Pop culture: Recapping KISS concert -- and the band's history in Tulsa 

Pop culture: Recapping KISS concert -- and the band\'s history in Tulsa - Tulsa World: Pop

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Pop culture: Recapping KISS concert -- and the band\'s history in Tulsa

Gene Simmons performs during a KISS concert Wednesday night at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. TOM GILBERT/Tulsa World

Paul Stanley of KISS performs during a Feb. 22 show at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. TOM GILBERT/Tulsa World

KISS, which has been performing in Tulsa since the 1970s, played The Joint for the first time. TOM GILBERT/Tulsa World

Photo gallery: See photos from the concert at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino

CATOOSA — The rock band KISS headlined Madison Square Garden in New York City for the first time on Feb. 18, 1977.

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Almost exactly 40 years later — what’s a day or four? — KISS rocked The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.

KISS has played Tulsa many times, even after a yahoo in the crowd did something goofy (details later) during a show in the 1970s, but their Wednesday night gig at the Hard Rock was their first concert in the 918 since Oklahoma assumed joint custody of Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley on Jan. 13.

That’s the day Simmons and Stanley visited the state to announce they were partnering with the Kaw Nation for a Rock & Brews Casino Resort in Braman, Okla. The idea, like a KISS stage show, is go big or go home. The planned resort will boast a 250-room hotel with a spa and fitness center, a 77,528-square-foot casino, a bingo hall, a conference center, four “luxury” retail stores, a travel plaza/truck stop and a 1,500-seat events center.

One week after the casino press conference came an announcement that KISS would perform Feb. 22 at The Joint. Even if you’ve seen KISS a dozen times before, the combination of this band in this venue seemed intriguing: How will KISS’ blood-spitting, fire-breathing, high wire act of an arena rock show translate to a more intimate setting? The Joint is a 2,700-seat facility.

Early in a 95-minute set, Stanley said it’s not every day that the band gets to play somewhere where everybody is so close.

Stanley and his KISS-mates — Simmons, Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer — played The Joint for the first time, according to a casino spokesperson. They brought just about all the KISS staples with them — the pyrotechnics, the booms, the bursts of flame, a venue-wide Pledge of Allegiance (the band is a big supporter of the military) and of course the anthems their fans know by heart. God bless the folks who had to clean up all the confetti sprayed into the air during the set-closer, “Rock and Roll All Nite.”

“What a cool way to spend a Wednesday night,” Stanley said after the first two songs, reminding attendees that the band he co-founded with Simmons is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

“The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame hates KISS, but they had to listen to you,” he said, referring to the band’s fans. “Tulsa, thank you for making it happen.”

Speaking of Tulsa, let’s make this not just a recap of a KISS concert, but a review of the band’s shared history with Tulsa.

When KISS played the Assembly Center (alias the Convention Center) in 1979, a newspaper account said it was the band’s first show in Tulsa in several years. The story said KISS’ previous concert in Tulsa ended when someone threw a bottle on stage. The bottle hit Stanley in the face, according to the story, but some familiar with the incident recall that it was former drummer Peter Criss who got hit by the bottle. Regardless, the urban legend was that KISS would never return to Tulsa.

Here’s an excerpt of a Tulsa World Q&A with Simmons prior to the 1979 show.

Tulsa World entertainment writer Vern Stefanic: “Do you remember the incident?”

Simmons: “No, I don’t even remember it. What was it about?”

Tulsa World: “During the encore, somebody threw a bottle on stage, causing you to leave the stage and say you’re not coming back.”

Simmons: “Oh yeah. It hit Paul in the face. Well, here we are. It wouldn’t be fair (to not return). I’ll tell you what else. The guy probably didn’t even mean to hurt anybody. But that’s OK. If anybody does that again, we’ll just make sure that they get him on the side and he’ll get his. One person should never have the right to ruin it for 10,000 or 20,000 people.”

FYI, an opening act for KISS in ‘79 was some fellow named John Cougar, who, at that time, was still three years away from hitting it big with his “American Fool” album. We know this because the Tulsa World, in the pre-electronic archives era, maintained a clip file on just about everything.

Some articles in the KISS clip file are too interesting to stay entombed in a manila folder. Among highlights:

•Simmons, when asked in 1979 why he and band members wore makeup, said, “You have to understand that the stage, number one, is the place where people should do something out of the ordinary so that (other) people can get a show. Now, that goes all the way from when a president puts on a tie and makes sure that it’s tied right, and the right suit and the right colors and everything like that, to actors and actresses and any time there’s a public situation where people are looking at you.

“People want to look special. I don’t want to look like the Atlanta Rhythm Section. I want to get up on stage and look special. I don’t want to look exactly the way the audience does. There should be something that separates the audience from a performer. Otherwise, I should be in the audience. The makeup is only part of the story though. Because it’s the sensationalism, or whatever, everybody always gets down to that. We put on makeup for exactly the same reason that Elvis put on the gold lame suit or anybody else would do anything to make anything more spectacular. Period.”

•In the same interview, Simmons was asked why he gave up being a sixth grade teacher for a music career.

“I didn’t want to teach,” he said. “I wanted to perform and that’s the wrong reason to be in front of school kids. When you’re teaching sixth grade you shouldn’t want to perform. You should want to convey knowledge. What I wanted to do was have my ego satiated and I soon learned that. At the end of the day, no matter how well I taught the lesson, I didn’t get claps. Nobody said ‘wow, that’s great!’ So I wasn’t satisfied.”

•Local law enforcement officers decided to launch a major crackdown on narcotics peddling and drug abuse at Tulsa concert venues in 1979.

Unfortunately for KISS (nothing personal?), the crackdown began with the KISS concert at the Assembly Center. Plainclothes officers patrolled restrooms and the arena in search of druggies. Officers made 41 arrests and charges were filed against 30 people, primarily for possession of marijuana. Two juveniles were arrested for armed robbery outside the Assembly Center before the show. They intended to use a knife to rob a fellow who was collecting cash at a pay-to-park lot. Their plan was doomed as soon as they asked an undercover officer to help with the robbery. Crime doesn’t pay, kids.

•A Tulsa Tribune writer asked Simmons in 1979 if his relationship with Cher was detrimental to the band.

“Yes. Our fans are jealous and possessive,” he said. “It makes me feel special, but it can limit my personal life, especially when I’m seeing someone like Cher, who gets a lot of publicity anyway. But don’t expect us to perform together. It will never happen.”

•In 1987, before a show at the Expo Square Pavilion, Simmons was asked about the band catching grief from a watchdog group, the Parents Music Resource Center. Said Simmons, “I don’t mind. Just the same as farmers need fertilizer to grow, rock ‘n‘ roll needs these people to make it grow.”

Someone of a younger vintage took to social media a couple of years ago to say he needed help in understanding the appeal of KISS. Glad to help. Rock music has, through generations, scared parents. Elvis’ gyrating hips scared parents. KISS certainly scared parents. Simmons still looks like a frigging demon when he’s wearing those platform shoes and spitting crimson. KISS tapped into the taboo, and that was exciting.

And then there’s this: KISS seemed larger than life, like masked superheroes, when they burst onto the scene. It was must-see TV when, for instance, they showed up on Paul Lynde’s 1976 ABC Halloween special or when the band starred in a cheesy 1978 NBC TV movie, “KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park.” You talked about those things at school the next day. And you turned up their meant-to-be-played-loud songs. And you wondered what the band members looked like because they refused to be photographed without their makeup until they decided to unmask in 1983.

KISS performed without makeup from 1983-96. Tickets were $13.50 when unmasked KISS played Expo Square Pavilion with WASP in 1986. Tickets were $16.25 when still-unmasked KISS played the same venue with opening act White Lion in 1987. A Tulsa Tribune review of the 1987 concert referred to Simmons and Stanley as old-timers who could still keep up with the rest of them. That was 30 years ago. Somehow — and this is amazing — Stanley still has six-pack abs, which is surely why he feels comfortable baring his belly on stages in 2017.

Tickets for the Wednesday night concert at The Joint sold for $139.50. At one point during the show, Stanley asked how many in attendance were seeing KISS for the first time. He asked the first-timers to raise their hands. The number of hands raised was surprising. Or was it?

Asked in a recent Billboard.com interview what KISS tours are like these days, the 65-year-old Stanley said, “Every time we hit the road now it’s a victory lap. We’re celebrating what we’ve done and it’s a joyous night with people who either have been there since the beginning or people who may have joined yesterday.”

KISS is booked to play another Oklahoma casino (the Winstar World Casino in Thackerville) Feb. 24. A May 1 trip to Moscow will precede a tour of Europe.

Father Time is undefeated. But KISS, still globetrotting, is putting up a good fight.

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Pretty sure it was John Butcher Axis opening that \'79 show, not John Cougar.

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