On a positive note..... all this talk (good and bad) has me listening to their entire catalogue this week.... LICK IT UP STILL SOUNDS EFFING INCREDIBLE!!! Gene at his sinister best with Not For The Innocent! Honestly this is a front to back solid METAL record and still holds up today. Forgot how good it is! As you were.....
I was thinking more in terms of the band playing dress up and dress down for three years and I can't see them biting at the chance to do a show as you suggest. It takes them how long to put all of the makeup and costumes on every night and then they need to undress during an intermission of what, at least an hour, to wash it all off and come out for a second set while the crowd sits there restless? I don't think it's feasible or even possible.
It doesn't take that long to remove make up and change - a 20-30 minute intermission would do and give the crowd a chance to refresh
I think you're underestimating how challenging that would be on a nightly basis for 70 year old men. But that's me.
They would be playing for 45-60 minutes and then having a break, if they can't do that then don't tour.
There's no way they would go thru all that trouble, wash the makeup off, towel down, remove the stage wigs, put on the street wigs and another set of stage clothes...forget it.
I too would love to see a non makeup era set, where Bruce comes out etc... and regardless of the hassle to “dress down” and the pain in the a** that would entail etc, I honestly think it would alienate the “casual” fan, and it might be safe to say that it’s the casual fans who are making up a decent percentage of ticket sales?
I wouldn't be sad. When I think of myself as a young child first getting into KISS and how much they meant to me, it seems so long ago, from another time, so distant in the past...and to think that KISS is still out there is really sort of mind blowing in so many ways. I mean, I remember my walls being covered in KISS photos and posters, my mother bringing home my first KISS record and hearing it for the first time...My mother was much younger than I am now, a young woman of only 34 and now I'm soon to be 49. Mom is now almost 77 and those are precious memories I won't ever forget. Although I haven't followed their entire careers as closely as many of the hardcore fans, to think that all of this time has passed and KISS is still out there is really nothing short of amazing. I give them props for having lasted this long. When all is said and done they have left us something to celebrate, not mourn.
Bucket list tour for most people I assume, lots of casual fans at these shows. Paul even asks them and the response is big.
Unfortunately Ace and Peter didn't recognize the value of maintaining the rights to the makeup whilst Gene and Paul did. They have nobody to blame but themselves.
I gotja... and I'm with yah... it slipped me right back to '77, which is the second time in a week I time traveled... bought an excellent LP copy of Destroyer recently and was playing it for my 6 year old - who loves KISS - as we played my original 70s Stratego game, which my elderly mother had just shipped to my son...
So glad this is in the set...hope it doesn’t become one of the audibles that they swap out as the tour rolls along
You know what's funny? Whenever my mother and I laugh about my KISS obsession from back in the day I tell her it's her fault because she bought me my first KISS record. She doesn't even remember doing it, it was just another day in the life of 'mom' but to me it was a life changing experience I'll never forget. I know many here share similar experiences.
I am with you man.... my parents had no idea what they were getting themselves into when they bought me the Ace 78 solo album for my 4th birthday lol. 40 yrs later and I remember it like it was yesterday....and cherish it as one my fondest childhood memories.
It's funny what you remember, isn't it? The first time I dropped the needle down on Ace's record the opening drum beat that kicks off "Rip It Out" sort of startled me. Being 9 at the time (9th birthday present February '79) I don't know what I was expecting but the vinyl was so quiet and then out of nowhere, WHACK! I can't recall what I did two hours ago but that? Like it just happened..lol My uncle had bought that and the Village People's "Macho Man" for my birthday..I need not say which one received more time on the record player.
Yes Absolutely! I was just enamoured with the cover and the inserts that came with it....from looking at the cartoon poster of Ace I legitimately thought he was from another planet. I ALSO thought (in Dec 79 when I got the album until about 81) that ACE was the only singer in KISS because of the 78 solo album. At the time I assumed that it was a regular KISS record with the other three playing on it lol. And the background harmonizing vocals in Speeding Back I thought was GENE and I remember thinking he doesn’t sound nearly as bad a** as he looks lol
Gene and Paul certainly came out on top by retaining ownership of the designs, but I honestly don't give them a ton of credit for "recognizing the value", nor do I blame Ace and Peter for forfeiting. For example, when Ace left the band in 1982, Kiss was a joke, a relic. Pariahs. They were poster boys for the excesses of the late '70s. I don't think anyone on the planet could see that there'd be any value in holding onto his makeup design. It just so happened that Gene and Paul were left holding the bag as the remaining original members. As heads of The Kiss Company, it was in their best interest to own and control all aspects of their operation. They gave Ace and Peter severance packages for their exits and in return, they retained ownership of those designs. At the time, they were worthless, and no one could have foreseen that there would be the kind of nostalgia boom for these guys two decades later.
