Concert tonight in Pensacola was everything you expect from KISS. It was loud. It was fun. The cast of characters coming through the doors was pretty amazing. Saw the gamut. Saw old ladies. Black folks painted up. Asian folks painted up. Grandmas with their grandaughters. Dads with their kids. Dirty whores of all shapes and sizes.
I do love a concert whore and there were plenty of those sprinkled throughout.
Of all the people in the world who could possibly have been parked by me, I drew Roger Schultz. He brought his wife and his kid. Roger was the only guy in the place I saw with a plastic KISS mask. Everybody else was either painted or not. His presence drew a crowd of drunk Alabama fans between Buckcherry and KISS who "wannadid shake YORE hand, fer alla ya DID for ALABUMMAH, GAWDAMMIT!" After which there were obligatory questions about Saban, Mark Ingram's Heisman and the inevitable national championship. Roger thinks Bama will play Boise State, BTW. After about seven Yuenglings and during the drum solo, I decided to tell Roger his radio show sucked. Roger was wearing earplugs. I can understand your kid wearing them, but you're not really rocking out with big green earplugs sticking out of your ears. So I'm yelling "You SUCK on the radio" and he's pointing at his ears and grinning. phuk it. Not worth the trouble.
Say what you want about KISS, but I hope I am in as good a shape as Paul when I'm 60. phuk, I hope I'm in that kind of shape when I'm 45.
I've been to a ton of KISS shows. The pattern never really varies much. What you get is what you get. To consider that they're doing at 60 what they were doing at 25 -- and doing it just about as well -- is pretty amazing.
Love the old stuff. Wish they would pull a little more from the middle of the catalog. Would like to hear I Was Made live again, it thumps. Or Creatures. Or Heaven's On Fire. Or Tears are Fallin'. Or even Domino. They still hit all the major points.
For a 60 year old guy, Paul's voice was relatively strong. Sort of amazing when you think about it. He's done this stuff plus his solo (not good) albums plus playing Phantom of the Opera for a year or so. And he can still hit most of the notes. Some of the high stuff escaped him, but poop. He's 60.
If you've seen KISS before you'll get exactly what you expect from start to finish. Blood spitting, fire breathing, flying through the air, fireworks popping, flames shooting, confetti raining and all the stuff that goes with it. It's definitely entertaining.
If you've never seen the band before, as the guy in front of me who brought his twelve year old son hadn't, you'll stand there when it's over and go "My god, that was awesome..."
(Pic attached taken from my iPhone)
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