Timothy Finn, The Star/Photos by Michael Ransdell/The StarIf you've seen one Kiss concert, you've seen most of them: The setlist stays the same; so does the pyro; so do most of Paul Stanley's lines; so do most of Gene Simmons' habits and gimmicks.
About 10,000 fans came to the Sprint Center on Thursday night for "Kiss Alive 35," the latest name for the band's never-ending tour. It's safe to say that more than half the fans in the place had seen the band at least once; some of us were seeing Kiss for the fourth time in 10 years or so. But at some point repetition becomes something more rewarding, like ritual or tradition; that's why some of us still watch "A Christmas Story" three times a year, every year. Likewise, a Kiss concert is all about knowing exactly what you're going to get and enjoying it anyway.
Thursday's show lasted about 10 minutes over the two-hour mark; the setlist comprised 18 songs; and for the most part, the energy level of the show stayed relatively high all night. It dipped hard once, during the prolonged guitar-duel between Stanley and Tommy Thayer; and it waned a bit during the two new songs, though a chunk of the audience was very familiar with both of those.
Like thousands of other Kiss shows, this one started off with the one-two-three punch of "Deuce," "Strutter" and "Let Me Go, Rock 'N' Roll." Kiss at 35 still looks like the old Kiss, but at times it sounds like the older Kiss. Stanley's voice is passable and he's still fleet-footed in those two-story platform boots. But his falsetto has lost a lot of its range, which became most apparent when he tried to hit a few skyscraping notes as he did that sing/speak thing. And during "Lick It Up," he didn't come close to hitting Roger Daltrey's note during the short refrain from "Won't Get Fooled Again."
Simmons was up to his usual tricks: tongue-wagging, fire-breathng and blood-spewing. He spit the blood before "I Love It Loud," while perched on a platform atop the light-rigging way above the stage. Kiss may be 35 but it hasn't lost its touch for those kinds of visuals. Thayer re-created Ace Frehley's fire-shooting guitar trick. During the encore, Stanley rode a zip line out to a satellite stage at the other end of the arena; and two hydraulic lifts lofted Simmons and Thayer a few stories high during one number.
The stage was video-manic: One enormous video screen beamed images of the band and the crowd; under Eric Singer's huge drum riser, more than two dozen smaller monitors beamed other visual stimuli. And there were flashpots, fireworks, fog on stage and one long blizzard of confetti.
The setlist was stocked with the songs that made the band famous and that the band has been playing regularly for 25 years. Before "Modern Day Delilah," Stanley plugged the new album, "Sonic Boom," and the mega-retailer that has exclusive rights to sell it, Wal-Mart. "Hey, I'm not proud," he said without explaining whether he meant he's not too proud to plug his merch or not proud to be selling it only at Wal-Mart.
The crowd was an array of baby boomers in 20-year-old Kiss T-shirts, 30-somethings with their young children in Kiss makeup and teens in Blink-182 or Green Day T-shirts. Stanley directed the videographers in the house to focus on the kids in the crowd (and made an off-color crack about "open legs" as he did) and vowed that the band would still be around when they were adults. "Kiss Alive at 55" may sound ridiculous but at this point I wouldn't bet against it.
