Kiss and Taking Dawn, Glasgow SECC (9/5/10)

It’s about bloody time Kiss came back for a full UK tour. Last time they played Scotland, according to Paul Stanley, they performed at the Glasgow Apollo – a venue that closed 25 years ago. A lot of time has passed, and the painted rock legends have a lot of missed time to make up for.

First, however, hotly-tipped new rockers Taking Dawn largely fail to prove why they’re hotly-tipped. Sounding like Black Tide with a bit more hair on their balls, they power through a short set of heavy metal cannon fodder. Shapes are all present and correct; hair is swinging, guitars are being thrown around and textbook crowd-riling banter is spat by singer Chris Babbit, but there’s little more to it.

It often feels like watching a ‘Who Can Impersonate a Rock Band’ competition. Even lead single ‘Time To Burn’ fails to be as incendiary as the title promises, and a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘The Chain’ goes by virtually unnoticed. Not a bad band, but not exactly worth taking note of either, and perhaps more suited to opening for Airbourne (as they did last month) than playing as guests under Kiss. Let’s see how they do when they open the main stage at this year’s Download Festival next month.

A tense half-hour rolls past as the face paint-clad fans take their positions in the crowd. The lights go down and a video which can only be described as cool as fuck plays, depicting Godzilla-sized versions of Messrs. Stanley, Simmons, Thayer and Singer stomping through the streets of Glesgae toon. Kiss’ new album is called ‘Sonic Boom’, right? Well, that’s exactly how this spectacle starts. The curtain drops, the expected pyro blows at an eardrum-bothering level, and the three axemen of the band come flying over the drum riser on a moving steel frame as the groovin’ riff of ‘Modern Day Delilah’ heralds their arrival. Rock music is just fucking great.

‘How’s it going so far?’ calls Paul, two songs in. Already well enough to earn you five Ragnarok Viking helmets, sir, but we’ll get to that later. This is just a band who put 100% into every single song and every little aspect of their set, brushing off any skepticism about the SECC’s notorious sound problems and harvesting the arena rock atmosphere. Every song gets its own lights, its own pyro, its own finale and its own cringeworthy vocal solo introduction from the nearly-sixty year old frontman, who during ‘I Was Made For Lovin’ You’ decides to fly over the crowd and perform from a podium in the centre. You don’t get that at the Cathouse.

Rarely-heard favourites make a return for the first time in a long while tonight; the anthemic ‘Crazy Crazy Nights’ sounds sketchy and disjointed – probably due to lack of rehearsal – but its presence alone adds a tremendous deal to the setlist, and ‘God Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll To You II’ unites everyone in some Bill & Ted-esque life-affirmation. On top of such classics there’s also a bouncing ‘Shock Me’, a thundering ‘Deuce’ and a stomping ‘Cold Gin’. New offering ‘Say Yeah’ is one of their signature get-up-and-go stadium anthems, instantly slamming itself right in beside ‘Lick It Up’ and ‘Detroit Rock City’, which also get a rapturous reaction. Other newbie ‘I’m An Animal’ is shit though. All of these gems come glazed in OTT theatrics, including old standards like a flying, blood and fire-spitting Gene Simmons and new antics like drummer Eric Singer blowing up the lighting rig with a bazooka (‘Glasgow, check this out!’) and Ace Freh… errr, Tommy Thayer’s fire-shooting, levitating guitar. Seeing this band isn’t like going to a rock gig; it’s like going to a show. An event.

Kiss are a band who have been loved and loathed in equal measures throughout their 37-year (!) career, and have tried to escape their gimmicks and buffoon-like status from removing their make-up in the ‘80s (resulting in a Manowar-on-gay-night aesthetic) through horrific, contrived concept albums (1981’s sub-Zeppelin ‘Music From The Elder’) to Gene turning a special education class into rock ‘n’ roll stars (Channel 4’s Rock School). These factors, not to mention the unbelievable range of merchandise available (shirts, lunchboxes, condoms, coffins [seriously] and every other marketable material) has led critics including Trent Reznor and myself to slate Kiss for being all about the money. But you know what? Fuck it. As the Starchild himself puts it: ‘If you came here tonight to hear songs about politics… you’re in the wrong show.’ Amen to that, sir. In a sea of sanctimoniously pretentious wankers – without naming any names like Linkin Park or 30 Seconds To Mars – forcing injustice and the world’s evils down the fans’ throats, Kiss just stick out like a long tongue and revel in the entertainment and silliness value of rock ‘n’ roll, their largely daft songs tonight shining like beacons of hope in the darkness of a world full of bands pretending to care about the ozone layer.

So, guys, here’s those five Viking hats I promised.

Article by Andy McDonald