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Joe

UCR

Kiss frontman Paul Stanley had to abandon his traditional zipline stunt during the band’s appearance at the Domination Festival in Mexico on May 3.

In a regular part of the show on their End of the Road farewell tour, Stanley can be seen climbing onto a metal hoop and chain to be flown over the audience during classic track “Love Gun.” In Mexico, however, an apparent technical issue led him to tell the roadie who was trying to help him climb onto the wire to change plans.

Instead of being carried over the crowd, Stanley turned away from the audience until it was time for him to sing again, while the empty prop made its movement to the back of the performance area without him.

In February Stanley told the Los Angeles Times that while he doesn’t look forward to practicing the zipline flight in an empty arena – “I’m not really fond of it” – he very much enjoys the moment during the band’s shows. “With an audience it has an air of invincibility, and that’s exhilarating. To be Superman with a guitar doesn’t suck.”

In the same article bassist Gene Simmons explained the constant attention to detail required to ensure all the moving (and exploding) parts of the band’s stage show are in sync. “At the first show we had some problems onstage,” he explained. “The fans didn’t know anything. They just went, ‘Wow!’”

Fans attending the band’s Feb. 9 show in Sacramento, Calif. definitely noticed when Simmons berated a crewman for failing to light him properly during a performance of “God of Thunder.” As you can see in the video he bellows, “Give me a white spotlight, motherfucker. Asshole has been on tour with us for 20 years and doesn’t get it… bitch, I know where you live. Oh by the way, fuck you.” However, some responding posts suggested it was an occasional part of Simmons’ act, done on several occasions in the past, perhaps as a “ribbing” between “very friendly coworkers.”

UCR

Veteran journalist Jaan Uhelszki recalled the moment she witnessed Kiss co-founder Gene Simmons getting high for the one and only time in his life, after he ignored her warning to avoid eating hash brownies.

Uhelszki, a co-founder of respected music magazine Creem, was able to tell Simmons’ bandmates Tommy Thayer and Eric Singerabout the night in Detroit in 1974, which delighted them because they’d only ever heard it from Simmons himself.

“We’d heard that story a hundred times, but we never knew that there was a witness,” Thayer told her, as recounted in the May edition of Classic Rock Magazine. “We weren’t even sure it was true!” Singer added.

“It was the promoter’s birthday as well as a party for Kiss, so there was a giant birthday cake,” Uhelszki wrote. “But after it was cut, waitresses made the rounds with plates of chocolate brownies. ‘Don’t even think of having any of those,’ I cautioned Simmons. ‘Why not? I love brownies,’ he replied, a little queriously. ‘I know you love brownies. But just don’t. They’re hash brownies.’ He looked bewildered, as if trying to figure out why anyone would want to defile chocolate with drugs.”

She went on to tell how Simmons grabbed three and “devoured” them, while the bassist tried to claim it had been six. “It was three,” Uhelszki told him. “One would have put you over the top.” She said that, once the hash had begun to take effect, “it was like being with E.T. tentatively discovering the wonders of planet Earth, complete with long fingers outstretched to touch ordinary objects.”

Simmons asked, “Are my feet as big as I think they are? Does my head look funny? Is it really small? Why are my hands so big? Are my teeth shiny?” As they left the party in a car, he continued with “a steady stream of questions, the border between what he was thinking and saying all but demolished.”

Suddenly deciding he wanted milk, Simmons directed the driver to a late-night store. “When we entered the place, Simmons said in a carefully articulated but booming voice, ‘May I have a glass of milk, please?’” Uhelszki recalled. “I remember the man behind the counter as if it were yesterday. ‘We don’t sell glasses of milk, son.’”

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Michael Brandvold

Indianapolis KISS Expo

Tickets for the Indianapolis KISS Expo 2019 HERE at this link.