By Jed Gottlieb
Photo by Christopher Evans
Boston Herald

You wanted the best, you got the best! The hottest band in the land, one half of KISS! Before the Boston TD Garden show, Gene Simmons boasted to the Herald that this was the largest tour they'd ever done.

The hits were the backbone of the show. "Deuce," "Hotter Than Hell" and "Black Diamond" - with its hook that could snag Moby Dick - were wicked nice. "Cmon and Love Me" and a sleazy, slutty "She" were brilliant. Even spotlight solos by Thayer and Singer were pretty damn cool (sorry Ace and Peter).

But KISS is still a band of 70's shtick, and the old gimmicks were in full effect. Gene breathed fire and barfed blood. Paul fired the right and left sides of the stage up into shout-offs. There was plenty of strutting and swaying in unison to go with guitars that bazooka-ed sparks and a drum riser on a rotating, fog-spewing hydraulic lift.

As the epic encore - "Shout It Out Loud" into "Lick It Up" into "Let Me Go" into "Love Gun" (where Paul Stanley flew through the audience on a wire) into "Detroit Rock City" - blasted on and the canon booms and flame bursts continued, it seemed clear Gene was right. Not only that this was the largest KISS tour ever, but that - as he also told the Herald - KISS will live on long past Ace and Peter.

They've done it before and did it again last night with a legendary show.

We've heard from many members of the KISS Army saying they're going to the store to buy SONIC BOOM in KISS Makeup, costumes and T-shirts...and we LOVE it!

Please send KOL any photos and video clips of your SONIC BOOM buying adventure.

You can upload photos, links and messages on our LETTERS PAGE or email them to
kleroux67@gmail.com

Don't forget you can also submit the photo in our KISS Guitar Giveaway.

Click here to view today's new exclusive SONIC BOOM recording studio clip on the SONIC BOOM page...ENJOY!

Here's an awesome fan-filmed clip of "Black Diamond" from KISS' Mohegan Sun show Saturday night.

Here's KISS on the cover of the latest issue of the Italian magazine "Rock Hard".

Roadrunner / Loud & Proud caught up with Paul and Tommy in Detroit as they shot their upcoming video and sat them down for a chat. In the interview below, Paul and Tommy talk us through the second half of the new album, track by track!

By Joe Szczechowski When word started circulating last year that Kiss was working on its first new album in 11 years, even long-time fans were a bit skeptical. The band's last studio album, 1998's much touted reunion effort, Psycho Circus, recorded (at least on paper) with original members Ace Frehley and Peter Criss, had been a disappointment. More recent solo albums by founding members Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley had also failed to live up to expectations. Simmons had Family Jewels, his hit A&E reality television series, and Stanley had his artwork, which had become more profitable than his latest musical endeavors. Stanley and Simmons seemed content to take Kiss on the road less frequently. The crowds still came, and classics like "Detroit Rock City," "Shout It Out Loud," and "Rock and Roll All Nite" still brought them to their feet. Ironically, with drummer Eric Singer and lead guitarist Tommy Thayer back and the group, Kiss was playing better, tighter, and with more energy than it had in years. Still the question remained. Why would Kiss bother making a new album? To hear Kiss tell it, it was a combination of two things - the fans clamoring for new music, and the band members themselves realizing that they were musically in top form and how much they enjoyed playing together. When the quartet went into the studio to re-record 15 Kiss classics for a Japan-only CD, (Jigoku Retsuden) the band found that the process was not only painless, it was fun.

BY STEPHEN PETERSON SUN CHRONICLE STAFF

Forget U2 or The Rolling Stones. If you want to see the spectacle of a rock show, take in a Kiss concert. Of pretty much any group in rock history, Kiss is one whose performances display the essence of the band.

Kiss, which took the stage Saturday night at the Mohegan Sun Arena for the Kiss Alive/35 North American Tour named after the 35th anniversary of their big-selling Top 10 live album, has pretty much always been more than a rock band, with their makeup and costumes and concert extravagance.

As bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons, whose family is in the A&E TV reality show "Family Jewels," says, Kiss is a brand, with countless merchandise and an image that has transcended decades and generations. Many of the group's fans, in fact, brought their kids to the show, and of course, a few were decked out in the Kiss look.

"Sonic Boom," the band's first album of new material in 11 years, is scheduled to go on the shelves exclusively at Wal-Mart/Sam's Club stores Tuesday along with a new greatest hits CD and DVD.

The new album returns the solos Kiss has been known for, and some of the songs such as the anthem "Say Yeah" and "Modern Day Delilah" - the album's first song on the radio, retain the vintage Kiss sound.

By Kristina Dorsey

Some rock bands grow old gracefully - and then some rock bands are KISS.

Star child Paul Stanley may be 57, and Gene Simmons may be an AARP-ready 60, but they are not making any concessions to age. They have again slapped on the signature face paint, the glam-goth outfits and the towering platform shoes for a tour that hit Mohegan Sun Arena Saturday.

The band has always threatened to turn from KISS to kitsch, and they still fully embrace their camp elements. They busted out of every rock cliche Saturday - the eyebrow-singeing flashpots, the thundering fireworks, the smoke machine that almost made guitarist Tommy Thayer disappear at one point. Simmons, Stanley and Thayer stood together in guitar-god formation and did their synchronized guitar sway.

And the confetti machines created possibly the biggest Arctic blizzard ever in a concert. It kept pumping out white confetti through almost all of "Rock and Roll All Nite."

Check out this great interview with Paul and Gene on Quebec television show "Tout le Monde en Parle" ("The World Is Talking About It!")

Chris Alexander MUSICK NEWS

Last night, Toronto had their eyeballs bitch slapped and their ears blissfully abused by the living breathing rock spectacle circus known as KISS. It was a classic stadium rock spectacle to be sure but, man alive, did it get off to a surreal, almost cataclysmic start...

The sold out stands at the Air Canada Centre where jammed full of the faithful, many in traditional KISS character costume, three generations of cultists who have long held the band as more than just a band, but mythic superheroes. And like any superhero with his wings clipped, the opening of the show veered into tragedy that was almost Greek in its magnitude.

Here are the official KISS M&M's that are being sold exclusively at over 2800 Walmarts beginning this week. There are four different bags - Paul, Gene, Eric and Tommy! Each bag contains black, white, silver and red candies with band members faces imprinted on the M&M's! The KISS M&M's are part of Walmart's KISS Korners, which will feature CDs, blankets, trading cards, and other cool KISS items!

Click here to view today's new exclusive SONIC BOOM recording studio clip on the SONIC BOOM page...ENJOY!

By Jeff Broddle

The story that has been told and retold, of the rock band KISS visiting Cadillac in 1975 at the invitation of the Cadillac High School football team, will be retold again, this time by the cable sports network ESPN.

Vikings football coach Jim Webb confirmed Friday that an ESPN crew asked permission to film the homecoming game Friday night. The crew also filmed part of the homecoming parade.

Webb said the players were "pumped" to hear the news that ESPN would be on the sidelines for the game.

"I told the players, in case they needed a little more motivation than homecoming, that some of them might be on national TV," Webb said.

Fan-filmed clip of "King Of The Night Time World" from Mohegan Sun last night.