A very early start for our group (consisting of myself, Ma, Ian Danter, Bill Oddie, Shane & our friend, Ben) out of Stansted. Arriving at 4.30am was bad enough, but Bill Oddie had been there since 4am....nutter !!
Anyhoo, after an extremely expensive breakfast & a load of personal abuse we fired our elastic band aeroplane toward Copenhagen & landed with a thud about an hour later.
We were greeted by glorious sunshine and mediterranean heat which they won't be getting at some crappy festival in a muddy Leicestershire field this weekend, hahaha !! A quick coffee and then the Gatwick contingent arrived in the form of Tony South & Spooky. We all sorted our metro tickets with the minimum of fuss......(those who remember the une billet episode in Paris will know what I mean) and jumped on our glass sausage for a 20 minute journey to the venue where we were joined by the advance party, Darran, Darren & Jason.
The Forum is like a smaller version of Wembley Arena and was bathed in kiss posters. One thing we did find out immediately is do not step off the pavement. Not because the traffic is bad, its because the roads are full of cyclists. Billions of them. Its like China !!!
Crossing the road in Copenhagen is like being a wilderbeast & crossing the Zambeze full of crocodiles.
Anyway, we decided to go on a sight seeing trip with Bill Oddie stating quite clearly he knew how to get to the Little Mermaid statue. One very long wait for the metro & an extremely dull walk later we arrived in Japan.... well it might as well have been as the statue was swarming with hundreds of them. After the anti climax of that we decided to head back into town for some food & to meet up with the Manchester contingent. Bill Oddie decided he knew the way and assured us it was 10 minutes walk back to Tivoli Gardens.
Two hours later we arrived at the Hard Rock Cafe, still nowhere near our original meet up place but we'd had enough and were all starving. Met up with Hazza and one very expensive meal later decided to check into the hotel.
Met Amro, Sourmash Ian, Bay, madmark & family and a few others and after arsing around trying to straighten out a problem with Ian Danter's room we all headed off for a slurp.
Scene missing
Walked back to the Forum where a huge snake had formed outside. We joined the queue somewhere near Sweden and traded insults until we started moving. The Forum inside is very small. I'd say its capacity is 8,000 max, a typically small arena.
There seemed to be a few gremlins in the works tonight, the spider looked as though it had had a stroke and was tilted to one side & the support band's desk wasn't working properly. Still, all would be worked out before kiss came on.....ahem !
Five Finger Shit Stab are just dreadful. Review over !
Kiss came on 5 mins late and as the curtain dropped they were stood on the stage, not being lowered from the spider. Oh well, Athens all over again. The ammount of pyro let off was vast and you could feel every stage gerb crack your ribs.
One thing I noticed very early on was that Eric's drum sound kept dropping in and out. Some toms were louder than others & even his snare at times. He was also having a bloody nightmare. Ive not seen Eric play so badly, his timing was all over the place on a few songs and he reminded me of how Peter was in the way he was very static in his stool and just tapping his drums as opposed to the Eric who kills every drum.
Gene was in fine form. I had to laugh when he did his solo & flew into the spider's arse. He'd not lined himself up properly so when he was hoisted the riggers had to slow the hoist down to compensate and his feet were flapping around trying to find the edge of the platform. (I bet someone got a proper fuc*ing for that, lol).
Tommy was brilliant. For me he's the outstanding mamber of the band now. Not a single note dropped & a very solid all round performance. Glad he's now doing his own tracks.
Paul was trying so hard to compensate the fact his voice just won't regain its strength. Eric covered a lot of Paul's main vocal lines and he sporadically sang choruses again leaving Eric to cover his parts. He had a nasty fall when his ankle gave way but Paul being the ultimate rock star and showman turned a near humiliation into a spectacular stage roll and took full opportunity to lay on the stage & pose for photo's. What a professional !!
Set list was exactly the same as Sweden so no surprises there. Paul did appologise about the spider but promised that when they come back everything will be fixed and the spider will be singing a song, lol.
Billions and billions of confetti & explosives later the show was yet another memory.
Im glad we made the effort to go see the band. We met up with some good friends, met some new friends, had some laughs & experienced a new city & culture. But overall & even though it wasn't their best night, Im glad I got to see kiss again.
By the way, I was told by my friend Jay who went to Berlin that not only was the spider on strike again but the huge screen failed as the logo was being flashed across it just leaving the SS showing. Ooops !!
