KISS turn it up to 11 one last time | Shamim Razavi
The gods of Rock smile on the Lucky Country in bringing KISS back to our shores just as they bring Beavis and Butthead back to our screens.. But these days the septuagenarian also drools, a lot, and it’s not just his trademark fake blood slicking the facepaint off his chin.
The last time? Gene Simmons, left, and Paul Stanley of KISS on the band’s farewell tour in Melbourne earlier this week.It must be a downside of that legendary long, pointed tongue as he ages but it is evidence of his utter coolness that neither he nor the legions of the KISS Army notice or care. Rather, Simmons and fellow original band member Paul Stanley play their parts with such strutting self-belief that the obvious infirmities of age fade away.
The whole KISS cliche is present in abundance: the make-up, the hair, the screams, the innuendo and the flame-throwing guitars all dialled up to 11. No one – neither band nor audience – seems to have got the memo that none of this should work in 2022, but it totally does. In all this absurdity, most absurd of all is that they don’t do it with critical distance or mocking irony but rather with childish sincerity – a sincerity that stems from their acting out personas they have perfected over 40 years of playing the same characters over and over again.
The music is secondary to the spectacle, but each song is greeted by an audience determined to lose it. Even the bum notes –celebratory militarism is jarring amid current global tension – go down well, but by the time the classicsare played out, the Army’s response is as immense as the on-stage smoke, confetti and pyrotechnics.KISS claim this is their last tour before they hang up their hobnail platforms forever: if that is true then they are going out with a bang, and then some.
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