Even though I'm a lifelong KISStard I wasn't going to go to this. I've seen too many youtube clips of Ace sounding terrible. But, a good friend of mine suprised me with tix and I didn't have the heart to say no. The venue is great, Hollywood Casino. Tons and tons of parking, great food, etc. We had dinner before the show and I warned him to keep his expectations low.
Once the show began, I quickly could see that, as far as Ace's ability to play guitar and sing goes, it was going to go just about how I expected. That said, I had a LOT more fun than I expected. What Ace lacks in technical abilities he made up for with humor and charisma. He was constantly telling jokes, talking shit about Paul Stanley and, at two different points in the show, stopped everything to throw stuffed animals into the crowd. It was a wild ride. Whatever his poor band is getting paid it's nowhere near enough. They clearly have NO idea what he's going to say or do at any given moment and they have to work very hard to keep things from falling apart. Especially the drummer. They seemed to be having fun with it though for the most part. There were times they had to try to get Ace back on track from one of his many, many speeches about random goofy shit. It was a train wreck, but a wholly enjoyable one and I'm glad I went. Ace seemed very happy which is odd because he announced that he and Lara had broken up which seemed to have happened very recently. He said nice things about her but said that she broke his ribs and, later in the show, showed off the bandages to prove it. Nothing seems to faze him because he clearly did not give a fuck. He was joking, laughing, playful and complimentary about his bandmates. He, of course, fucked up most solos and forgot many words. Everyone was entertained for sure. And there were a LOT of people there. The place was packed.
I'm not going to say anyone should pay to go see Ace, but if you did you'd probably have a great time. Especially since they played Strange Ways which was awesome.
