Listening with Olivia: Rock And Roll All Nite (KISS End of the Road Tour)
So this past week I saw the most bonkers concert of my life. Literally, an explosion of fire, fireworks, or some type of pyrotechnics occurred every five minutes. The band members playing instruments over your head. The lead singer flying over the crowd on a single rope looped around his seven inch platform heels. I’m talking of course about KISS. Theatrics aside, this was a pretty special concert and I’ll tell ya why!
So back in January my best friend and go-to plus one for concerts, Emo, (her name is Emily Morenz, but we call her Emo) asked me and our other friend Alicia if we wanted to buy nose bleed seats for the KISS concert in February. Of course we said yes, I mean, this is KISS’s farewell tour… I mean their second farewell tour… but I think it’s gonna stick this time. Anyway, the plan was for Emo, her bf, Me and Alicia to all go and dress up. Me and Emo have already dressed up like KISS… twice… so we are pros when it comes to the look.
I grew up listening to KISS, or snippets of KISS until I would throw a temper tantrum and force my Dad to change the song. See, he is the world’s biggest KISS fan. Like we grew up with the action figures and him wearing his “Merry Kissmas” shirt on Christmas day to our grandparent’s house… the back of the shirt said “KISS online, the website that clicks ass” he would use electrical tape to cover up the cursing on it so that it was child-friendly. Like that was Dad’s number one band. Every time I dressed up like KISS I would use his vintage Destroyer Tour Tee.
I saw him a couple weekends before the concert and told him I was going and asked him why him and my Mom weren’t going. He said that “after you see them third row, center nothing lives up to that” and that he “couldn’t get himself to spend $300 a piece on the seats he wanted.” I definitely understood.
So then, about a week before the concert, I get a DM from a friend from high school that I don’t talk to too much, just the occasional insta story/twitter reply (mostly about Jonas Brother updates.) Anyway, her message was basically that her Dad had two extra tickets to the KISS concert and she knows I’m into rock and concerts so they were mine if I wanted them. SO- let me break from this story really quick to make a correction, remember when I said my Dad was the biggest KISS fan? I totally lied. Amanda’s Dad is die-hard. He has a KISS garage where literally everything is KISS, like full size cardboard cut-outs, signed posters, there is not a speck of dust in that room that isn’t KISS theme. Our Dad’s had actually met at like one of those pre-prom photo shoot things that Amanda hosted at her house, and I remember my Dad and Mr. Bigart fully geeking out and bonding over their love of KISS.
Alright back to the story- SO I told her I already was going but my parents would love to go. I called my Mom and told her my good fortune and offered her and my Dad the tickets. My Mom was flattered but was like “Liv, why wouldn’t you take the tickets and go with your Dad?” She made a good point. Like concerts being my favorite past-time, how cool would it be to say that I experienced my Dad’s favorite band with him. I definitely felt bad bailing on my other friends, but knowing them knew that I would be able to easily replace me.
Me and my Dad don’t do a ton of stuff together, this was like the first independent hangout, like without my mom or sister, that we have had in like… I don’t know how long. Driving to the Honda Center we listened to a KISS playlist my Dad made on Amazon music, and he talked about all his KISS concert experiences. His first concert ever was seeing KISS at the Anaheim Stadium for his 14th birthday. So that was pretty cool that this came full circle for him and he was seeing his last KISS concert in Anaheim. We got to the venue pretty early so we were able to grab dinner and drinks. Wanna feel like an adult? Order a margarita to drink with your Dad. We went for dinner literally right across the street from the Honda Center so seating was limited, we literally were hovering and finally ended up sharing a bar top with a Dad and Son who were very nice. We continued talking about KISS, he told me about how his lifelong best friend, Tony, became good friends with Paul Stanley’s wife, Pamela Bowen, when he worked the front gate of the CBS studio, and she would give him free tickets/back stage passes to shows. Paul Stanley, actually visited Tony in the hospital when he had a major accident a couple years ago. So some pretty cool stories.
We got to our seats just in time for the opener, a speed painter, you know like one of those guys who starts painting on a huge canvas and you try to guess who he’s painting along the way? So he painted Freddie Mercury, Jimi Hendrix, and then finally a portrait of KISS. Super unique opening act, because I mean, it’s KISS, you don’t really need a band to open for you. Oh did I forget to mention we had like THEE best seats in the house? I shouldn’t have expected any less, since they were coming from the biggest KISS fan in the world. You guys, I’m not lying. When we came down and said hi the Bigart family, Mr. Bigart was like “I watched all the YouTube videos, Paul is going to fly into the audience,” then pointing at these like beam things, “Tommy and Gene are going to be on those and go over head.” I loved it, like he had the perfect seats that were in the middle of the action and so that we were’t like blocked by people’s head. But can we like appreciate the fate of this whole situation? My Dad said he couldn’t get himself to buy the tickets for these perfect seats and then two tickets come our way, like so rad. When it got closer to showtime, I saw Amanda put in earplugs and I got nervous, I was like oh damn, yeah, this isn’t her first rodeo she’s prepared. It’s a joke in my family that my mom can’t hear well anymore because she lost her hearing from standing too close to the speakers at a Ramones concert when she was young. So I looked at my Dad and asked him if I was going to have a Ramones moment? Like as soon as the concert started and first explosion of fireworks I was like, Yep, it’s happening. My ears didn’t stop ringing for a couple days and it was like a full day before I regained my hearing. But it was so worth it. It was the most theatrical concert I have ever been too. Plus it was the music I grew up to with my Dad. So it was a super special and meaningful night. Here is the set list from the show for you to enjoy! I hope this story helped you live vicariously through me!
OH! Did I mention that my friends ended up running into friends who had a box section so they got to watch the concert from a prime view! Literally they were in the section right behind me, so I was able to glance back and see them rocking out throughout the show! So you could say a good time was had by all!