So... anyone who knows me even the slightest knows I'm a HUGE Kiss fan. Gene is doing a handful of solo shows in clubs in conjunction with some Wizard World convention or some shit.
Friday night, the Trocadero in Philly. I don't believe it was sold out (I'd guess there were 700 people there). Opening acts were Mach 22 (Jeff LaBar's kid) and a local band named Creem Circus (older rock fans will get the reference). Both kind of sucked in their own way. The latter I'm not sure if they were serious or not. Kind of a Darkness knock off.
Gene played about 17 songs, mostly pre-1982 kiss (with two exceptions). The band were Nashville.vets and they were good (3 guitars, one of whom I thought was Coz for about 12 minutes!). Gene is a way better musician than he comes off. It was still a loose show; he used big sheets on the floor for some of the lyrics, and at least twice he had the band redo the endings to songs.
There were some cool jokes and insights between songs, and for Parasite he let a kid - had to be 14,15 - come up and play guitar (he KILLED it) though I'm not sure it wasn't planned as the set list said "Parasite (Kid)" on it.
How do I know this? During "Do You Love Me" (yes a Paul song) he had some women from the crowd come up and sing background. Later, during Rock and Roll All Nite, he had some kids come up and sing. Before that he had "the guys" come up to sing I Love It Loud. There were about ten of us. Yes, "us" because I was one of them. I got to sing with Gene F-Ing Simmons! I was literally right next to him as he sang and after he said to me "Did you have fun?" And gave me a fist bump. F*** yeah! Made the 3.5 hour drive very worth it.