This past weekend, I went to Las Vegas. Before continuing this story, I must first give a gigantic shout-out to my wife, Jesterio the Magnificent, for letting me go on this trip on short notice. You see, fine readers, this all started on the morning of Saturday, October 25. My wife, children, and I were at Rocks's Northcenter location. Some of us were decorating pumpkins, while some of us were drinking beer. The co-owner of Rocks, who also happened to go to college with me, approached me and indicated that he and his wife, along with two other couples, were going to see KISS at The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel in Vegas on Friday November 14. He had two extra tickets and asked if I was interested in one or both of the tickets. I was indeed.
After some persistent begging, combined with the fact that I could fly for free with points, Jester let me go. It was a fantastic trip. Here are the top ten highlights from the weekend.
10. Watching free live TV on the flight home
I flew Southwest, and sure enough, their commercials aren't lying. You can actually watch about 10-15 channels of Dish Network for free. The best part is that, if you're watching on a tablet or phone, you don't ever have to turn your device off (just keep it in Airplane Mode), so you can watch TV from the time you sit down until the time you leave the plane. This is particularly awesome on a Sunday during the fall, as I was able to flip between the Chargers/Raiders game and the Eagles/Packers game for most of the flight, before the Colts/Pats Sunday night game started.
9. The Hard Rock
Because the show and a KISS-centric gift shop were at the Hard Rock, we made a couple trips there over the course of the weekend, even though we weren't staying there. I hadn't been to the Hard Rock during my other trips to Vegas, since it's off the strip, but I will say that it was pretty cool in there. As you might imagine, they had a lot of cool rock and roll memorabilia, including, but not limited to, some KISS costumes and a bunch of Def Leppard stuff (since Def Leppard recorded a live album there a couple years ago)
The bars at the Hard Rock also had KISS-themed cocktails. I had the Psycho Circus, since it contained "vodka and orange juice" –- just in case KISS played "Cold Gin" and Paul Stanley recited his banter to the crowd from Alive! verbatim, in which case I would have been able to yell passionately without feeling like an imposter.
8. Craps
God, I love craps, although this would have been higher on the list if it was kinder to me. That said, here is a picture of the craps table at the Hard Rock where I had my most success.
7. Gambling on college and pro football
The only other times I have been to Vegas have been during the summer months, so I have never been during the college or pro football seasons. I quite enjoyed betting on both. My favorite bet was when I bet the second-half over of 21.5 points in the UTEP/North Texas game. Winning that bet made me feel like a champion and a degenerate all at the same time.
6. Eric Carr lookalike
After the KISS show Friday night, walking around the Hard Rock, we saw this guy, dressed up like former KISS drummer Eric Carr, full fox makeup and fox stole included. This is some pretty solid dedication. Of course, it's gotta be creepy for Gene or Paul to see the spitting image of a man who died over twenty years ago.
5. KISS Mini Golf
Across the street from the Hard Rock is KISS Mini Golf, an indoor, black-lit putt putt adventure for any KISS fan. In addition, they had a bunch of KISS memorabilia on the walls, and a KISS gift shop. Good times were had by all, even if I turned in a Jean Van de Velde-esque collapse, squandering my lead in spectacular fashion.
4. The show itself
The show was, as expected, phenomenal. The Joint holds only 3,000-4,000 people, so it was the smallest venue in which I will ever see KISS play a concert. Our seats were ridiculous. There were two kind of wings coming out of the corners of the stage at a 45-degree angle. Four of us were right next to the right wing (the Paul side), and the other four were next to the left wing (the Gene side), with both sets maybe ten rows back from the front of the stage. We were close enough to the stage that we could feel the heat every time the pyrotechnics went off, which is pretty much every few seconds at a KISS show. Every once in a while, Paul or Tommy Thayer would wander down our wing, and get closer to us than any member of KISS had ever been before. It was definitely in the top five concerts I've ever attended, and it might be number one.
Here are some photos, as well as videos I took of part of the opener, "Detroit Rock City," and part of "Deuce," with Tommy Thayer coming right by us for his guitar solo.
3. The encore
The encore was two classics, "Shout It Out Loud" and "Rock and Roll All Nite." During the latter, they shot off enough confetti that it looked like a rock and roll blizzard. It was awesome. Here's a video.
2. I touched Paul Stanley
At one point during the show, Paul was down on his knees right in front of us (and yes, I realize how bad that sounds), so I reached out my hand and, sure enough, he grabbed it. It happened shortly after he knelt down to talk to this lady.
1. This
Here is a picture of Paul Stanley that I took when he was right in front of us.
Here is a picture taken seconds later (by photographer Keith Leroux) posted on KISS's Facebook page the next day showing Paul Stanley grabbing a fan's phone and taking a picture.
Here is the picture he took.
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