Kiss: You’re never too old to rock’n'roll

KISS ROCK OUT IN LONDON

Metro Blogs UK

Mention that you’re into rock music and people around you often get a bit sniffy. Mention you’re going to a Kiss concert and they take a pop, laugh and turn on their heels.
Granted, Kiss look ridiculous in all their make-up and costumes and, with frontmen Gene Simmons at 62 and Paul Stanley at 60, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s time they hung up their guitars and Zimmer-framed it into the sunset.
But hey, it wouldn’t be Kiss without all the get-up garb. And it’s all a far cry from their first gig back in 1973 when the audience was just three.
Today, they have sold more than 100million albums and pack out stadiums all over the world. Clearly, the formula works.



Never too old to rock: Kiss Play The Forum in London (Picture: Getty)
But how long should old rockers carry on? It does seem alien to us that guys like these just keep on rockin’.
Well, who cares? Long live rock’n’roll is what I say! I wasn’t a Kiss fan before but I am now after witnessing one of the craziest and hottest gigs I have ever been to.

"Paul Stanley may have had two hip replacement operations but he can still bounce round more than some guys half his age

They not only rocked The HMV Forum in north London like no other band I have seen, they almost blew the roof off.
As shows go, this was arguably too big for such a small venue. The pyrotechnics and explosions were coming from all sides. Fireworks out of the back of Tommy Thayer’s guitar, drummer Eric Singer firing another rocket out of a fake bazooka and Simmons performing his signature fire-breathing act atop a box surrounded by dry ice.
So many incendiary devices were let off that, at times, it was hard to see the band through the dense smoke. Even the guys on the spotlights were struggling! Pure theatre.
But did these ‘ageing rockers’ look ready for the scrapheap and a retirement village in southern California?
John Aizlewood, of the London Evening Standard, thought so. He wrote: ‘In 2012 Kiss are merely some tired old men dressed as slightly skew-whiff drag queens wrestling with some tired old songs.’
Ok, so Paul Stanley may have had two hip replacement operations but he can still bounce round more than some guys half his age, while you wouldn’t want to call Gene Simmons old to his face – he might lash you with his 7in tongue.
Anticipating such a reaction from reviewers, Simmons said before the show: ‘To the lone critic out there who never got laid in school, which is why he is so f***ing bitter, and who says they just make a spectacle of themselves. You’re f**** ing A right we do… every night.’
And if you dare mention talk of them quitting, his answer: ‘Are you f***ing me, we’re having the time of our lives. We show all the little boys how the big boys do it.’
Well, I have to agree… when it comes to putting on a show, he is f***ing A right.