Saw Ace Frehley at Toad's Place last night. Not the first time I've seen him solo (third, I think) but probably the last.
Look, Kiss is iconic to me. I love them unconditionally, except Peter, and anytime you get 90 minutes of straight up live Kiss music, it's not a bad thing. But it might not have been a good thing, either. He's using Gene Simmons' band (more on that later) which is great, because those guys are really good and their enthusiasm is infectious, but I think based on what I saw, Ace's time has passed.
First, the club seats 700, 750. They had seats (first time I've ever seen that) and so there was only about 300, maybe 350 people there. The opening band now has the record for the worst opener I've ever seen. Sweet Sienna, they are produced by Matt Starr (Ace's drummer) and they sucked. One guy playing keyboards and one guy on guitar. I think they played four songs, one was a cover of "Simple Man" by Skynyrd that was basically the keyboard/singer doing a solo bit. Unfortunately, his voice wasn't unique or powerful enough to carry that endeavor, and I spent more time watching the guitar player who walked around his side of the stage what looked like looking for his pick. He played acoustic guitar on one song, and electric on another, and it was horrible. Starr joined them for the last song and it wasn't enough. During the middle, the singer literally name dropped like 15 people that allegedly played on their new album, including George Lynch, John Corabi, Joel Hoekstra and Jack Russell. Could have fooled me.
Ace came out right at nine, and hit it off with "Rip It Out". That, "New York Groove" and "Rock Soldiers" were the only solo songs, the rest were Kiss. As I noted, the band (two guitars, bass, and drums) is TIGHT; they are very good and they know their role (making their leader look good). All three front men sing; each guitar player sang one song, and the bass player sang I think three songs. Twice Ace started to sing and then pointed at the bass player then his throat; at the very end Ace's voice sounded shot, but most of the show it was okay. He's another guy that has taken to not exactly signing every word. He proudly said he was 15 years sober, but most of the banter was such that if you told me he was wasted, I wouldn't have doubted you. He's an odd guy, for sure, but seemed odder than usual.
It's not Ace's fault - maybe it is - but his schtick doesn't work at the club level. He's not dynamic enough to project that he's destroying a club (though the band is; they rocked like it was Wembley Stadium and more power to them for that) and the guitar solo antics - smoking guitar - are sort of lame when you're standing 15 feet from him. Ace came back after the solo and was all "I can't breath!" and rather than be funny, it was sort of... sad. At least twice he left the stage and the band just kind of looked at each other and vamped, one time starting into "Love Theme From Kiss" from the first album. It's on all the setlists, so the song was planned, but I don't get the sense that the gag was about Ace not being on stage. As for before the show, we walked around and got a beer; the merch was lame; $50 for a one-sided t-shirt that wasn't really that cool, IMO. He was selling signed guitars - a $400 Epiphone for $3500 signed with doodles; really cool, but out of my price range, frankly - and signed guitar straps for I think they were $350. A couple people bought them; I saw at least two guitar cases go by and at least two straps. He did hang around after the show for about an hour and a half for the meet and greet folks, which was cool, I guess (I wasn't one of them).
It was still an awesome time, though. Kiss is fun, and while the performance wasn't Kiss-level, the evening was. I saw a couple friends I haven't seen in easily 20 years, which was good, and when we went out to the sidewalk, we struck up a conversation with Ace's guitar tech. He worked for Ted Nugent, Rick Nielson and Ace (among others) and was more than willing to share stories (apparently the "CreaturesFest" in Nashville was the most bizarre gig he's ever done, and like I said, he worked for Ted Nugent and Cheap Trick). Some neat stories about Rick and Bun E. in particular (moral of the story: Rick is a shit stirrer!). Ace's band came out and hung on the sidewalk for over an hour and a half. I didn't talk to the drummer, but the three front men were awesome. The two guitar players are from Nashville, and my friend let slip that I'm going there next week as an anniversary thing and one of them (Ryan Cook) spent like 15 minutes walking me through what I should and should not do when I get there. The other two (Jeremy Asbrock and Zack I don't know his last name) joined in and it was really cool. Just fun, down to earth guys that get to tour with two of their idols. At one point, Ace walked out to his car and we barely noticed (I did say "Thanks Ace!" and he sort of nodded, as he tried to avoid some dude with a solo record and Sharpie, while not falling off the curb into the side of his car; I'm not kidding you).
Look, it was fun for what it was, a solid night out with solid hard rock, but it wasn't epic, and it wasn't that reminiscent of past glories; I can absolutely see why Paul and Gene wouldn't want this as part of their going away party.
Topic: Official KISS thread (Read 50390 times)
