Kiss End Of The Road Tour Birmingham 05/06/2023 Review

Having been born in the 1980s and, therefore, a teenager in the 1990s, my formative years featured a heavy diet of Guns ‘n’ Roses, Queen, Iron Maiden and, of course, Kiss. Not having access to MTV, my ability to see these bands was limited, but the first long-form music video I owned was the Guns ‘n’ Roses Use Your Illusion set, and I can still remember the sense that these were not so much musicians, as gods who walked the earth – their stage shows gargantuan in scope, seemingly beamed in from another planet altogether. Over the years, my tastes would change considerably, but I never lost the sense of wild-eyed wonder such shows could evoke.

Kiss, of course, epitomise that approach, and their entire career has been one of carefully-crafted myth-making, from the well-practiced stage moves of Detroit Rock City which, as the HD video screen behind the stage clearly shows, have barely changed since the song first detonated; to the fire-breathing, blood-spewing antics of The Demon, which still feel larger than life, despite their familiarity. As such, as we walk into The NEC’s cavernous interior, to find giant Kiss statues flanking the stage, it’s as if the years have fallen away, to reveal the awestruck teenager inside once more.

Opening the night, we have Skindred. Not yet a stadium headliner in their own right, they still manage to put on a stadium-worthy performance, not least thanks to Benji’s engaging stage antics. The man knows how to rock a crowd and, with singalongs and plenty of interaction, he successfully manages to gee up one of the most partisan crowds in rock music. The band kick out some great tunes along the way, too, and highlights include a bouncy That’s My Jam, a refreshingly positive Smile Please and, of course, a blistering Nobody, still one of the best songs the band have ever written. By the end, Benji has the crowd dancing to his tune, performing the Newport Helicopter before Skindred leave the stage, having proved the perfect warm-up act for classic rock’s grand masters of theatre.

And so, to Kiss. For this, their final (probably) ever tour, the band have truly pulled out all the stops, and their hulking great stage looks amazing. Flanked by the aforementioned statues, evoking the fabled colossus; and with HD screens ensuring everyone in the arena has a view of what’s happening on stage, Kiss know how to put on an arena show worthy of the name, and this is precisely what they do, throwing everything but the kitchen sink into a performance that will live long in the memories of all who attended.

With pristine sound from the get-go, the band clearly intend to go out all guns blazing and so, as the drop cloth falls to the sound of Detroit Rock City, complete with more pyro than most bands use for an entire set, we’re transported back to a time when arena shows ruled the world, and it’s clear that the delightfully cynicism-free audience are more than willing to go along for the ride. Rolling out the Klassics early, we get Shout It Out Loud and Deuce one after the other, establishing a momentum that the band astonishingly maintain for the entire 2-hour duration of the show.

And what a show! When it comes to being the biggest and the baddest band in town, Kiss have it all – the lasers, the blood, the fire, and the rockets. It’s so overwhelming that, by the time the band unleash Psycho Circus, the screens transforming the stage into an unholy big top, it’s more comic-book-come-to-life than traditional rock show, and it’s impossible not to be swept up in it all.

It’s typically at this point that detractors suggest that a Kiss show is all empty spectacle, but this is to entirely misrepresent the band’s ethos. For sure they’re entertainers, with more than a hint of P. T. Barnham about them, but you don’t get to have a fifty-year career without skill in your specific field, and Kiss have always been exceptional song writers. Gene Simmons has often stated Kiss’ desire to be the Beatles of hard rock, and who can argue with such a back catalogue? Every single song aired tonight is a stone-cold klassic, even the well-received Say Yeah from Sonic Boom (dispensing with the notion that Kiss lost their mojo in the later years), and while Kiss may have had their ups and downs over the course of their twenty studio albums, it’s notable that, for every Klassic they play, there’s another they didn’t have the time to air (Strutter, Firehouse and Hotter Than Hell, to name but few). To put it another way, you could strip away all the spectacle, all the volume and all the makeup, and you’d still be left with a remarkable catalogue of songs, the like of which most bands would kill to amass, played by a band who, for the most part, sound at the top of their game.

However, tonight we get it all. The arena-flattening I Love It Loud, still gloriously dumb after all these years, gets everyone singing along, before Gene does his fire breathing schtick; War Machine reminds us of Kiss’ heavy metal credentials; Tommy Thayer takes down an alien spaceship with his guitar rockets during his solo spot; Eric Singer’s drums levitate during his charismatic solo, and Gene belches blood, before taking to the roof to sing a suitably demonic God Of Thunder, surrounded by dozens of mini-demons all singing along. Not to be outdone, Paul Stanley not only acts as master of ceremonies, getting the entire audience in the mood with his between-song banter, but he also has his own special stage at the heart of the crowd, from where he performs Love Gun, and I Was Made for Loving You. Yes, the band have been doing these things for years, but it doesn’t make it any the less awe-inspiring when you see it up close and personal, and the band put their blood, sweat and tears into every moment.

For fifty years, Kiss have entertained the hell out of us. Their fortunes have waxed and waned and, as with any band with so long a career, they have not been without their missteps. That said, it feels as if Kiss have been taken for granted and the world will be a less colourful, less interesting place when they finally do hang up their 7-inch leather heels. With brilliant performances from a fired-up band, a passionate audience more than happy to go along with it, and a spectacle worthy of legend, Kiss’s End of the Road saw the band take their leave of Birmingham with flair and genuine emotion. It’s been one hell of a ride, and this was one hell of a way to say goodbye.

Setlist