STRIKE 47

ANAHEIM:
THE FINAL DESTRUCTION

Diagonally across the 57 freeway for The Arrowhead Pond sits Anaheim Stadium, the site to KISS' triumphant 1976 summer concert on their first big tour, when the new album was Destroyer and everyone at the show was about the same age. Also site of the infamous KISS Destroys Anaheim bootleg. Tonight, a few hundred yards away, in the same outfits, but with a ton of history added in, the same guys not young kids anymore but rock 'n roll vets, would play for the last KISS tour of their career. The difference in fan ages was more like fifty years. But, like Destroyer road journey of '76, this one was selling out. KISS was destroying Anaheim all over again. I won two 'tickets' off the radio station. Winners got the Detroit Rock City video, CD and T-shirt made by KLOS with KISS and KLOS stretched across its back. Plus we would watch the show for free from the station's skybox seats. We arrived at the sign-in table and received laminated passes made up with the KISS logo. After lame sets by Skid Row and Ted Nugent, we dined while we watched the roadies clear KISS' stage. This arena, Arrowhead Pond, is relatively new and sweeps upward at a steep angle. Even though we were near the rafters it was a good view. As the lights dimmed I watched them lower on their saucer into a rolling blanket of purple and blue smoke. This entrance, just like the at end of the Animalize set, is so dramatic I never tire of it. Anaheim is close to Los Angeles and Los Angeles is the kingdom of the comp ticket, and scattered throughout this audience were so many record industry people that even Ace Frehley couldn't get all his friends free seats. I could see the band getting better, night by night. From so high up the costumes caught and held the colours from the light rig, their sequins pin-wheeled flashes of light, glittering like jewels. The miniature figures were still uniquely recognizable. All the arms thrown over heads and racing around telegraphed directly up here, the back bleachers. We couldn't see the screens we were so high up, but we didn't need to. It may have been Anaheim but as far as the band and everyone who'd traveled from far and wide were concerned, this was the LA show, and they were on the whole, a lame audience. Industry bigwigs, jaded comp ticket holders, Disney club box guests, and assorted I'm-too-cool-for-the-room LA guys watered down the real fans, who cheered hard and often. This definately wasn’t a normal concert, especially considering all the things that went wrong on stage... When Gene was lowered back to the stage in the dark after God Of Thunder, he stopped descending three or four feet of the floor. Dangling, he kicked his feet. Crew members ran out with a little platform and he stepped up to it while they unhooked him. When the lights came on and Paul began his Cold Gin, anti-drinking and driving talk, Gene marched directly to his side stage tent area and disappeared down its stairs. I wouldn't have wanted to have been the guy down there. He was gone for a full minute while Paul filled with stage patter. But the major trouble happened to Paul when, after nearly five mins of making the audience beg for his presence, sound meters included, the Starchild stepped on the pneumatically-driven ring as Love Gun's drum intro began. He glided out about five feet and stalled, gently swinging. The song played on. Paul glanced around, looking nonplussed. Time passed without solution. Love Gun swelled to the opening verse and Gene began singing Paul's vocals while his band mate hung helpless over the third or fourth rows. They couldn't move him forward and they couldn't push him back. Below, fans reached up towards his boots. In an interview later, Paul told Metal Edge he was ready to jump off if the rig started to lift him high up in the air; since it was broken he didn't trust it to hold him. It seemed forever before Paul dipped down as if a desperate crew were willing to lower him into the screaming maul of fans below, then inched back a few feet. Slowly they got him close enough to the stage that Paul could reach a boot and touch it, then he eventually stepped back to firm ground. If Paul had anything, he has pride. He immediately turned to Peter and arm-motioned him, then Ace and Gene to stop playing the Gene Simmons version of Love Gun. He spun to the mic and announced "that made me Very Unhappy" I had a feeling it was directed at the back of the stage rather than the front. Here he is, before 20,000 fans and every music industry freeloader in the entertainment capitol of the world, not to mention all his hometown family and friends, and something left him dangling impotently in the air for five minutes solid. "What a bummer!" he yelled, "I wanted to come out there and visit you people and now I can't." I couldn't believe the instant and loud booing. .....................

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