OK. So get off plane, sit in traffic from airport for 45 minutes and $50 later arrive at Crown Towers. Seeing the inside of places like this is not something that would ever normally happen to me. Part casino, part Dune interiors set, there are pillars and split spiral stairways and black marble floors lit from beneath somehow and bellhops in hats. And milling incongruously in amongst all this are all the media parasites waiting for KISS.
Let me just say here, that if you look even partially like you are meant to be there, you can just walk right into one of these things. Noone looked at me, asked who I was or wanted to see my credentials. Lucky I didn't have a gun.
Because I would have shot myself.
After waiting for almost an hour, we have had adequate time to soak up the atmosphere while grips soundcheck the desk mics 400 times and the "KISS ALIVE 35" banner hangs ominously before us, reminding everyone lest we forget, that KISS are "living legends." This is then compounded by hearing I Wanna Rock and Roll All Nite several times.
Anyway, eventually KISS arrive all kitted out in their Kabuki get ups. The delay perhaps can be chalked up to the fact that Gene Simmons is taping Family Jewels while on this tour, as the sign outside the River Room informs: "By being here you consent to being filmed, and your likeness and voice may be reproduced globally, in perpetuity." This requires him being tagged after by a 15 person production crew wherever he goes.
When they come in the room, it's like the Simpsons episode when they go to Japan and all have seizures watching the cartoon, there are that many flashes going off. Someone has let the chairman of the Australian KISS army into the room. THIS WILL BE A MISTAKE.
KISS take their seats and Gene Simmons sits there like a mountainous heap of spikes and looks as though he would rather be having a root canal at this moment. Paul Stanley attempts to keep things moving when the morons in the peanut gallery ask such insightful things as "will you be playing ALL your songs?" and "will there be fireworks?" and "is Indy racing faster than Formula one?" But none of these are as bad as what the KISS army guy asks, a series of practically endless questions about working out, and if KISS will ever go to Perth.
To say this is terrible is an understatement.
Gene Simmons starts sipping on his water bottle and spitting fountains for the amusement of the photographers. He then looks deadly seriously right at me and imparts in his sonorous monotone: "we are having the time of our lives." Please, don't insult us. This is so awful I want to cry.
I ask finally if many people have ordered the KISS Kasket, to which Eric Singer says that Dimebag from Pantera was buried in one with Eddie Van Halen's guitar. Looking at this photo of Pantera, that makes total sense:
With that, KISS are gone. I want to get out of here. The funniest thing that I see, is them standing at the end of the corridor, teetering on their heels and waiting to get into the bathroom. They blanket refuse to sign autographs (Beware the Ides of Ebay).
And so ends my brief, but intense infatuation with the Demon. You have until the Grand Prix show on Sunday Gene Simmons, to win back my love.
