QUDOS Bank Arena, Sydney
26 August 2022
Reviewer and Photographer: Kevin Bull
It’s wonderful to be back in the big city with camera gear on my back. It has to be years, well, I know it’s at least two and to make the trek into town to catch the “End Of The Road” tour was an opportunity to grab hold of. The spectacle of the KISS show is well known, and if you take that at face value, you’ll be well rewarded for the ticket price. It’s the kind of show where buying three extra tickets to take your 14 year old son and two of his mates so they can experience this “circus” makes total sense. The age demographic was so wide, with the older group of guys in their 60s who went through it at the time, and their children with their children, it was a family initiation experience that many of us have been through. Regardless of how big a fan of KISS you may be, just the idea of seeing a KISS show will most probably spike your interest.
QUDOS was totally taken over by the band. The number of KISS t-shirts being worn was impressive, and face painting was encouraged with those who have made the effort high-fiving and embracing each other. It felt that every second person had KISS on them in some way, and to the guy who spent 80 minutes in the merch queue to buy your $60 t-shirt, but missed the support, Gene thanks you.
I was there to photograph the show as well as writing these words, so let me put you in that spot. The pit was kind of small considering the amount of gear and the number of people in it for the first two songs. Only two this time, not three. We have a large curtain hanging in front of the stage, which is going to drop and be dragged under the stage by a group of guys, and I’m in the pit to the side waiting for all this to happen.
“Alright Sydney. You wanted the best, you’ve got the best. The Hottest band in the World, KISS“.
Pyro goes up, the curtain comes down, and here they come from the lighting rig on their individual platforms. More pyro, ‘Detroit Rock City’ is here (it’s a banger), and us photographers, we are still waiting to the side for the curtain to be put away. By the time we get in there everyone is off their flying carpets and we have these first two songs to shoot. So much is happening on stage, and there’s this video guy right in the front centre of the pit. With that, any full stage, wide angle image is going to be hard to get. All the finger-pointing and tongue waving is there, it really feels like a photographer’s dream. They are playing to us just like every t-shirt wearing punter here at QUDOS. It’s tight in the pit and there is not much moving around once you have planted your feet. With 10 photographers, 6 security, 3 video guys and a dozen VIP ticket holders who bought their way in, it became tough. Over the course of the two songs, I found possibly four new positions.
More pyro to close the first song, and we dive straight into ‘Shout It Out Loud’. Stage lighting is impressive and looks lovely in the camera. Big video screen behind, large circular lighting high above, spots and lasers all over the place, and heaps of pyro just in case you’re distracted. Too quickly, the second song is finished, and we are walked out of the pit, through the arena doors and out to the food vendors and merch desks. That’s our job done for the night, the results of which appear below. By the time I cloak my camera gear, say my goodbyes to my fellow gig shooters, and buy a $6 coke, I’ve missed a handful of songs. ‘Deuce’ was in my ears while being walked out after shooting, and I’m disappointed that I missed it. Firm favourite right there, as is the one I walked back in on, ‘Cold Gin’.
I caught many of my favourite KISS tracks and they are mostly the older ones – ‘Black Diamond’, ‘100,000 Years’, and I’ll let ‘God of Thunder’ and ‘Love Gun’ slip in as old cuts, though going to a KISS show is as much about the visuals as the set choice (but where was ‘Strutter’). Visually it’s an onslaught. Everything is thrown at a KISS show with the aim to grab your attention and not let you go. Every movement Paul and Gene do, it’s to get a reaction, to keep your watching in case you miss something. It’s well thought through, from the finger pointing of Gene, Paul’s pouting, and Gene’s lumbering steps, to the more elaborate Tommy’s guitar shooting out lights with a fireball. Every moment has been well considered as to how to get the biggest reaction.
Gene’s ‘bloody’ party-trick is always a special moment, where over the top of distorted bass rumbling he convulses until fake blood runs down his chin and chest all to the cheer of the crowd. On taking a towel, he spits into it and throws it to the front row, producing an off groan from the same crowd. I did laugh. This leads straight into ‘God Of Thunder’ with Gene rising high into the lighting rig. It actually felt a bit odd, with Gene being detached from the band who were playing down below, and the crowd way over there. We lost him up in the rafters.
Paul’s zip-wire trip to the back of the arena floor for ‘Love Gun’ and ‘I Was Made For Loving You’ was appreciated by those in the cheaper? seats, but it did become all about him at this point, and those left behind on stage were forgotten. Even when Tommy moves into the guitar lead midway through ‘Love Gun’, nobody notices as we are all watching Paul doing his little dance 50 metres away. Paul teases us into ‘I Was Made For Loving You’ which has now lost its disco sheen for a harder, tougher feel, crunching guitar and a rumbling bottom end that the song did not necessarily benefit from. That said, QUDOS was in full voice for the chorus.
‘Beth’ gets a run for the “End Of The Road” tour and for me, it felt a bit odd to have drummer Eric Singer perform this one. This is original drummer Peter Criss’ signature song, and to have his replacement sing this in Criss’ cat makeup didn’t sit well. Why not have Paul sing this? It would have been a better nod to the band’s history and to their original drummer. Tonight also happened to be Gene’s birthday, and a moment is taken for us to sing ‘Happy Birthday’, and for Gene to stick his face in the birthday cake, and then throw it into the crowd. Now that’s a souvenir you want to take home with you.
Large KISS balloons are dropped into the crowd during ‘Shandi’, and it’s confetti for ‘I Wanna Rock n Roll All Night’. Gene and Tommy rise high above the stage, and Paul smashes his guitar. It’s a rock n roll theatre production taken to its limits. “Hey Sydney, did you have a good time? Did you get what you came for?” I think we got exactly what we expected, and for that you have to give KISS credit.
