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.
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Lee stop hating it’s the holiday season my bro!!
Ace set list needs a change it’s good but could use some work !
1. Space invaders
2. Reckless
3. Rip it out
4. Shot full rock
5. Parasite
6. Breakout
7. Strange ways
8. Dark light ? Hard times ? talk to me ?
9. Snow blind
10. Gimme a feelin
11. Shock me .. Smoke
12. Sturtter
13. New York Groove
14. What ever girl wants
15. Change
Encore
16. Rock soldiers
17. Cold Gin
18 . Rocket Ride
And everyone goes home happy : )
Dunno if that really has to change, Imo that is a solid set
I was glad that he added four songs from his 80’s solo albums. I’m not going to complain about the setlist, except that “Toys” was played from his new album, and I’m glad he’s playing “Lost in Limbo,” but it was risky opening with it.
I agree Toys is the worst track on the new album, the only one I always skip. Strange that this song made it on the set list when there are many others from his catalogue that are much much better.
Eddie – Thanks for the review. I don’t think Ace has to worry about playing deep cuts and losing the audience the way Aerosmith, KISS or major arena acts do. Let’s be honest, Ace’s fan base are the die hard KISS fans. I think the reason there was not much reaction for 2 Young 2 Die is most KISS fans I know don’t really like the song much. Also, when we go see Ace we want to hear Ace singing. There was 6 or 7 songs last night where Ace was not the lead singer.
Mike
I agree on going to see Ace and having songs sung by another singer. Its just such a waste imo and I would assume most people at the show . We came to hear Ace !! And 6-7 songs by somebody other than Ace is waaaaay too many !
On the flip side I think Ace likes to jam on his guitar and not worry about lead vocals every song…
I love Lost in Limbo and would want it kept in the set but opening with it is not a smart move. If I were in a band I would open with a song you would normally play at the end . A real popular one. Bands also like to open with a new song to support their new release but i’ve been to hundreds and hundreds of shows and everytime a band does that the crowd just sits there wondering” what the hell ”
The crowd is so excited to see the band , they’ve been waiting for hours and, you open with a new song ? Just stupid imo
I bought my tickets to houston . I going .only problem I see is someone is not. At all really helping promote and or push his name out there enuff to show hes even on tour I want him to do great and ppl to show up . Any band needs to fill a capacity to the max if possible. Someone like ace should be able to do just that. If not someone is not doing there job. Especially when its dozens of shows. All the media platforms. The bulk of those should fill to max. …I saw the clips on YouTube of opening nite and it seems to.me it will.meet all my expectations. Ace is awesome and delivers with a good punch every time..thanks eddie too for your coverage I was waiting song for song as you tweeted them. Again thanks …
Unfortunately it seems that the press work for Ace is really not up to date (look at his poorly desigend and serviced website) so possibly a lot of people who might have gone to his concerts will just miss it because someone is not doing press realtions properly in the age of social media etc.