KISS: Better Than EverBy Dave McKenna
Photo by Richard Lipski
The crowd at the Verizon Center on Tuesday proved that there's still demand for what Kiss supplies. There were old guard Kiss Army types like Jerry Frey, 47, who drove down from York, Pa., wearing a shirt that said "Kiss Farewell Tour." Frey said he bought the shirt in 2000, at one of the many Kiss shows he's seen since adolescence. "They won't quit, and I don't want them to quit," Frey said.
And new recruits, too. On the concourse before the set began, Tuomas Talvitie, 16, of Springfield, Va., posed for pictures with three buddies, all properly facepainted for their first Kiss show. Talvitie, colored up like Simmons, said he discovered Kiss a few years ago from an advertisement stuck to a drum kit his big sister bought, and got hooked. Asked to explain the appeal of a band that's been around so long -- Simmons has codpieces twice as old as Talvitie -- the teen said, "The songs aren't complicated. It's just great rock and roll."
