The US band Kiss has reached “The End of the Road” after 50 years and is celebrating “The Final Tour Ever” – with an interruption due to the pandemic for almost four years. On Sunday the group played for the second time in Vienna for the last time. 9,000 fans experienced a spectacle with fire, rockets, blood spitting and explosions. There was also plenty of rocking. Next to it was only a “Kiss loves you Vienna!” on the video wall: The lettering was underlaid with the Australian flag.
After “Band-Motor” and regular announcer Paul Stanley thanked the audience several times during the concert and bowed to them together with his colleagues, this faux pas was easy to ignore. Especially since Kiss put on a huge show in the town hall and performed all their famous gimmicks again. Kiss made it clear with the opener “Detroit Rock City” that they are not satisfied with half measures: There was a lot of ignition, banging and Pyros shot off.
Kiss have also heated up musically: A 23-song hit firework from the hard rock creed “I Love It Loud” to “Lick It Up” to “I Was Made for Lovin’ You”. Only one song, “Say Yeah”, was from a younger time (from 2009 after all) – who cares! “We play old songs, older songs and very old songs,” Stanley announced at the beginning to thunderous applause. The “Kiss Army” didn’t want to hear anything else, the classics again as a farewell, if they were also solidly packaged in a flawless rock sound by a band that loved to play, all the better.
On the stage flanked by huge Kiss figures, people rocked on floating platforms, bassist and singer Gene Simmons spoke some German and let a lot of “blood” flow out of his mouth at lofty heights (which made many a child shudder at the otherwise family-friendly circus spectacle), Eric Singer on drums was also allowed to sniff the air with his instrument and Stanley “flew” over the heads of the fans to sing “Love Gun” at the other end of the hall. Tommy Thayer was no slouch, firing rockets from his guitar during his solo.
There has been much speculation in recent years about Stanley’s voice and possible playback support for his singing. At the “very last” (Stanley) show in Vienna, the motto was “Rock and Roll All Nite”, so nobody was interested in such trivialities. With that anthem as the final encore, confetti fountains swirled, flames blazed, pyros ignited. If the band doesn’t come back to Vienna for one last concert after the last concert after the last concert, then it was a worthy farewell – with a bang!
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