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Events and Reports - Kiss - Live with Taking Dawn at the Glasgow SECC - 9th May 2010
It's been a long time coming. KISS hadn't arranged a full UK tour in years, so when the Sonic Boom Across Europe tour was announced and Glasgow was one of the stops I knew I had to get a ticket.
KISS are a band I had never seen before and were pretty much near the top of the "Bands To See Before I Die" list so as you can imagine I was pretty psyched for the event.
Before heading to the venue we had several pints in the Solid Rock in Glasgow (Rock) city centre. By 5pm the place was standing room only and absolutely jumping with plenty of the Scottish KISS Army in full make-up. It was clear I wasn't the only one excited about the gig!
We were in early enough to grab some seats downstairs and settled down for a alcoholic beverage or two while listening to the mix of KISS Klassics being pumped over the pub's speakers.
Eventually we hopped into a taxi to the SECC and got there in time to check out the support act, LA's Taking Dawn. I had heard a few songs on their Myspace and wasn't massively impressed so I wasn't looking forward to them.
I have to say that live they were a different matter, lots of energy and enthusiasm from the band made their songs come to life quite a bit better than the leaden recorded versions. The band play modern style hard rock and while its not something I would ever really sit down and listen to they made for a decent support act. A cover of Fleetwood Mac's The Chain rounded off their set nicely.
After what seemed like a pretty short wait (no doubt helped by a pint from the bar) the house lights went down and the big screens showed some pre-recorded footage of the band making their way to the stage.
The venue was jam-packed with both the standing and seated areas full to the brim. So when the lights came on, the massive KISS curtain in front of the stage fell to the ground, pyro started exploding and the band appeared on massive platforms (and I don't just mean their shoes) the roar of the crowd was deafening.
Never ones to make a quiet entrance, the band kicked off with their latest single Modern Day Delilah and the platform that Paul, Gene and Tommy were stood upon started to swing forward and lower them to the stage (Youtube link).
It was quickly apparent that the sometimes awful acoustics of the cavernous SECC had been tamed by the power of KISS as the band sounded perfect. Eric Singer's drums were ground shaking without overpowering the rest of the sound and throughout the night Tommy Thayer's leads came through loud and clear.
Paul and Gene both sounded at the top of their game, neither has ever been the greatest vocalist on the planet but they gave their all with Paul in particular looking like he was having a ball prancing about the stage.
He is a superb frontman and had the crowd eating from the palm of his hand instantly. His voice occasionally cracks on the high notes but for a man in his late 50's it's holding up pretty well.
Gene too sounded excellent and put on a show as he stomped his way across the stage, breathed fire and blood and stuck out that world famous tongue of his in the direction of any "lucky" ladies.
The band followed up Delilah with a prime KISS cut in the form of Cold Gin, which caused plenty of bad singing on my part and also contained an outstanding extended solo from Tommy towards the end of the song. This was then backed up by Let Me Go, Rock' N' Roll and Firehouse before they played one of my favourites off the new album Say Yeah.
I had been worried that there would be an abundance of Sonic Boom tracks in the set list but was surprised and actually left wanting more when they only played one more later in the set, sadly the weakest song from the album I'm An Animal. But giving them their due it certainly sounded a lot more forceful live.
Now that the crowd was feeling good, Deuce was unleashed with Paul and Tommy standing on platforms at opposite sides of the stage to allow Gene the spotlight in the centre. It one of my favourite KISS songs and sounded amazing with more superb soloing, synchronised rocking, pyro and plenty of cowbell action!
KISS know their audience well and threw out one of their biggest his in the UK pretty early in the set, Crazy Nights is a monster hit for a reason, it's a clarion call for a good night out and it got an amazing reaction from the capacity crowd (Youtube link).
The hits kept coming after that, Calling Dr. Love and the Tommy Thayer sung Shock Me were both excellent, 100,000 Years was the heaviest moment of the set and was followed by Gene's blood spitting solo section which then lead to him being elevated to the top of the lighting rig to sing I Like It Loud (Youtube link).
One of the best moments of the set came when Paul got the crowd to scream his name before jumping into a harness and flying across the heads of the audience to a rotating platform at the opposite side of the arena to take the crowd in the seated area through I Was Made For Loving You (Youtube link). Now that's what I call a show!
Not wanting to be outdone in the entertainment stakes, Eric Singer got his chance to put smiles on the crowd's faces when after a drum solo he fired a Goddamn bazooka at the lighting rig!!!
Ok, ok so it might not have been a real bazooka but you can't argue with the man's style.
The main section of the show was brought to a close with the tripe header of Love Gun, Black Diamond and Detroit Rock City. After a show this good I would have been happy with the band coming back on for a couple of songs then buggering off.
But this is KISS, they clearly want to prove they are still the hottest band in the world so they didn't even bother with the "going off stage" part. Nope, they stayed on to play five more songs that brought the mammoth set to around two hours in length.
Lick It Up got the crowd moving again and saw massive jets of flame shoot up from the speaker stacks along to the chorus, Shout It Out Loud's lead guitar riff sent shivers down my spine when it started and God Gave Rock 'N' Roll To You had the audience singing along with every word.
It was then time for the last song of the night, and the band did their best to make sure that everyone rocked 'n' rolled all night and continued to party every day by firing out more confetti than you have ever seen in you life from cannons at either side of the stage while blasting through their party anthem and hitting the crowd with as much pyro as they could.
Having waited years upon years to see this band live I was not disappointed. If you haven't ever had the chance to see KISS live then hopefully this latest resurgence in popularity for the band will lead them to hit a concert venue near you soon.
KISS Set List:
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
Rock And Roll All Nite | | Written by Stuart
Saturday, May 15, 2010 |
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