Most of you probably know - or maybe you don't, it was very last minute - that I went to see the final stop of THE TOUR in Hartford last Sunday (the 23rd, not the 30th). I didn't talk about it a ton because I wasn't sure I was going until I bought my bus tickets at 9:30 that morning.
Here's what happened, and I promise this is all leading somewhere philosophical, not just to another concert play-by-play, although there will be some of that, too. This one was special. Anyway. I don't think I ever mentioned this on the blog in the context of the last Crüe show I was at, but this guy, Tom Zutaut, went to my high school. Yes, my little high school back in Park Forest, some 35 or so years before I did. I discovered this while reading Mötley's 2001 autobiography The Dirt in the summer of 2011 because Tom Zutaut was the A&R (I have never known what that means) man for Elektra records in the 80s and signed the band to their first record deal in 1982 when he was about my age. Being the thorough fan that I am, I looked him up, found him on facebook, and just asked if he really indeed went to my high school. (He hadn't said the name, just the town and state, but there's only ever been one high school in my town.) He responded, friend requested me, and we got to chatting over the next several months.
Fast forward to this summer. I intended to see The Tour while I was home, on September 7th. However tickets were crazy expensive (just a lawn seat - meaning a space on the grass - cost about $45). I just couldn't afford it. My plan was to win tickets. I entered every contest. I analyzed the tweets and habits of Tommy Lee, the drummer, because he was hiding tickets in every city they stopped in, which usually included VIP passes meaning a trip backstage to meet the band. I didn't win any contests, so on September 7th, my mom and I went on a stakeout of the venue, waiting for Tommy Lee to tweet his first "Crüe Clüe" to find the passes. But none came, nor was there an explanation of why he suddenly didn't hide them (although I later deduced it was because of the weather, which was his excuse at a later stop on the tour).
So no tickets for me, no Crüe/KISS extravaganza. I was more than a little disappointed, although kudos to my mom for sticking out for hours with me to help me try to go to the show. I figured I could always try again at one of the later stops in the NYC area - they weren't playing in the city at all but had shows near Newark, on Long Island, and in Hartford, Connecticut. You see where this is going. Or do you?
Re-enter Tom Zutaut. I texted him as we were driving away from the venue, saying how disappointed I was about not going to the show. He said he could call and get me tickets, my mom could come too if she wanted. I said thanks, but we were almost home, and the show had already started, so it felt too late. Then he mentioned he would probably be at the shows in Boston and Hartford and I could go to one of those if I wanted, since I had said I'd be back in New York soon.
I said I could get to Hartford (2 1/2 hours by bus). He said he'd get back to me after he'd made his travel plans. Two weeks went by. He ended up being stuck in Kansas City for work. But he said he'd call in a ticket for me if I was going to go. I got very skeptical (I always had been a little bit; I've still never actually met this guy), having that feeling that I think every girl my age in my generation has, being wary of nice men we meet on the internet. But something told me to say yes. So I did. That was Saturday night.
Sunday morning, I bought the bus tickets. I went to church, taught Sunday school, met up with a friend who printed the bus tickets at NYU for me, and then went to Port Authority to head to Hartford. I got there, made my way to the theatre, and went to will call. My ticket wasn't at a regular window. I was redirected to the VIP Guest Services Guest List window. I had a free ticket and a wristband for a photo with KISS. My roundtrip bus cost me the price of a lawn seat, and now I was in row N of the lower pavilion with a ticket to meet KISS and, soon, an all access backstage pass that is now my prized possession. (This is all also thanks to Doc McGhee, the former manager of Mötley, Tom's friend, and now manager for KISS. Imagine that guy's life. And he also went to high school near me.)
What I originally wanted to talk about though was glam rock itself. The music, the stage show, the aesthetic, the attitude. KISS was a pioneer in their form. No one has done quite what they've done, become a franchise and a brand the way they have. Gene Simmons I believe is a businessman before he is a musician or an artist. He might even say that himself. I read his autobiography (also written in 2001), Kiss and Make-Up this summer while I was home, and he's certainly proud of his head for business and refers to KISS as a business. He wants to be rich, he wants to be successful, he wants KISS to be influential not just in a musical sense but in a cultural sense. And as early as the mid- to late-seventies KISS was creating stage shows like no one had ever seen before. The pyro, Gene's fire breathing during "Firehouse," Paul Stanley flying out over the audience, raising platforms, pyrotechnics, moving lights, moving trusses full of lights, projections, etc. That technology has continued to develop into the current century - next year will be KISS' 40th anniversary as a band, if you ignore the fact that two of the original members, though still alive, were kicked out of the band long ago. (You'd never know it though if you didn't do your research; Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer adopted the make-up and personas of Peter Criss and Ace Frehley respectively.)
Similarly, hugely influenced by KISS themselves, Mötley Crüe has pushed the boundaries of the live rock show in artistic ways. (That was the most academic sounding transition sentence I have written in a long time. Wow.) I still think, having now seen The New York Dolls, Poison, Steel Panther, Def Leppard, and KISS, that Mötley puts on the best live show out there. This time things were a little different from the last two times I saw them (the second being kind of a European leg of the summer tour, I think, at least concept-wise). The stage show was new, the set list was a bit different. There was a countdown clock projected on the screen, with a deafening ticking noise that built palpable anticipation (all the more impressive when you then saw how unenthusiastic so much of the crowd was). They opened with a huge processional of hooded figures that came through the audience with banners. The show itself had tons of pyro, fire, power washers spraying the audience with water, Nikki Sixx's guitar shooting fire, Tommy Lee's 360 drum coaster of course, lasers (which were, admittedly, kinda lame), and constant, relentless, media, which, though perhaps the newest technology in many ways, is kind of the least interesting part of their design.
My point (and I do have one) is this. Nothing gets my heart pounding, gives me a rush, gets me so fully involved and passionate about what is happening on stage as these rock concerts. And yes, I like the music, and yes I've read all their books and know weird things about them I have no reason to know, and I follow these people on twitter even though I still think twitter is stupid and I only got an account in the first place because Nikki Sixx tweeted during their show when I first saw them in St. Louis in June of 2011. But the shows, the full-on design of these theatrical events, of the lighting and the costumes and the sets to combine with the music, is unlike anything I've seen anywhere. I get a little bit of that feeling from American Idiot on Broadway. But that was a rock musical and the lights were designed by Kevin Adams who does a lot of rock musicals and lights them like mini-rock shows.
There is this feeling when all the senses line up as part of the same experience. It's loud, and bright, and hot, and fast (is tempo a feeling? I think so...), and gritty, and powerful. I think I have said before that I love glam rock for being 100% what it is. For not apologizing for the make-up, the big hair even now, the sexuality, the desire for more than the mundane. And in so many ways this is all over-analyzing, because as many of the artists of the 80s will say outright, glam rock wasn't about some deeper message, or the expression of rage or oppression. It was in a sense a rebellion to be sure, but mostly it was just a bunch of guys singing about what they liked - sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll.
I just wonder why more theatre - or really any theatre - doesn't give me that same feeling. Is there more of a narrative and therefore more of an emotional journey in a play or a musical? Arguably, yes, of course. That's theoretically the point. And sure, I go see plays and have a lot of feelings, and sometimes they're very good, and provoke a lot of thoughts, too. But I just... I just want that rock show feeling more. It's never mattered to me that a domestic beer costs $11 at a concert, because I don't need it. I go to these shows by myself and have more fun than practically anywhere or anytime else, even when I'm with people.
How do you make that happen for theatre? It's a communal experience. But so is a rock concert, actually. In Hartford I was in this section with a bunch of other people who had KISS VIP wristbands and during Mötley's set they were all just standing around. I am obviously a bigger fan of the Crüe than KISS, so I was having a great time, baffling all the middle-aged men around me, who never understand what a 20something girl is doing at an 80s rock concert, especially, I think, without a middle-aged man as my escort. Anyway there were these two other women, probably in their late thirties, a couple rows in front of me, who were the only other people in the vicinity who also seemed to actually be having a good time during the set. They caught my eye occasionally when turning to the side or something and we would acknowledge each other, part of an unspoken clan, the Crüe crew, the people who were actually engaging with the monstrous stage action while everyone else stood around and drank. There was also the community walking to the theatre, as people who had parked far away walked too, and various people complimented each other on their band t-shirts, cars blasted KISS out their windows, it was very communal. Kind of a massive tailgating parade, as it were, on the way to the arena. So the communal aspect isn't it.
Is it subtlety? Maybe it's subtlety. There is absolutely nothing subtle about a rock show. Both bands played their one new single from their upcoming albums on this tour along with the classics from decades ago - KISS' is entitled "Hell or Halleluja," Mötley's, simply, "Sex." Like I said. Not subtle. The chorus includes the line "It's all about the sex," which was the not-really-unspoken moral of most of their other songs, but now they've really literally just said it.
I don't know. It's something I seriously think about a lot. It matters to me, that feeling, rock music, theatre, how to blend them when I don't actually know a damn thing about writing music or music theory. But figuring it out is becoming my conscious self-education now that I'm out of school.
I still think I was born 25 years too late.
BEST. THING. EVER.
Mötley has my artistic heart.
There's me, and there's everybody else.
Thank you for this, KISS.
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