Swindon Music

The dates are finally out:

SECC, Glasgow - 9th May
MEN Arena, Manchester -10th
Wembley Arena, London 12th
LG Arena, Birmingham - 13th May

I reckon it'll be London and Birmingham for me.

With a new baby in the house, the past few weeks have been a blur and I almost missed this!!! Going to be getting tickets for Birmingham.

Im not going to lie and make out I am a big Kiss fan (as you well know), but there is a part of me that is wanting to go to this because after all its Kiss! I do wonder if you go back 20 years it was partly down to the 2 glam camps in Bassett and their allegiance to American or European glam lol! I wasnt allowed to like Kiss, I was only allowed to like the Lords or Hanoi etc (oh the naive gung ho flag waving of a 16 year old "sleaze forever" enthusiast!!)
I think for me to deny their influence in an awful lot of the music I love would be stupid, so I think I should be a bit more open minded and give them another go.

Well, although in some ways it pains me to say this, Kiss are currently a better live band than they have been since about 1978.

I've seen them many, many times (with various different line-ups) and their show at Download last year was the best I've ever seen them do in terms of the complete performance.

One word of warning - it does seem as though interest in these shows is way beyond anything I've known for Kiss in the UK since I've been into them (and that's a LONG time). This could end up being a very fast selling tour indeed.

Another thing, a strong rumour has emerged today suggesting it'll be a three band bill with Anvil and Steel Panther supporting!

Now that is a line up I really would regret missing!

Mark has just gone to clean himself up after that exciting rumour.

If there was a tendency to dislike KISS 20 years ago then it would have had a lot to do with 'Crazy Crazy Nights'! Certainly not a reflection on the earlier releases, not that I ever went beyond the 'Double Platinum' collection.

thats the cut off line for me as well before that, scarey make up, anthemic rock and stage show that Alice Cooper could have only dreamed of. After that cheesy Warrant B-sides.

There's an absolutely brilliant video that sums up what Kiss were really about, initially at least, on You Tube

I never gave them a chance - to me they were the big overblown American band that (totally illogically) couldnt mean it (maaaan), Crazy Crazy Nights being the perfect example. If they actually werent that huge, had drug addictions and (preferably) had some dead members it would have applied more to my bizarre equation I used for validity. Christ, I bought some crap albums on the back of a band member once playing backing tambourine on a half arsed crap Johnny Thunders solo album!! The way I thought back then was that if you ticked a box on my "must have list" then I would love you to the end of the earth, if you didnt then you would have been poo forever....
I guess my perspective started changing when a band i was in covered Cold Gin and Detroit Rock City and I viewed them simply as great songs rather than who wrote them.

a classic

As of about 1976, Peter Criss most certainly did and Ace Frehley wasn't sober for a single minute

Oh I know all that now (and dont worry, Im not so shallow these days that its the only thing swaying my opinion lol!!) - but at the time all I had was the image presented by them and Kerrang, the photoshoots of Paul and Gene by the pool with the girls and the skintight pink lycra vests Paul would be wearing etc - my god, their hair was curly!! Had they never heard of crimpers!!! How could they be cool?!?!? (Like I said, my basis for opinion back then wasnt necessarily based on fact, reality or even remotely valid reasoning!!!)

Kiss on Countdown, I bet dictionary corner was chaos that week!

Must admit, much preferred them at Finsbury Park (1998 I think; could have been 1999), with the original line-up rather than Donington 1988 (at the height of their UK success). Great stuff.