“You want to go out when it’s time, with dignity and grace,” Gene Simmons declared with some resignation, and soon after, Kiss began its Farewell Tour in Phoenix.
That was 19 years ago.
Kiss was clearly not ready to play shuffleboard, and here we are two crazy decades later, saying another farewell to the onetime “hottest band in the land.” When Kiss arrives at PPG Paints Arena on Saturday, this might be the real, actual, legit farewell for the group that’s provided a high-flying, fire-breathing, blood-spewing, guitar-sparking rock ‘n’ roll spectacle for the last 45 years.
There are older rockers out there than Kiss — the Stones are in their mid 70s — but co-founders Paul Stanley, 67, and Gene Simmons, 69, are feeling the weight of all that spectacle. The latter told Guitar World last week that they’ve doing it in eight-inch heels with “40 pounds of armor.” “We all love Jagger and Bono,” he added, “but if they put in the amount of work we put in, they’d drop dead in a half hour.”
YOU WANTED THE BEST
Kiss launched in New York City in January 1973 when the two former members of Wicked Lester recruited drummer Peter Criss and guitarist Ace Frehley with the notion of being Alice Cooper to the fourth power.
The name — not an acronym for “Knights in Satan’s Service” as parents once feared — was derived from the drummer noting that he’d been in a band called Lips. The major labels didn’t see much potential in Kiss, which has now sold more than 100 million records worldwide, so the quartet signed to the upstart Casablanca Records for a self-titled debut in February 1974.
Gene Simmons at KeyBank Pavilion in 2014. (Julia Rendleman / Post-Gazette)The first Pittsburgh stop wasn’t until a year later, on April 15, 1975, at the Stanley Theater (now the Benedum), a month after Kiss released its third album “Dressed to Kill.” By this point, Kiss was spewing fire but fizzling on the charts. They had charted one single in the Hot 100 (”Kissin’ Time” at No. 83) and second album “Hotter Than Hell” had peaked at No. 100.
Casablanca founder and producer Neil Bogart challenged them to write a signature anthem in the vein of Sly and the Family Stone’s “I Want to Take You Higher,” one that would fire up a crowd. In a Sunset Boulevard hotel, Mr. Stanley scribbled “I wanna rock and roll all night and party every day” and Mr. Simmons added the “drive us wild” part. It was recorded in February 1975 and released on April 2, eventually peaking at No. 68 — not the hit they’d hoped for.
DiCesare-Engler Productions brought Kiss to Pittsburgh with Rush (two albums into its career) and Heavy Metal Kids (misbilled on the ticket as Heavy Meadow Kids). There was no radio support whatsoever.
“None,” Mr. Engler recalled in a previous story, “but it didn’t matter. We wrote our own radio spots, saying ‘Kiss is hotter than hell and dressed to kill!’ and those spots got the curiosity seekers out. They also had the Kiss Army and they were diehard.”
Bruce Lentz, who would later own Incredibly Strange Video in Dormont and front the bands Forbidden 5 and Volcano Dogs, recalls, “The Kiss sign was off to the side because it would not fit above them. [It was] all black leather, fire, flash pots and LOUD. Right up my alley at that point. Oh, and no children in the audience. That started happening a couple years down the line. This was a perfect show for teenage me.”
Lou Hetzer, who would go on to promote shows of his own, was kind of a child — a mere 12 when he sneaked Downtown with a friend.
“The place was packed,” he says, “and Rush had everyone on their feet. Then Kiss, stripped down in comparison to future Kiss stage shows, knocked everyone on their asses. Gene spit fire (no blood yet), Peter had the elevating drum kit that exploded with the fury of cannons. Ace was a guitar god.”
Kiss would go on to be one of the first bands with its own action figures, but from what Mr. Lentz can remember, “Me and my high school buddies had to screen print our own Kiss shirts since at that time there was no Kiss merch available! Can you imagine that?”
Pittsburgh Press reviewer Pete Bishop was on hand for Kiss’ Pittsburgh debut with, not “Black Diamond,” but a baseball diamond on his mind. “These New Yorkers,” he wrote, “are the weirdest-looking bunch like Stargell is a slugger, but they’re first-class rockers the same way.”
Mr. Engler was ecstatic that the show sold out, less thrilled that one of the Kiss members was hitting on his future wife backstage. You can guess which member.
HOTTEST BAND IN THE LAND
One month after that Stanley show, on May 16, 1975, Kiss set up at Cobo Arena in Detroit for the recording of its first live album. Opening that night was Pittsburgh’s own Diamond Reo.
By then, the Kiss Army was mobilizing in greater numbers.
“It was insane,” Diamond Reo bassist Norm Nardini told the PG last year. “We stayed at the same hotel they did. Can you imagine the insanity of … 400, 500 kids walking around the hotel with Kiss makeup on?”
As for the music, he said, “I thought it was a comedy show.”
Kiss was correct that an arena would capture the band’s sound better than a studio. Released in September 1975, “Alive!” was the band’s first Top 10 album and one of the iconic albums of the ’70s. You could feel the blood, sweat and fire on “Deuce,” “Strutter,” “Hotter than Hell,” “Firehouse” and, especially, the explosive live version of “Rock and Roll All Nite,” the group’s first Top 40 hit.
Kiss “Alive!” album cover.
When the band came back in December 1975, with Rush and Mott (Mott the Hoople, without Ian Hunter), Kiss spread its bat wings under the Civic Arena dome.
“My blind date was horrified and scared by them,” recalls Pittsburgh fan John Mullennix, adding, “and by the fact I liked it.”
When Kiss returned on the “Destroyer” tour in September 1976, it had “Beth” in the fold, an actual ballad, and Bob Seger as an opener. By the January 1978 arena show, Kiss had been voted the most popular band in America in a Gallup poll. The review ran on the front page of the Post-Gazette, praising the “Barnum-and-Bailey-meets-Dracula theatrics.” (Incidentally, Mr. Criss passed out halfway through the set but was back to sing “Beth.” Or was it an impersonator, as a Wiki entry suggests?)
The 1979 tour, which had Gene flying across the Civic Arena in July, was a tipping point as now the Kiss Army was being infiltrated by preteens.
“It blew my 9-year-old mind,” says James Petrosky. “It was phenomenal, magical, and changed my life forever.”
Pittsburgh fan Brian Cosgrove was a 5-year-old facing down his fears. His uncle, 15, would “hold me up to a poster on his bedroom wall of Gene Simmons spitting blood and I’d scream and run off crying,” he says. “But I’d later sneak into his room to play Kiss records and just stare at the album covers. For my birthday that year, I asked for Kiss dolls.”
Seeing all the little kids at the show, his uncle gave him his Kiss albums.
The ’70s were over and so was the heyday of Kiss.
FIRE STILL BURNING
Heyday be damned, Kiss rolled on and has returned to Pittsburgh on more than a dozen tours — Mr. Cosgrove and his uncle have gone to nine of them — seeing fame ebb and flow, and employing new tricks to lure crowds.
Some notable visits:
No makeup: Unmasked and with Eric Carr and Vinnie Vincent in tow, The Lick It Up Tour found them back at the Stanley Theater in March 1984, and they couldn’t even fill it.
Paul Stanley at the KeyBank Pavilion in 2014. (Julia Rendleman / Post-Gazette)No power: In April 1986, fans were greeted by a dark, dead dome. A blown-out transformer knocked out power, canceling the show. Kiss tacked it on to the end of the Asylum tour.
No arena: In 1990, Kiss made its Star Lake Amphitheater debut in the venue’s opening season. “My first — and only — Kiss show,” says Chip DiMonick, a Pittsburgh hard rocker who now fronts Chip and the Charge Ups. “I can’t think of a more vanilla version of a Kiss concert possible. Arguably their most underwhelming album. No makeup. And, as I understand it, the only tour in the band’s history on which Gene Simmons did not spit fire.” Nonetheless, it was one of two shows that summer (Motley Crue being the other one) that had Hanover residents up in arms about the noise level at the new venue.
The fab four: It was almost like the old days in July 1996 at the Civic Arena when Mr. Criss and Mr. Frehley were back in the fold together for the first time since 1979.
In 3-D: For the Psycho Circus stop in December 1998, Kiss went 3-D, supplying glasses that brought the action inches from your face.
Out with a bang: Ted Nugent ended his show by shooting a flaming arrow across the stage before the original four Kiss exploded onto the stage. A sentimental moment during that “final” Kiss show in Pittsburgh was the “Beth” fade out with Mr. Criss singing “Me and the boys will be playing all night.”
Back in the light: Kiss hooked up with Aerosmith the now KeyBank Pavilion in August 2003 and with Kiss opening, it was like seeing Dracula melting in the daylight.
In the spirit: Fans in 2004 got their Fourth of July fireworks in Burgettstown from Kiss on a tour with Poison. The crowd broke into a chant of “U-S-A! U-S-A!” when Mr. Stanley saluted the troops in Iraq and ranted against the “evil people who hate us.”
Gene Simmons, Tommy Thayer and Paul Stanley in 2010 at the Pavilion. (John Heller / Post-Gazette)Bring the family: Four kids got in free with an adult lawn ticket making it more of a kiddie fest than ever at Star Lake in July 2010. It was a pretty heavy duty Kiss show, nonetheless.
Bring the Crue: There’s a scene in “The Dirt,” the new Motley Crue biopic, where a teenage Tommy Lee has Kiss posters on his wall. Childhood dreams came true in the summer of 2012 when the two bands co-headlined. The Crue were a tough act to follow at a September show in Burgettstown, but Kiss was up to it.
Inducted: Kiss welcomed Def Leppard on the 40th Anniversary Tour in 2014, where it had its “Spider” stage and some new bragging rights. Mr. Stanley could finally shout, “You’re looking at a band that’s in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!”
LAST WORDS
Five years later, hitting the End of the Road, the band is in reflective mode.
Guitar World asked Mr. Stanley, “Will you miss Kiss?”
His reply: “I am Kiss!”
Kiss shows in Pittsburgh
April 15, 1975: Dressed to Kill Tour at Stanley Theater
Dec. 20, 1975: Alive! Tour at Civic Arena
Sept. 4, 1976: Destroyer Tour at Civic Arena
Jan. 13, 1978: Alive II Tour at Civic Arena
July 21-22 1979: Dynasty Tour at Civic Arena
March 4, 1984: Lick It Up Tour at Stanley
March 26, 1985: Animalize Tour at Civic Arena
April 12, 1985: Asylum Tour at Civic Arena
Jan. 16, 1988: Crazy Nights Tour at Civic Arena
June 23, 1990: Hot in the Shade Tour at Star Lake Amphitheater
Oct. 16, 1992: Revenge Tour at Civic Arena
July 21-22, 1996: Alive/Worldwide Tour at Civic Arena
Dec. 4, 1998: Psycho Circus at Civic Arena
May 26, 2000: Farewell Tour at the now KeyBank Pavilion
Aug. 21, 2003: World Domination at Pavilion (Aerosmith co-headline)
July 4, 2004: Rock the Nation Tour at KeyBank Pavilion
Dec. 13, 2009: Alive 35 Tour at Civic Arena
July 29, 2010: Hottest Show on Earth Tour at Pavilion
Sept. 2, 2012: The Tour tour at Pavilion (Motley Crue co-headline)
Aug. 24, 2014: 40th Anniversary Tour at Pavilion
KISS Where: PPG Paints Arena, Uptown. When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Tickets: $71 and up; ticketmaster.com.
First Published: March 26, 2019, 2:09 p.m.
