The Tivoli, Brisbane
Saturday September 1, 2018 :
The queue to get into The Tivoli for tonight’s show is definitely the longest I’ve ever come across, snaking around the block for a good couple of hundred metres before we manage to get into the venue. Of course, there is good reason for such a large gathering of punters, as the attraction tonight is two key figures of glam rock institutions Kiss, namely their current bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons and the group’s former lead guitarist (and occasional singer) Ace Frehley.
Many may not have expected Gene and Ace to be touring together after famously frosty relations between current and past Kiss members, but the hatchet appears to be thoroughly buried. Gene is in the midst of his Vault Experience Tour, in which he personally delivers an enormous box set of unreleased material to financially fortunate Kiss fans around the world and performs intimate in-home sets with a wide range of guests from the band’s history.
Ace has been among those individuals, and now the pair are touring Australia (sans make-up) with a highly energetic band made up of hired hands from Nashville, TN. The format of the show is a set each from Gene and Ace, which makes the evening a great gig for Kiss connoisseurs as each setlist has a few deep cuts you’d never hear at a Kiss show these days. Naturally, the two sets are heavily weighted towards the songs each of the two members brought to the Kiss table, as well as some solo material and a few of the big hits for good measure.
Ace Frehley and band enter the stage following the intro music (Ace’s own instrumental tune ‘Fractured Mirror’) and launch straight into ‘Parasite’. Ace takes the lead vocals and, yeah, he sounds pretty rough but, then again, he’s never been a great singer. His strengths lie in his scorching guitar work and songwriting, but there’s still a charm to his drawled singing style. I wouldn’t want to hear anyone else sing ‘Rip It Out’, for instance. Also, he looks fantastic! Twelve years of sobriety has been good for Ace – he’s lean, he plays great and he’s still the coolest dude to ever be in Kiss.
His setlist is full of Ace Kiss Klassics (sic), with highlights being ‘Rocket Ride’, ‘Hard Times’ and ‘Shock Me’. These songs are reminders of Ace’s strengths – fantastic riffs, irresistibly catchy choruses as well as his guitar solos. Ace was never the most technically amazing guitarist for Kiss, but he’s certainly the most iconic. His solos have always had a melodic “song within a song” quality that no other axe slinger for the band has been able to do as well.
He throws in three solo tunes (‘Rip It Out’, ‘New York Groove’ and ‘Rock Soldiers’) as well as couple of fan favourites ‘Love Gun’ and ‘Detroit Rock City’. As these are songs traditionally sung by Kiss frontman Paul Stanley, they’re not suitable for Ace to tackle vocally, so he wisely gets band members to do the lead vox on those particular tunes. It’s also a treat to see the massive grin on the face of the bearded gentleman who plays in the backing band – he’s likely living a childhood dream of playing with his heroes.
For a touch of old school theatrics, Ace even does a guitar solo complete with smoking guitar, and not long after his set finishes up with a raucous take on ‘Cold Gin’.
Next up is tonight’s headliner, the Demon himself Gene Simmons. The intro music is the creepy opening to Gene’s signature solo tune ‘Radioactive’, but the man surprises us all by launching straight into Kiss standard ‘Shout It Out Loud’, an eternal banger that has always reminded me of a heavy metal mutation of Motown acts like The Four Tops or The Temptations.
As you’d expect, Gene is a lot chattier than Ace, having humorous exchanges with audience members and basically being a bit of a dad joke factory. It’s Gene, so the cheese factor is now ramped up – much to my entertainment, I might add. One of the more obscure songs Gene brought to Kiss, ‘She’s So European’ is revived, the chorus lyrics changed to, you guessed it, “She is so Australian”. Like I said, cheesy but heaps of fun too.
Some other rarer Kiss tunes are dusted off as well – ‘Love Theme From Kiss’, ‘Watchin’ You’ as well as Gene’s self-belief anthem ‘I’. He gets a female audience member to deliver the lead vocals to Paul’s disco rock classic ‘I Was Made For Lovin’ You’, and a pretty darn good job she does too! Audience participation plays a pretty big factor tonight, with Gene bringing up women from the audience to do backing vocals for ‘Do You Love Me?’, and men to perform the same duties for ‘I Love It Loud’. There’s a barrelling take on Little Richard’s ‘Long Tall Sally’, a version of ‘War Machine’ (one of my fave Kiss songs) that kicks total arse and, finally, a one-two punch of ‘Deuce’ and ‘Rock And Roll All Nite’ both featuring Ace Frehley on guitar. For the latter number, he also invites anyone from the audience up on stage to sing along. Which they do in multitudes!
A fittingly euphoric end to a massively entertaining and uplifting night of simply classic rock and roll. Oh, and my friend and I had a ball all evening adding Paul Stanley’s ad libs to many of the tunes – “DO IT!!!”
Reviewer : Matt Thrower
Photographer : Emma Visman
GENE SIMMONS
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ACE FREHLEY
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