Archive for the ‘kiss’ Category
KISS & Def Leppard Concert Review, Austin, TX, July 12, 2014
Last night I saw KISS and Def Leppard for the first time. I still have to process that in my head. I still really can’t think of a legitimate reason on why I didn’t go see KISS in the 80s. They were the first band I ever loved. No matter. I saw them last night. Not seeing Def Leppard before is easy to explain. Hysteria came out and I hated what they became. I first heard them when Pyromania came out when Stephanie S. had the cassette on my middle school bus and let me borrow it. I liked that album a lot. Shortly after I heard the first two and thought those were even better. But Hysteria just didn’t do it for me. I will say, however, that I have the utmost respect for Rick Allen for coming back after losing his arm. It was also cool to finally see Vivian Campbell live, even though he wasn’t playing any of his own stuff.
As I have stated many times, my brother, Robert, was a huge influence musically on me at a very young age and when he brought home Dressed to Kill, I was hooked. But with KISS, everyone loved them. My oldest brother, Mark, was also a big fan. I can remember the three of us sitting around listing to Rock and Roll Over in the 70s and those times will always remain special to me.
KISS played the Frank Erwin just a couple of years ago and I still didn’t go. I think in recent years the fact that they have Tommy and Eric in Ace’s and Peter’s makeup bothers me. When the show at the Austin360 Amphitheater got announced, my friend and coworker “G” and I decided to go ahead and pull the trigger and get tickets. We’ve known each other since I moved to Texas as he was my first boss here. He switched companies and after 7 years, we ended up working together on a current project. It’s great for both of us most of the folks on this project aren’t cool. haha. We get along well and and have become good friends over the last 14 months. He brought his wife, Ms. G, to the show and I brought my friend Lauren who accepted my offer to go just the day before the show when my original date fell through at the last minute.
Canada’s Kobra and the Lotus were on when we were walking in so I never actually got to see them play but they sounded fine from a distance.
We grabbed drinks and found our seats right in time for Def Leppard to hit the stage. The Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again was playing when the curtain dropped and DefLep played it live to end the song. They promptly went into Let It Go and I was happy. Great song. They mixed the set up with a decent mix of High N Dry, Pyromania and Hysteria and one from Adrenalize (gross). The whole band sounded excellent and Joe Elliot’s voice sounded good. He made no effort to hit the notes he knew he couldn’t hit and that was cool. Their set overall was enjoyable, even with many of the songs being from Hysteria. I only liked the title track on that one.
You wanted the best, You got the best!
KISS came out opening with Psycho Circus and I was glad to see that one get out of the way early. They went into Deuce, Shout It Out Loud and War Machine and I have no problem admitting to being a little choked up. KISS means a lot to me historically. They sounded great. Sure, Gene and Paul’s voices aren’t what they used to be, but those dudes are in their 60s and still sound strong. Paul looked in great shape. He’s obviously working out these days as his arms are quite muscular. Gene’s playing was fine and of course Eric and Tommy were spot on. Consummate pros.
Towards the end of the set, they go into Love Gun and Paul flies up to a platform that was about 15′-20′ from our seats. It was quite amazing to be that close. He was about to go into Black Diamond and there was a quick lull in his speaking and I screamed out, “We love you, Paul!” He looked right over at me and said, “I love you, but you gotta represent!” and then went right into Black Diamond. It was quite awesome. Right at the 8 minute mark of this video. You can’t hear me but you can hear Paul respond.
During KISS’ set, G tapped my shoulder and said look up. We saw 2 lights moving fast that were close together in the sky that split apart and then just disappeared. Granted, the venue is right next to the airport, but it was a little odd. Definitely not a commercial liner and with the lights just disappearing on a clear night, it was a bit odd.
The whole show was quite special and I couldn’t be much happier right now. It was another great night with great friends and great music.
KISS FOREVER
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- Almost time!
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- G and Ms G
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- Another beauty and the beast photo
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- DefLep!
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- Lauren and Ms G with some big fans
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- Paul’s ass
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- Never seen so much confetti at a show
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- G and Ms G having fun
Peter Criss From Makeup to Break Up Book Review
The Crying Catman?
I’ve gotten into reading the autobiographies of some of my favorite musicians. So far I’ve read the books by Ronnie Wood, Lemmy, Paul Di’Anno, Waylon Jennings, Tony Iommi, Ace Frehley and have just finished Peter Criss’ “From Makeup to Break Up”. Much like Ace’s book, it was cool to read about the early KISS days and how they forged on through tough times until their imagery and music caught on to make them millions of dollars. And typically in these sorts of stories, most of the money gets blown away up the nose, through the arm (not so much in Criss’ case), on women and extravagant living. Criss talks about being the tough half-Italian kid who got in a lot of fights and hung out with mobsters yet cries like a baby almost every night. I swear he talks about crying on almost every other page of the book.
Peter takes every opportunity to bash and insult Gene, who probably deserves it. He also speaks a lot about Paul Stanley’s sexuality. He calls Paul gay in just about every way possible without saying the actual word.
It was primarily an enjoyable read but throughout the book it was “Gene did this to hurt me” and “Paul did this to hurt me” and “Ace did that to hurt me” and “Fuck Gene”. His claim of being taken advantage of through his stints in KISS, in my opinion, is more his fault than anyone else’s although he lays most of the blame on Gene, then Paul, then his ex-wife Deb and finally Ace. This victim mentality drives me nuts and Peter rides that through the book. He took poor decisions and he paid the price for them. He could have also walked away early on, but chose not to.
If I was to recommend this book compared to Ace’s, I’d say go with Ace’s, even though his is probably a little more embellished than Peter’s. Gene has a few books out now but I’m not really interested in them. Paul supposed has one in the works, and I’m definitely picking that one up.
Bryan Adams Concert Review, Austin, TX 12/15/2012
Even though metal is my favorite music in general, I do enjoy a lot of non-metal music and Bryan Adams’ early rock stuff has always been a favorite of mine. I don’t really care for much of his 90s soundtrack ballad stuff but always held a ton of respect for the guy. He knows how to write good hooks.
A few months back ACL Live At The Moody Theater announced that Bryan was coming on tour. I bought tickets on the presale and got front row balcony, my favorite section in my favorite venue in Austin. Immediately after buying the tickets I noticed that this was going to be an acoustic show. NOOOOOOOOOOOO! The date of the show ended up being the same day I was moving into a new house and I figured that I would either just sell them or give them away. I had trouble doing both. We finished the move pretty early and I decided that I would just go ahead and go even though I was super tired and still getting over some health issues that have brought me down this week (kidney stone and diverticulosis). After taking one last stab at a few girls I know in town who didn’t have to work, I finally asked my pal Jason K to go. He’s a hard rocker/musician that, like me, likes a variety of stuff. He agreed to go, we met up at a bar and took a pedicab to the venue since I can’t do a lot of walking right now.
We both went into this show thinking it was going to be some weak ass, boring set of Bryan sitting in a chair doing slowed down versions of his hits. Thankfully that wasn’t the case.
When we got to our seats, there was a mic and a grand piano on stage. Bryan hits the stage with a top hat on, removes it and goes right into Run To You. I was a bit stunned as to how good his voice sounded. The song in general sounded great, even as an acoustic version.
He went right into It’s Only Love (sans Tina Turner of course). After this song he talked for a minute and mentioned that he had been writing music for himself and others for almost 40 years. The crowd started yelling out some of his hits and said, “We’ll get to those.” There was a quick lull between the crowd and what he was about to say and I blurted out “War Machine!” He heard me and said, “Man, I don’t even know what song that is.” He paused for a second as the wheels turned in his head and he said, “Oh man…wait, that is really fucking obscure. No one has ever requested that song at any of my shows!” In case you didn’t know, War Machine is a KISS song from Creatures of the Night that Bryan had co-written.
He continued on with more and less popular songs from his repertoire and did a lot of interactions with people in the crowd. There was a girl sitting in the front row with an empty seat beside her and he asked her where her date was. She said he was driving in from Dallas and be there soon. Bryan said, “Get your phone out and call him, I’d like to speak to him. She dialed his number and handed him the phone. He asked the guy how long he would be. “10 minutes? Ok. Should we wait for you? Oh, this is Bryan. Bryan Adams. The guy you’re coming to see.” It was really cool to see that type of interaction. He also had the girl switch places with a dude so when the guy got there, he’d be a little confused about what was happening. He messed with the guy saying that his girl had left and that he had found him a new date. It was all quite funny.
He continued through several more songs, left the stage and came back for a six song encore. He had a pianist with him who played on about 3/4 of the songs.
The show ended up being much better than I expected and I am really glad that I went even though I felt like hell. If there was one disappointment for me, personally, it was that he didn’t play One Night Love Affair. That’s by far my favorite if his. Maybe that was a difficult one to play acoustic. I don’t know. He played everything else that I would have wanted to hear and even a few older tracks that I had forgotten about. It was a great show and that guy is a great performer.
Can I get my metal card back now?
The Metal Files 
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