KISS & Aerosmith Live at Jones Beach
By
Tokemaster General,
Contributor
Tuesday, August 19, 2003 @ 4:49 PM
| KISS & Aerosmith Live at the T
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REVIEW BY: Jonathan DeSanctis, East Islip, NY
Let me say right up front, I am a huge Kiss fan. I've been one for over 23 years. I've seen them about 29 times over the years. Even with that, I still wasn't all that excited about this bill. The fact that Aerosmith, in my opinion, had degraded into a pop band. Granted there are some good tunes on the CD's since Permanent Vacation, but overall Aerosmith has become way too slick. As far as Kiss goes two words: No Ace!! After dealing with Bruce Kulick for a long time (great chops, no personality on stage) I have to listen to Kiss "break in" their new lead guitar player Tommy Thayer. I am a huge Ace fan but Tommy did a solid job. More on that later... here are the details...
I did not even watch Saliva. No friggin’ interest in the new metal poseur category for the evening... Next...
Kiss came on at exactly 8:00pm and kicked right into "Detroit Rock City.” The intro is the same as the farewell tour, with them coming down from the rafters on a section of stage. In fact the stage is basically a smaller version of the Farewell Tour one. There is set of Video Screens behind the band that show graphics and films during the show. The sound was good, although the wind from the ocean did cause the sound to be muffled a little during parts of the show. Next up was "Deuce” -- Tommy sounded great during this one. The one thing I do have to say is that Peter Criss played better than anytime I've seen him since the 1996 Reunion Tour. His fills were right on and there were more of them than usual. Best I've heard him play in awhile. The rest of the setlist: "Strutter" (which was a first for me, I've never seen that one live). "Do You Love Me,” "Let Me Go Rock N Roll,” "Firehouse,” "I Love it Loud,” "I Want You" (hardly ever played, I've never seen that one live either), "God Of Thunder,” "100,000 Years,” "Black Diamond,” "Beth,” "Love Gun,” "Rock N Roll All Night.”
Overall the band sounded great. They used a ton of bombs, fire and pyro as usual. Paul Stanley is an amazing singer. He kept the audience in his hand all night. Kiss shows in this area are always special because of Kiss' New York City roots. The Amphitheatre is about 30 minutes from New York City so people come from everywhere in the Tri State Area to see these shows. The crowd was into it (at least in my section) and as far as I could see Kiss T-Shirts outnumbered the Aerosmith ones. Overall good show by my favorite band.
Kiss ended about 9:20 PM or so. Aerosmith didn't go on until 10:15 pm, which I felt killed the audience strength a little. Like I said before, I don't like most new Aerosmith. But they opened with one I haven't heard for years "Let The Music Do the Talking" from Done With Mirrors. Good choice. But after that it went downhill for a bit... onto to popland. Next up was "Mama Kin" (always good), "Love In An Elevator,” "Pink,” "Rag Doll,” "Nobody's Fault" (another good one from Rocks, according to Steven Tyler this was never played live before)...Then they went into 3 new tunes from the new "Blues" record they have coming out in January "Honkin’ For Bobo.” To me this totally killed the momentum of the set. I don't think people wanted to be subjected to new material -- I know I did not.
Anyway, musically they sounded good playing Blues classics of "Shame Shame Shame," "I Never Loved a Man the Way I Loved You" (an old Aretha Franklin song given a sex change and sung as "I Never Loved a Gal The Way I Loved You") which sucked. And one final new song which I didn’t get the title for because I left during the Blues set as I got bored. Thank god I did because the next song was the in the lame ballad category -- "Cryin’," which I could hear as I was walking to my car. God that song sucks. Anyway the rest of the list which was given to me by a friend... "Back in The Saddle,” "Dream On,” "Walk This Way,” "Sweet Emotion" -- standard set list.
Overall Aerosmith sounded great for the first half of the set. The addition of "Let the Music Do the Talking" and "Nobody's Fault" made the first half great. But after they got into the more MTV stuff I had to bolt. The Blues stuff was musically on, but too slick. I imagine the CD will sound slick also so they can sell it to all of the Justin Timberlake fans that buy their CD's. I feel bad for old school Aerosmith fans because the past is given such a cursory glance that it gets me pissed. They should at least include some older songs -- there are some under played songs in their catalog.
Overall, if you are a fan of either band check this show out.
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