Fans of other bands might have stayed home, but a little rain over the Halifax Common couldn’t deter the KISS Army on Saturday night.
The crowd seemed comparable to Paul McCartney’s concert a week earlier, but with more makeup and longer tongues.
John Vautour, Reme Richardson and Julian Savoie laughed off the rain to get in line at 7:30 a.m. after driving in from Neguac, New Brunswick.
“We are huge KISS fans, man. And we’re willing to do that,” said Vautour.
Hundreds of others soon joined them, but many fans decided to skip the opening acts and showed up in droves shortly before the headlining act was scheduled to perform. The rain vanished at just the right time, not long before KISS took the stage.
It was too late for the Halifax Common, however. Tens of thousands of pairs of wet feet did a number on the field, leaving large pools of mud.
But none of that mattered to the rabid KISS fans once their idols took the stage.
“You wanna hear the vintage classic stuff, don’t cha?” yelled lead singer Paul Stanley. “And you wanna see us blow lots of **** up, don’t cha?”
The band delivered plenty of both. Massive fireworks displays accompanied rock classics like Rock and Roll All Nite, Detroit Rock City, Lick It Up and even the disco-ey hit I Was Made for Lovin’ You.
They even joked about playing Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven, but after the opening riff seemed to change their mind as Stanley waved his hand and said “naw.”
From the moment they hit the stage KISS began delivering what fans came to see. There were epic drum and guitar solos, metallic platform boots, explosions and lots and lots of Gene Simmons’s tongue.
But it wasn’t all satanic devil music. The Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation surely appreciated Paul Stanley’s friendly warning to fans: “If you’re going to drink, don’t drink and drive.”
Halifax Regional Police called the event “successful from a policing perspective,” despite arresting more than 30 people for public drunkenness.
