”
Big bands have made effective use of the cozy venue. Guns N’ Roses and Motley Crue, in particular, have about blown the place apart with pyrotechnics. Def Leppard joined in with dazzling LED designs, with images covering the entirety of their career.
But what sets KISS apart is the band’s whole aura. It’s always been a mix of a rock show and a naughty circus.
“Ultimately, a band is either good or bad. Obviously we strive to put on the greatest show possible,” Stanley said. “And let’s face it, any band with money can put on a KISS show. I think that’s fine. But the thing they can never be is KISS. You can buy lights. You can buy pyro. You can buy fog. You can buy lasers. You can buy all that stuff, but you can’t be us. The audience wins when other bands have to up their games to keep up with us. That’s terrific.
“But what most people are struck with when they leave a KISS show is that there is no band like us.”
If Stanley is to be believed (and who would doubt the vaunted Starchild?), the Joint is in for a workout with this residency.
“(The Joint) has a nice-sized stage for its size of venue, but in truth it’s not a big stage. … That being said, you know, you can put a whole lot of stuff into that venue, and we’ll make it fabulous,” Stanley said. “The idea of doing a residency is new and exciting for us, and this is the right place for it. It’s something we haven’t done. We will be everything we have been in that venue, which will only make us seem that much bigger.”
Stanley said the band has been approached before about a residency in Las Vegas, but “the timing just wasn’t right.” The setlist is to feature the songs that have become generations-long anthems, “Detroit Rock City,” “Do You Love Me,” “Rock and Roll All Nite” and “Shout It Out Loud” among them. The band is still cashing in on the hits of its earliest albums, building an empire that happens to include KISS by Monster Mini Golf across from the Hard Rock Hotel on Harmon Avenue.
Still, Stanley has steadfastly said that Simmons and he have no regrets about refusing to perform with the original lineup at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in April, saying the look of the lineup would not have been right and the music would have been compromised.
“This is what KISS is now, and this is who we are,” he says. “Musically, we have never been better.”
KISS is expected to overtake the Hard Rock during this run and arrives in fine fashion tonight while onboard a Maverick Helicopter.
“We’ll be everywhere. I’ll even work as a barista in the coffee shop,” Stanley said.
When told he would probably earn especially high tips because he is who he is, he laughed and said, “OK, I’ll make it even hotter.”