"Beth", someone very close to the band has very kindly sent me in the following inside info on the show!:-

"I had never heard of Gene before he landed down at CH....I didn't even know he was coming, but the band was marching out to parade (don't know how familiar u are with our school, but we march in to lunch accompanied by the band). This black limo pulls up right next to the band who have stopped, and gets out, cheesily looks all about him, dressed in a long leather coat, jeans, black shirt, shades and black cowboy boots, and I'm like who the bloody hell is that? And my mate goes, that's Gene Simmons, from Kiss, and I thought he was a radio DJ, call me ignorant. I was really cynical, he seemed so up himself, which, I found later, he was. Anyway, the Class had their work cut out, days were quite tiring, they had journals to complete, like video diaries, and so their usual timetables were quite messed up. Erm, I don't think I'm allowed to tell you the names of the peops as of yet...

The thing is with the Class is that towards the end they had had enough, as they basically were puppets for the TV peops, and Gene annoyed them a bit cos at the Motorhead Concert he told one of them she wasn't very good, so they all told him to 'Go Home.' And I was there when they filmed the scene where they say goodbye to Gene and the girl was like, Oh Gene, we'll miss you, even though ur a dick!

But I myself met him properly on three occasions, like proper chat. Twice was over lunch and we got filmed. He was talking about what we wanted to be when we were older, then about the difference between presidents and prime ministers and then about how fox hunting shouldn't be a sport, it should be 'slaughter,' as Gene put it. I love him to bits now, because even though he is bloody arrogant, he's not a bad old guy. Anyway, so he goes, Fox hunting shouldn't be called a sport, but it shud be known as 'slaughter,' and we said why? Gene says, if it was more equal, like if they gave the fox a gun as well as the hunters, then it could be called a sport, because it'd be fair play. And we are like, errr, Gene, they don't use guns in fox hunting, they use dogs. He also liked repeating his cheesiness, saying that the school had touched his heart on a number of occasions where he had to make speeches. And in our chapel service the entire school had to sing God Gave Rock and Roll to you. The tribute band came in while Gene was there and after hearing them I became a fan, and did all the Research on Kiss, me and my mate had discovered something truly awesome it seems. And although he's old enough to be my father, Paul Stanley is hot stuff!!

Oh, in my long rant, forgot to mention, sadly no kiss makeup!!"  [I asked if Gene turned up in full make-up - Paul]

A huge THANK YOU goes out to Beth, it's great to hear that after not knowing who the hell Gene was, she became a fan so soon (she's already gone out and bought the Symphony DVD)!!!

I should have some more details on The Class soon....
 

Gene called in to the Opie & Anthony Show on XM Radio last nite. 
He said that they are playing 2 shows next Spring: 

Red Square in Moscow 
and.... 
Hyde Park in London!!!! 

Many thanks to Paul Harrison for the info. Please note that as usual NOTHING HAS BEEN CONFIRMED!!!!
 

For those of you who missed out on the Expo a new fan based DVD has been released for only six quid! There's a quick review of it on the following page along with details of where to get it.

Click here to see the DVD review 
 

[From: Amelia Hill, The Observer]
Click here to read the full article at The Observer.
Gene Simmons sticks out his long, reptilian tongue, snatches the microphone from the small boy and swings it wildly around his head. With his other hand, he gestures to another child playing the drums to fling his drumsticks to the ground.

The front man of Kiss, the band whose outrageous make-up, riotous shows and sex-crazed groupies made them the biggest American stadium act of the Eighties, has crossed the Atlantic to teach pupils at the oldest boarding school in England how to be rock gods, in a project echoing last year's hit film The School of Rock . 

'Being in a rock band is an allegory for life. Good taste is academic and talent is overrated: mindset and perseverance are everything,' says the singer, 54. 'In a rock band, each person is out for themselves - within the context of the team. 

'Children need to learn to be selfish, to put themselves first and not care what other people think. I have welcomed these children into the twilight zone and they have never seen anything like it.' 

In a new six-part TV series to be screened on Channel 4 next spring, Simmons has been given a month to turn ten 13-year-old public school pupils who excel in classical music into stars capable of supporting one of the day's biggest rock bands in a sell-out concert at London's Hammersmith Apollo. 

On the surface, pupils at the 450-year-old Christ's Hospital school in West Sussex - a charity-run boarding school for children from less well-off families - could not be less rock 'n' roll. The 840 pupils wear a uniform chosen in 1553 by their founder, King Edward VI - long blue coats, cotton shirts with rectangular neckbands similar to those of a lawyer, yellow socks and a leather belt. 

More than half of their families have income of less than £20,000 a year, while another quarter earn between £20,000 and £30,000. Half are being brought up by single parents, and they all have reasons why they benefit from studying away from home - ranging from the death of a parent or trouble with a step-parent to an overcrowded home. Not quite the Little Lord and Lady Fauntleroys that Simmons, who boasts of having seduced more than 4,600 women, admits he was expecting. 

The children greeted the rock god coolly and took time to be won over by him. 'We didn't really care who Gene was or that he was a rock star: when he drove into our school forecourt in his limousine and stepped out wearing his sunglasses and leather coat, we just thought he was really arrogant,' said the band's 13-year-old keyboard player, whose name is to remain secret until the programme is broadcast. 

'It was only when we watched his DVD and saw the size of his audience and how they reacted to him that we thought he might have something to teach us,' agrees the band's manager. 'Now he has been here a few weeks, he is more civilised.' 

Simmons, a former teacher in Harlem, who was sacked for replacing his pupils' Shakespeare books with Spiderman comics, has four central lessons for the pupils: how a rock star behaves, how he or she moves, the melodic structure of rock songs and the history of rock. 

'But the most important thing for a rock star is arrogance,' he says. 'Arrogance is how you get the only two things that matter in the world: sex and money. Rock'n'roll is the sanctuary of all the misfits and the morons who are unqualified to do anything, yet we end up getting paid more and having more sex than any other person on the face of the planet.' 

But while delighted to swing their microphones about, his pupils are not convinced. 'His claim about the women is really sick,' said the band's manager. 'Rock star or not, it is not healthy. It is just to feed his ego: it is really immature. On his website, you can see all these women, but they must be gold diggers - if you look at him, he is just a middle-aged man.' 

The head, Dr Peter Southern, said: 'His lessons on false confidence may be more obviously useful in rock, but they can be key in an interview for university, a violin solo or a tricky moment in a rugby match.' 

Simmons admits he may have learnt more than the children: 'They are much more caring about each other than I would be: when I chose the band members, some said they wanted to step down because another child wanted the place more than they did,' he said. 'They have taught me a degree of humility I didn't have before, which is not necessarily a good thing for a rock star to learn.'
 

The Gene Simmons competition is now closed and 5 winners have been chosen.

Click here to see if you won!

Massive thanks to Cat at Noble PR for helping with the cometion and providing the prizes.