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Golden 1 Center, Sacramento
February 9, 2019
By Dan Wall
Set List: Detroit Rock City, Shout It Out Loud, Deuce, Say Yeah, Heaven’s On Fire, War Machine, Lick it Up, 100,000 Years, God of Thunder, Cold Gin, Psycho Circus, I Love It Loud, Hide Your Heart, Let Me Go Rock N Roll, Love Gun, I Was Made For Loving You, Black Diamond. Encore: Beth, Do You Love Me, Rock and Roll All Night. 2 hours.
KISS was never as big in Northern California as it was everywhere else, but you would have never known it judging by the sold-out crowd that showed up in California’s Capitol city for the band’s farewell tour on February 9.
With over 18,000 in the house, the heavily made-up quartet put on a show for the ages, and for the first time in a long time, one that stands with its arena rattling rock epics of the late '70s.
I first saw KISS from the front row of the old Winterland Arena in San Francisco, in 1975, and that show had a profound effect on me. It was that night that I decided what I wanted to do-not be a musician, but to attend every rock concert I could. That’s how good, how over-the-top, how wonderful that night was.
I have loved the band ever since the group’s first In Concert appearance on ABC back in 1974, but I still wondered what it was the rest of the world really got about their heroes that the Bay Area didn’t. When the band sold out five shows in Los Angeles in 1977 and what seemed like a month in New York City and adopted hometown Detroit the same year, the made-up ones could only sell-out one night at Daly City’s Cow Palace. And if you wanted to play Sacramento back in those days, it was at the old Memorial Auditorium a few blocks away from the gleaming, new Golden One Center. (I actually saw the band there, sans makeup, in 1984).
Original members and mainstays Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons can’t move like they once did, which may just be one of the reasons that this is the band’s last tour (which will probably extend for two years or more). If this is the last time in Sacramento, the band laid out a bunch of money on a show that is spectacular as they come (and the guys should have, because the ticket prices were ridiculous).
Reviewing a KISS show is pretty simple for me, actually, because you either love the band or hate it, so as long as you provide the hardcores with a laundry list of what was sang, presented, stacked or blown up, you’ll be okay. Everyone else has already moved on, so here is the list:
- The staging was incredible and modern, with three high def screens (one huge one behind the band and two smaller ones on the flanks) beaming the faces of our icons all over the arena. Missing were the usual hundreds of amps, as the band went with a clean stage this time out.
- KISS arrived onstage riding three of the huge lighting pods to the familiar riff of “Detroit Rock City,” as the pre-requisite pyro attack began. Those same pods were also used as video screens and part of the massive lighting rig.
- The drum stand rose 10 feet high at the beginning of the show and during Eric Singer’s solo, and the stage featured ramps, risers and stands that the front men used as their personal playground.
- The lightning truss was innovative and spectacular, and the sound was loud and crystal clear on this night.
- Simmons spit fire at the conclusion of “War Machine” and flew into the lighting truss (and landed on a small platform that he sang from) after puking blood during “God of Thunder.”
- Stanley also flew, out and over the crowd to a small stage set up at the sound board to sing “Love Gun” and “I Was Made For Loving You.”
- “Black Diamond,” the band’s long-lost set closer, was back in its usual spot with explosions, fire, sparklers and more pyro than a WWE live event.
- And during the final encore of “Rock and Roll All Night,” Stanley, as per his custom, smashed a guitar and flung the body into the crowd, while more bombs, fireworks, sparklers and confetti showered the crowd with just about every trick in the KISS playbook.
And so on and so forth. This is KISS at its absolute best, and with a set list that included all of the groups’ big pop numbers, you got the idea that the boys were having fun up onstage again. This version of KISS can play anything it wants as well, because guitarist Tommy Thayer (playing Ace) and drummer Singer (playing Peter) are far superior musicians to those that they replaced. You can talk about chemistry all you want, but these guys, veterans of many famous and popular bands, can play as well as any musicians on the scene today. (And I love the original band as much as anyone-just telling the truth here, KISS haters).
Thayer (looking more like Joe Perry in KISS make-up than Perry actually would) should know what he’s doing, since he started out in 80’s hair band Black N’ Blue, played in a KISS tribute band as Ace and was the band’s archivist for years. He waited for his chance in the spotlight and hasn’t screwed it up.
Singer is a rock on drums, and a guy who also waited for his chance, since he was sent packing when Peter Criss rejoined the band for the first reunion in 1996 (Singer played on a Stanley solo tour and was KISS’ drummer from 1991-96). Singer is as solid as a rock and has actually been in the band (combined years) for nearly as long as Criss was.
Stanley is still one of my rock heroes, and if there is a chink in his armor, it’s that he struggles mightily to hit the high notes now, but what 60-ish rock-and-roller doesn’t. He can still move and dance like a man 20 years younger, and his raps are still entertaining. And at no point in this show did it look like he was lip syncing. Simmons does what Simmons always does, stalk the stage like a demon, spit blood, breathe fire and sing the occasional tune. Despite the fact that he runs the band with an iron fist, he is careful to let Stanley, one of rock’s greatest frontmen, run the show onstage.
So, if this is the last time, I can say that the 44 years I have spent as a KISS fan has been time well spent. I haven’t agreed with everything the band has done (or Simmons has said), but for the most part, KISS has provided me with more thrills and chills than just about any other band out there. And I will always love them for that.
