Tail gating. Really? Holy shit. Full blown fires and pop up tent thingers, racks of ribs, coolers, beer pong? Yes. It was 90 in the shade and there was no shortage of middle aged shirtless dudes hootin and a hollerin about the gravel pit, I mean parking lot. Too hot for my blood, so after meeting and mixing with a mere 3 people, Dylan and I walked past the rows of hot dog cookin grills and hairy beer bellies and saddled up into the line at about 5:20 P.M.
Doors opened at 5:30 so that was great since my face was melting off. We grabbed a $87.00 soda and a fat pretzel and made our way in. On the way we met up with "Florida" a kid here for his 17th birthday with his uncle up from Pensecola. His uncle sprang for the $7864.00 VIP package where you get to have Gene Simmons lick your eyeball, or something like that. He was psyched to say the least. After chatting it up with him for a few, the security let us in to the theatre and we made our way to our seats.
Section 300 row G. Great seats, in the front, on the side, right next to the stage. The place was only 1/4 filled when the first band "The Dead Dasies" came on. They were great! Hard rockers from a variety of bands including INXS, Guns and Roses, Thin Lizzy and more. They were tight and loud, with catchy hard rockin tunes. The crowd dug them, sparse at it was. According to one security guard I spoke with, the 24,000 seat venue was only about half sold. Possibly due to the INSANE prices of the tickets. But I digress.
After The Dead Dasies there was a short break and then The Who's wont get fooled again started playing with the clock counting down. When there were only a few seconds on the clock Def Leppard hit the stage and played out the last remaining licks of the song to an enthusiactic crowd and went right into "Let it Go!" I was PSYCHED! I thought yes this is going to RAWK! and then...err...uhh.. I'll admit it, I never bought a Def Leppard album after Pyromania, so I didn't know a lot of the songs. To go from "Let it Go" to "Animal?"
Let it go
Animal
Foolin
Love Bites
Let's Get Rocked
Two Steps Behind
Bringinnon the Hearbreak
Switch 625
Hysteria
Rocket
Armageddon It
Pour Some Sugar on Me
Rock of Ages
Photograph
So I knew a total of 7 songs, and was familar with a few more from lite rock radio. Now don't hate, I am a On through the Night, High and Dry and Pyromania era fan, so when Let it go came on I was really hoping for more from that era, forgetting that Def Leppard became highly popular after Hysteria, deservedly so.
The years they have in the business make them professional, tight, and crowd pleasing. I was hoping for more of the Let it Go vibe. In any case, like a squirrley teenager I whipped out my pictures and every time Phil or Rick came over I shoved them in their face pointing and yelling "THAT'S US!!!" Rick Savage actually bent down and looked at the photo, grinned and nodded. I don't know if he understood but no matter, I was jumping up and down like a frog on crack.
Then came Vivian Campbell. I had just learned that Vivian, has cancer and so seeing him up close and personal like that was really a gift. He looks great and smiles the whole time and I have never met the man but he seems to exude some sort of peaceful glow, some kind of energy of love and kindness that radiates from him. At one point later in their set, Dylan and I sat down for a second, and of course Vivian noticed and came over and bent down. We got up and he said something to Dylan like, "Don't worry it will be over soon." And she looked at me confused. The he walked back to us a minute later and leaned down and said to us, "I said, don't worry, KISS will be on soon." and then he held Dylan's hand and slipped her a pick and a smile.
We grabbed his feet and said "We love you!" and he smiled.
But admittedly, Love Bites almost put me to sleep.
Then another break and it was time for "YOU WANTED THE BEST YOU GOT THE BEST! THE HOTTEST BAND IN THE WORLD! KIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSS!
Which, turns out later was Joe Elliot doing the intro!
I had never seen KISS before. Nope. I'll tell you what, Paul Stanley is phenomonal. A true showman, giving his all for every person in the house. Dancing around, working the whole stage, flying over the crowd, engaging, energetic, all around awesome.
Gene did the fire breathing and the blood spitting but his rig failed to lift him up during his bass solo, he got really pissed and was swearing all over the place. They roadies ran out and un hooked him, after he only lifted about a foot off the ground. Good thing, would have been awful had something gone awry when he was up in the air.
However, Gene stayed mostly in the center of the stage, being Gene.
Tommy Thayer did a great job as Ace, I say that becasue well, he IS playing ACE after all, but he is a phenomonal guitar player.
I suppose Eric Singer did a great job, I didn't see much of him as he was obscured from view.
The lights, the fireworks, the fire and PAUL made it a night to remember.
I'd go see KISS again, but maybe they shouldn't charge $1400569.00 for tickets, they might fill the seats!
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