Sunday, January 6, 2008

Let Me Tell Ya Who's Cool........


Ace Motherfuckin' Frehley. That's who. Recently I got to see Space Ace do a solo show for about 500 people. I was about 15 feet from him the entire show and for a guy who has loved Kiss for over 20 years, I was a bit star struck. I mean this is the guy who has played in front millions upon millions in every country on earth. Ace has had problems with substance abuse since his days in Kiss, but he seems to finally have triumphed having now been sober for over a year. It has really helped him. He has lost his 1990s weight and his face isn't all puffy and inflated looking anymore. And it helped his performance as his vocals were pretty good and his guitar playing was signature Ace. The show absolutely rocked. This was no nostalgia trip, this was basic ass-kicking rock. He played a bunch of solo stuff like Rip It Out, Rock Soldiers, and Back in the New York Groove. He also played a whole handful of Kiss tunes including: his signature song Shock Me, Cold Gin, Love Gun, Parasite, Rocket Ride, and Deuce. He also played Love Her All I Can with the drummer doing a very strong Paul Stanley imitation on vocals. After Shock Me, he played a cool guitar solo and when he flipped the switch on the back of his guitar to make it start smoking like it was on fire, the guitar malfunctioned and he had to cut the solo short. He laughed it off and handed the smoking guitar to the roady and made a joke about it to the crowd. You can check out the video below from the next night in Norfolk where it happened again. They really gotta get that thing fixed. At the end of the last song of the encore, Deuce, he stood center stage with his guitarist and bassist on either side and to give the audience everything he could, they did that whole synchronized sway right and left, back and forth together thing that Kiss always did. If you are a Kiss fan, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Watching him doing this made me stop still in place and I just stared in awe at one of my rock heroes. It plastered a smile on my face that still hasn't left. That's right, Ace Motherfuckin' Frehley.
He only has a couple of dates left that he is scheduled to play, and I highly recommend you go. If you like Kiss, this show is essential, and if you just like rock music, you're gonna love it too. Here are the remaining dates:
Feb. 22 - Atlanta, GA - Center Stage
Feb. 23 - New Orleans, LA - House of Blues
Feb. 24 - Dallas, TX - House of Blues
Feb. 29 - Niagara Falls, NY - The Bear's Den at Seneca Niagara Casino
Ace's Smokin' Solo Malfunction

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