Great show. Frustrating night, but great show.
The frustrations - someone kicked a rock up a cracked my windshield on the drive there. Should be able to get it fixed before we head out for a long weekend getaway, but still. At the show, I had a couple drunken jagoffs behind me - the woman fell into me and knocked me forward, then spilled beer on me twice (well her or her boyfriend). Then when I turned to sit down, they had their beers on my seat. When I told the guy to move them he just stared at me like he didn't understand English. Idiots.
Ace and Alice were both very good. Alice changed his set up a lot from the last time I'd seen him. That's one of the things I love about him with this band - they'll reach back and play just about anything in his catalog. I'm not overly familiar with the deep cuts, but seeing them live (and especially when he puts them on a live release) either opens up new stuff for me or brings back some songs that had kind of slipped off to the side. Granted, it means some songs I'd like to hear don't get played, but I don't think anyone walked out complaining. The band was on fire as usual, but there did seem to be some issues w/the mix - vocal mics not on at times, slow to boost guitars for solos. But all in all, typical great Alice.
I loved Ace's set, although it was almost all Kiss or '78 solo material with one exception, a medley of a couple songs from "Origins Vol. 2". One of those was Zeppelin's "Good Times, Bad Times". Ace has his limitations vocally (ha!), but when he sang GTBT, it wasn't hard to close your eyes and imagine Robert Plant onstage. With a cricket bat, sneaking up to inflict bodily harm on Ace. There was a very typical Ace-ism. At one point, fairly early in the set, he start introducing a song that was "the first time I sang lead in this band I was in". The intro went on for a few more seconds, he looked down, then said, "Wait, that's not the song we're going to do now!"