Kiss

When it comes to live music, you can guarantee that a Kiss show will be certain to raise the bar for live music, so we thought we would try and catch Kiss whilst they were in town to see if they can still deliver the goods.

Sheffield Arena of all places was the chosen venue to kick off the UK leg of the 'Sonic Boom' tour. Once the house-lights had faded to black, the gigantic video screens either side of the stage flickered into life to show the band members in a corridor backstage at the arena, gleefully strolling towards the stage... then as most Kiss fans expect the classic introduction of "You wanted the best, you got the best, the hottest band in the world..." boomed over the PA system to a volcanic round of applause.



The black stage curtain dropped to reveal the members of Kiss on a moving platform coming from the back of the stage to the lower them to their positions. Opening with 'Modern Day Delilah' taken from their current album entitled 'Sonic Boom'. With the new album to promote you would have been forgiven for thinking that they were going to pack the setlist full of new songs. Thankfully Kiss are fully aware that most of their fans don't come to see mew material, it's the older material that most of their fans want to hear and sure enough Kiss only played three songs from their 'Sonic Boom' album, which blended in well with all of their classic tracks such as 'Crazy Crazy Nights', 'Love Gun' and 'Deuce'. Which goes to show that they are back on form with their new material and its no surprise that 'Sonic Boom' has been critically acclaimed as some of their best material.

As with all Kiss shows, there will always be enough pyrotechnics to start a war, and throughout the entire set, there were flames going off here there and everywhere, as well as stage lighting falling down after being shot with one of Tommy Thayers (Spaceman) fireworks blasting from his guitar. Okay, with it being the opening night this didn't quite go to plan, as the firework went up into the rafters the part of the rigging that was supposed to fall, eventually fell but there was no explosive sound effect to make it sound heavy, so you just watched a light which was made of foam gently land on stage, it was a real 'Spinal Tap' moment. But as Kiss are so professional they just laughed it off and carried on belting out their classic stadium anthems such as 'Detroit Rock City'.



Kiss still have the interludes where Gene Simmons does his demonic bass solo, accompanied with the traditional blood spouting from his mouth as he is lifted up to the lighting rig to perform from the top of the roof.

During 'Shock Me' Eric Singer (Drums)and Tommy Thayer (guitar) have a jamming session, which is always great to see, as they seem to be the band members that are left out of the spotlight for most of the show.



The theatrical side of a Kiss show is always entertaining and Paul Stanley has clearly mastered the art of making the crowd feel like they are genuinely appreciated. His well practised banter with the audience is a nice touch too, as shown when he the band came back for an encore after finishing 'Detroit Rock City', Paul spoke to the audience and in a nutshell explained that as a band they could easily do the whole keep going off stage and coming back to do another encore, but with Kiss they only do one encore. The fans made their disapproval heard and Paul just waited and explained that even though it was just one encore, it will be the longest encore that any band have ever done, which won the crowd over.

Again during the encore the stage theatrics continued during 'I Was Made For Lovin' You' where Paul flew across the audience to a small stage at the back of the arena, where he gave the people right at the back a chance to see him up close. Again this was a nice touch, as to go to so much effort to do that must be a costly thing to do. But Kiss are one of the few bands that go that extra mile during a live show to bring their brand of music alive.



Kiss even slipped in their cover version of Argent's 'God Gave Rock N'Roll To You', which they usually miss out of their setlist.

Sadly with all good things, it has to end at some point and there really is only one song that Kiss can finish on, and that is 'I Want To Rock N' Roll All Night'. As the song got towards the end, the obligatory confetti was shot into the audience and covered everyone from head to toe.

All in all, Kiss proved that when it comes to live shows they are still the best, and can quite happily still live up to those introductory words of "you wanted the best, you got the best."

Setlist:
Modern Day Delilah
Cold Gin
Let Me Go, Rock 'N' Roll
Firehouse
Say Yeah
Deuce
Crazy Crazy Nights
Calling Dr. Love
Shock Me
I'm An Animal
100,000 Years
I Love It Loud
Love Gun
Black Diamond
Detroit Rock City

Encore:
Lick It Up
Shout It Out Loud
I Was Made For Lovin' You
God Gave Rock 'n' Roll to You II (Argent cover)
Rock And Roll All Nite

FUTURE GIGS

sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.