11/14: ACE FREHLEY TOUR KICK OFF REPORT
Hosted the kickoff of the Ace Frehley Space Invader tour in NJ last night. If you followed on Twitter I did song for song coverage and posted a ton of photos. Also posted a few on my FB. Like most tour kickoffs there were a few technical issues during the show but it wasn’t really a huge deal and Ace had fun with it. He is also working in a new band and I think after a couple shows under their belt things should be very tight. This band really is great! Richie Scarlett back in the fold is a huge addition. I always loved Richie’s playing, performance, voice and attitude on stage and he is a perfect wing man for Ace. Their two Les Paul’s sounded amazing all night and there was some cool dual guitar stuff as well. Scot Coogan also is a great re-addition to the band. He is a killer drummer and has a phenomenal voice which enables Ace to play many Kiss/Paul Stanley vocal era songs that he was a part of like “Love Gun”, “King Of The Nightime World” and others. Hearing Scot belt these out was really pretty awesome, especially when you consider how well he plays at the same time! Ace is only doing Kiss material he played on and was a part of and it sounded great with Scot singing. New bassist Chris Wyse sang lead on Strange Ways and he is a great player and rounds out what is a killer band with all able to sing lead. Because of the technical issues the nearly 2 hour set was trimmed and Deuce and Detroit Rock City were not played, but Ace told me he will toy with the set as he goes. 3 songs from Trouble Walkin were in the set including opener Lost In Limbo and two from the post Kiss debut (Rock Soldiers and Breakout which was dedicated to Eric Carr who co-wrote it). Nothing from Second Sighting or Anomaly. Cold Gin was the set closer. I posted a photo of the set list on my FB. I know there has been an outcry from some fans for deeper obscure Ace / Kiss tunes liked Dark Light, etc. He may very well work some of that up as he goes. But the simple truth is with any band playing deep tracks live it makes about 10% of the crowd happy and loses everyone else, so there must be balance. Trust me, I LOVE deep tracks from bands and I’m burned on the usual hits. But the huge majority are not. One example is when Ace played Too Young To Die, a great track I love from Trouble Walkin. About 80% of the crowd had no clue. It is a balance every band has to deal with. The major amount of people buying tickets just don’t know the deep stuff. So that’s why you get Kiss hits scattered in with the solo hits and deep tracks. Four songs from the new album were in the set, the title track, Toys, Gimme A Feelin and Change, although Change was scrapped due to a tuning issue (like I said, first night mess ups). As I walked with Ace to the stage to intro him he said “oh shit, I forgot to put Rip It Out in”! So no doubt that will be added very soon. The plan is for Ace to do the announced dates, then break for the holidays, then do more US shows and European festivals next year. I hope this band sticks together and enough people come out to support this tour and have it make sense and grow. It really was a fun, raw, loud rock show that was loud and punchy and loaded with a great variety of Ace/Kiss classics. All confirmed dates at www.acefrehley.com I’ll be at the second night at BB Kings in NYC. Win tickets to those shows in ET’s Box Office on this site.
Joe never read Kiss & Tell. Rascals reunited couldn’t get the publishing clearance for a video. The people who signed off on their publishing get wacked….ask Billy Joel ’72 or John Fogerty ’68.
Thanks again for all the tireless work you put into keeping this music alive.
It is greatly appreciated.
I hope Ace plays alot more of his solo music. On the Anomaly tour he played like 90% Kiss songs. Huge disappointment. Play your own material Ace! Hint…. Hard times. Dark Light. Shot full of rock. Ozone. Speeding back to my baby. And stuff from 78 solo album, Anomaly, and Space Invader. I dont want to hear 15 Kiss songs. Tough nuggets! I dont support cover Kiss anymore. Cmon , Ace. Make us proud. Rock out ACE style. Ace is back and he told you so!
ace is ace,i love the guy,but lets call a spade a spade,or in this case an ace,heis and has always been lazy,godforbid he put any effort into a real tour#1 a,d any kind of reheasal,no production at all,and his always being late and not really caring is wearing a bit thin,every tour i hope that he would change his ways,but it only gets worse,he could be as tight as slash is when he goes out,but that would take effort,and ace has never been about that,its a shame,u only get one life,and he just wastes his time,this will be the last time i pay money to see the spaceman,i have been as loyal as i can,but enough is enough,
Slash with Myles is as tight as you can get but then Slash is worth a few hundred million and can buy the tight with great production and sound and do 19,000 a night with Aerosmith too. At least Ace isn’t like Jake dumping gigs. Good management works. Have you seen the latest Red Cartel publicity photo? Yikes.