KISS kicked off their “End of the Road” farewell tour last night in Vancouver with a 20-song setlist that spanned a surprising amount of their catalog. The set kicked off with “Detroit Rock City” going right into “Shout it Out Loud.” While not digging quite as deep into the catalog as most diehard fans would have liked, KISS did perform a few surprises (how pleasant is to be determined) such as “Say Yeah” from 2009’s Sonic Boom and “Hide Your Heart” from 1989’s Hot in the Shade.
Along with $100 raglan shirts and $60 t-shirts, KISS seemed to definitely wow the crowd but from my perspective, the stage itself looked pretty disappointing and not quite the “huge blowout” that KISS has been hyping. Honestly, it looked a lot more simplistic than their incredible “spider” stage production but it wasn’t just the stage production that seems to have fans feeling disappointed.
It’s been very well known and documented that Paul Stanley has struggled with his voice for well over 10 years and ever since his vocal chord surgery in 2011, Stanley just never seemed to be able to return to form and instead just gradually deteriorated to the point that it became downright painful to hear as documented in this version of “Love Gun” from Tulsa, OK in 2017:
Opening night had the band sounding fantastic but surprisingly Paul Stanley’s voice sounded absolutely amazing. It was too good to be true which has lead KISS fans to even point out where Paul is clearly lip syncing to backing tapes as seen below (see the 1:00 mark)
The comments from KISS fans after seeing this ranged from the disgusted fans saying to pack it in, to the fans who supported this decision saying that they didn’t mind it because it just meant that KISS fans would be assured a great show. I’ll be curious to see the feedback from fans as this tour moves forward and honestly to see if the band itself will have anything to say about this.
KISS – “End of the Road” Vancouver Setlist – 1/31/2019
“Detroit Rock City”
“Shout It Out Loud”
“Deuce”
“Say Yeah”
“Heaven’s On Fire”
“War Machine”
“Lick It Up”
“100,000 Years”
“God of Thunder”
“Cold Gin”
“Psycho Circus”
“I Love It Loud”
“Hide Your Heart”
“Let Me Go, Rock ‘n’ Roll”
“Love Gun”
“I Was Made for Lovin’ You”
“Black Diamond”
Encore
“Beth”
“Do You Love Me?”
“Rock and Roll All Nite”
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