Nashville Music Blog

Steve Cross

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OK, we get it: We're Nashville and KISS loves us. Paul Stanley reminded us of that ad nauseam last night at the Sommet Center, where we de-virginized ourselves of the KISS concert experience. How was it? It was exactly what we expected: a totally awesome, face-melting onslaught of gargantuan camp, fire, galloping riffs and fist-pumping shout-alongs. We came to see all those things, and we got what we wanted: the best.

First things first, though. Buckcherry. What an atrocious band. We were hoping we'd get into the arena late enough to miss these clowns, but the KISS-related festivities on Lower Broad had already wrapped up, leaving us with little option other than to go inside and drink to the tale of the "Crazy Bitch"--a song we're now unequivocally dumber for having heard in its extended live arrangement, which included a verse of Billy Squire's "Stroke Me." There are scores of bands like this on the Sunset Strip--why did this one have to get famous? Like Poison without the hooks or Firehouse without the balls, they are musically hopeless, generic and predictable. Moreover, singer Josh Todd thinks that the 79 tattoos on his torso suffice for a shirt, and his squealing high-pitched caterwauling makes him sound like a feral cat succumbing to an industrial strength vacuum cleaner. Fuck this band and their Chuck Berry reference.

Steve Cross

​As we waited for "the hottest band in the world" to take the stage, we milled around to observe the KISS Army in action. Par for the course, it really did seem like one out of every four or five people we saw had KISS make-up on. In fact, there were even booths where a make-up technician would airbrush a KISS character onto your face. Followers of the cult mixed and mingled with your garden-variety heavy metal parking lot crowd, creating a festive rock 'n' roll all night atmosphere. Not bad for a Wednesday.

These people all lost their shit when the lights went down and--with a startling blast of pyro--the curtain dropped, revealing the band in all their iconic glory, as they went head first through a one-two punch of "Deuce" into "Strutter"--two of our favorite KISS gems. Right off the bat, the show spared no cliché, and we mean that in a good way. We didn't come to the KISS show to use our right brains, we came to let go of our inhibitions and be entertained--and entertained we were.

Let's go down the list. Pyro in the chorus and big finish of nearly every song? Check. The platform shoes and black spandex? Check. Gene Simmons spitting fire? Check. Gene Simmons coughing up blood? Check. Spotlight guitar, drum, and bass solos where all other members leave the stage? Check. A spinning drum riser? Check. Bottle-blondes in the audience flashing the band? Check. We even got Gene Simmons singing "I Love It Loud" on a platform atop a lighting rig that he levitated to. Not to be outdone, Paul Stanley took flight over the audience to his own platform to sing "Love Gun." Between all these shenanigans we got all the classic KISS moments with which they defined the arena-rock experience.

And, of course, there was the make-up. We'll just get it out of the way--founding members Peter Criss (drums) and Ace Frehley (lead guitar) are not in the current incarnation of KISS, but their trademark Catman and Spaceman make-up designs are now donned by their replacements. For many in the KISS Army this is a deal-breaker, but obviously not too many as, while not sold out, the arena appeared damn near close to it. The most egregious fake make-up moment came when guitarist Tommy Thayer--playing the part of The Spaceman--took center stage to sing the Ace Frehley-penned "Shock Me"--leaving more than a hint of awk-rawk lingering in the air.

Just as the stage production left little to be desired, so did the '70s-centric setlist, which featured nearly all of the band's most recognizable hits, from "Hotter Than Hell" to "Calling Dr. Love," "Black Diamond" to "Lick it Up" and the inevitable "Rock and Roll All Nite." They even played a bit of "Stairway to Heaven." We'll admit that by the time the band had brought about their "Detroit Rock City" finale, we were a bit fatigued from hearing 25-or-so songs that all sound roughly the same--but music was secondary to what is easily the rock show equivalent of a Ringling Bros. three-ring circus. After a straight two hours of both ironic and un-ironic headbanging, we praised almighty rock 'n' roll as the lights came up to reveal an arena smokier than a Southern California wildfire.