March 7, 2020 – No, this is not the reprisal of that old page (“Outfits and Hair”), and no I’m not bringing back, the ducks page either, although perhaps I should, on both accounts. It’s just that I was trying to think of one overarching theme of the David Lee Roth and KISS concert from Wednesday night at the Staples Center, and really it’s Outfits and Hair.

KISS. I’ve only seen them once, and it was without the outfits. The only hair I remember from that time was Tommy Thayer’s, and only because I kinda, well, liked it. But then again, I usually do like long hair on men. It’s a novel thing in my reality. It was 2012, and my friend (when I had those) had tickets to see Slash play Jimmy Kimmel’s show. After that, we went to the Sunset Strip, just to go, and without knowing it, bought tickets on the street to a benefit at the Roxy, which is a club on Sunset. The bands for that night were a shortened set of Kiss, and then Toto. It was up close and personal, and extremely fun. But there was no pyrotechnics, or pyro, whichever you call the effects in a real KISS concert; there’s a lot of just plain fire. And there were no outfits. The band members had on normal clothes that night. They could hear the people in the audience, literally you could talk to them, and they knew you were talking. It was really crazy. They had their “KISS Army” there that night too, or what I thought it was – hot girls, friendly though; they even tried to recruit me by asking me to join them at some event they were doing. I seriously did not have either the outfit or the hair for that, but it was nice to be asked.

This “KISS” concert was an after-thought. I think it’s all the press about “last” concert, or as David Lee Roth says on his social media “last unless it isn’t” that made me want to go. You know, I was there with David Lee Roth at close to the beginning; I’d be there is this is indeed the end. Staples Center is very close to me, and any of the other shows would take real effort to go to. And you never know what will be in my life that will keep me from making any road trips to Chula Vista (California) or to Dallas for any possible later dates. So. I had to, even though I only had until ten o’clock. In rock concert parlance, that’s like being Cinderella having to leave the ball at midnight. Balls don’t end at midnight. Concerts don’t end at ten. So my review is limited to what I saw, which unfortunately didn’t include all the KISS radio songs I know, except the opener and Lick it Up. But that’s okay because I really was there for the outfits.

And KISS outfits are crazy cool! I shouldn’t say that because my former 16-year-old self is going to go forward in time and laugh at me. They are full-on 14-year-old dude cool. Seriously, they are. The boots, the whatever it is on the top… jackets? Vests?, all cool. The hair, I know, all fake now, but again, whatever. Still cool. And the make-up. It’s timeless. You can’t even tell these guys are senior citizens. Like not at all. Not with those outfits and hair. So that’s fun. Because I know their age. I know they are older than I am, well, except Tommy Thayer, or maybe even he is too; I’m not sure. Anyway, the outfits and hair are good!

I’ve seen a lot written about how KISS, especially Paul Stanley, lip-synch now, but I don’t think so. Paul’s voice seemed live, and it seemed as flawed as one would expect, but still good enough. Technically, the KISS portion was tight, very energetic, fun to watch, a really cool intro, although I would have liked them to turn up the sound volume a bit. Paul does do a bit too much talking for my taste, but then again, I’m not really a real KISS Army member, not a real super-fan, so I’m sure it’s very fun for those people to have him do all of that talking.

Leaving at ten, actually it was about quarter past ten, I did see all of the solos. The drum solo is super amazing. The bass solo is Gene Simmons with his spitting blood; I’ve heard about that forever, so it was good to see. And the guitar solo was fun, but then again, why wouldn’t it be fun to see a guitar that spits out fireworks at the end of any solo-phrase? Mind you, that was a trick guitar only for the solos; most of the night Tommy Thayer played a white Gibson Les Paul; the solo “trick” guitar was a beat-up looking darker color, perhaps green, a V, and I spent more time trying to figure out when the fireworks were going to come out and how it did that than actually listening to Thayer’s playing on the solo.

Then there was the surprise element of KISS – the people around me. I sat on literally the top row. That’s the thing about buying tickets to a sold-out show; prices weren’t such that it made sense to get in any other area. And the thing that’s good about such an area are the people. People are invariably nice there. Seated to my right was a woman who was a KISS superfan. She had traveled from Portland to see her mom who lives in the Palm Springs area, then drove into LA for this. Seated below me were two men who had driven from Vegas. They talked about their drives and their former concerts, each having seen KISS from as far back as 1977. These people assumed I was too young for all of that, and that’s the thing: at a KISS show, or so I learned, it’s not just people who grew up with the band who attend the concert, but many, many younger fans too. The couple to my left were the perfect examples.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cuter couple. In fact, I know I haven’t. They were 19, both of them, a young guy and his girl. They looked so into it all, and so into each other. I made friends with them, just so I could take their picture. Seriously, they were that cute. The girl danced incessantly, moving forwards and backwards in a way I have not seen. The entire time, the guy held her, alternating between holding her waist and holding her hand. You have to give serious credit to a guy who holds hands, but then again, he’s only 19. I asked them which was the KISS fan, expecting it should be him, but it was both. She told me this was her second concert. Her first was Ariana Grande. And she said this was way better. She spent about two minutes straight telling me “this is KISS”, like that’s the best band that there ever was. It shows you the power of marketing. I asked her how she liked the first act. She said she knew one song, but couldn’t remember which song it was that she knew. She said “that guy did a good job”, even if she knew nothing of him and knew nothing of the music. I did my level best to tell her his name – David Lee Roth, and to tell her to check out his band – Van Halen.

David Lee Roth was set to take the stage at 7:30. I was watching the lower arena seats starting at about 7:20, wishing they would fill up. He took the stage on time, but by the end of the second song, I did see that that area had filled up nicely. To his credit, I don’t think it was him; the lines getting in to the arena, even when I got there, were slow. He started with You Really Got Me. As he took the stage he brought his full energy, not really sure how, seeing it was 7:30 at night on a back-up performer’s area. There was a part of me that really was a bit sad over that. No way does David Lee Roth deserve to perform on KISS’ stage front with a black curtain behind him. I wanted the whole stage for him, maybe with a giant VH in lights, but I suppose a Van Halen-less production can’t merit it, although truly I’m not sure.

The guitar sound was great. Mind you, DLR’s band and performance was much louder than KISS’. I give David props for that; a concert should be loud. The guitar players are tribute-band players; there are two of them. I’m not sure who the rest of the band members are, or where they come from, but they were all good. They had Marshall amps, and it was a good old-school Van Halen sound.  Loud and gritty.

David played 11 songs, in rapid-fire form, literally going from one song into the next. For all the talking Paul Stanley did, and that David usually does, there was literally no talking by David. He stuck to the lyrics and scripts of the songs, exactly. People who criticize his voice for not staying in the lower registers would have been ecstatic. He was true to the record sound on most everything. For me, the stand out was Beautiful Girls. There was something almost “young David” about his vocal performance on that one. His solo songs also had that same sort of flair, but not to the extent of his performance for Beautiful Girls. It really was a pretty rendition. Seriously, pretty; it was pretty. I loved his marital arts twirling, but I appreciate all thing baton, being a former high school baton twirler and all. He makes it look easy, and it’s not.  I appreciated all of his high kicks too, also not easy things to do. He did six at the end of Jump, just in that one song, and there were about that many others spread out through-out the other songs. He was crazy energetic, like he had something to prove. Then again, he probably did. I’ve seen tweets and social media posts from other rockers praising his performance, Sebastian Bach (he posted directly on David’s social media) and Steve Vai come to mind. Perhaps David knew those guys were there, Sebastian watching his hero; Vai watching his former band-mate.

Then there was me, and no concert review of mine can be complete without my emotional take. With every year that passes since I first saw Van Halen, it gets to be a more and more improbable memory, the things I did and saw so far from how I live and what I am now. But I don’t care how many years pass, the feeling never goes away. When I’m in the same room with David Lee Roth, no matter if it’s the top row of a giant arena, I always feel like the very same young person I was in the era when he was new to me, when he was so much more tangible to me. I will always feel like he’s mine, at least for a few minutes. I’ll always appreciate his presence.

That’s what I was thinking when I pulled out my phone I had been watching for time and saw that it was a few minutes after ten. At that point, when KISS had finished all their solos and was about to start into the portion of the concert with the radio songs, I knew my real life required me to find my car and get home so I could get sleep before my case-determinative hearing the next morning. What that means is I lose the case if I don’t win at that hearing. And so there’s no way I could have stayed. So I said my goodbyes to the people around me, who to finish my paraphrasing of Jamie’s Crying are gone forever, and each of them were sorry to see me go. The cutest parting was that young 19-year old guy who shook my hand, and asked my name, telling me his three times, his girlfriend’s too, although I couldn’t get hers straight. The Vegas-guy’s ring leader got up to protest my leaving, but I said I’ll try to see KISS later, for the rest of the show. But really, I was there, this time, for David Lee Roth. And there are so many parallels. My law career does a good job at getting in the way. I’m sort of used to it by now. It’s poetic really that I had to leave because of a hearing this time, just like, well, that’s an entirely different story.

Oh and because I started this article by mentioning outfits, I’d like to end there with one simple statement, although this outfit discussion requires a bit of explanation. I like David’s red Harley Quinn outfit. In fact, I wrote a story about that outfit earlier this year. I know. I know. David doesn’t think it’s a Harley Quinn outfit, but I do, so I’m going with it. So I have to say thanks to David for wearing his red Harley Quinn outfit, and I’ll pretend it was for me because it’s my favorite. Really. That meant a lot to me.