thoughts n pictures

091213
Ace Frehley, support 16 second stare
at the Tonhalle, Munich, Germany
www.acefrehley.com
www.16secondstare.com


Ace Frehley, the youngest of a 5 piece family from the Bronx NY, got his first guitar for Christmas 1964 and tought playing himself by listening and imitating ones like Hendrix, Townsend and Jeff Beck. In 1973 he joined Stanley, Simmons and Criss to found the KISS, one of the biggest bands in the world.
The band released their first album in 1974 and already 1978 every member released their solo albums, Frehleys was the bestselling of the four and the single 'New York Groove' even had a top 20 entry. As he had some serious problems musically and through drug abuse as well, he left the band in 1982 and founded Frehleys Comet his own band. They had not that much success, so Frehley called it quits in 1989.
1995 to 2002 Frehley joined KISS again for some reunion tours, he is now replaced by Tommy Thayer. Now 20 years after his last solo album he took some serious musicians on his side and released his new solo album 'Anomaly' on sep 15th.
So during the european tour to promote this album he reached Munich with his band where i had chance to see him.

On that tour 16 Second Stare supports 'Space-Ace', a Tampa Bay 4 piece who had their first indie release called 'Red Carpet Material' in 2008 and just released their first selftitled international longplayer on Fontana/Universal. Earlier this year they already had a tour allover the southwest with Brian "Head" Welch, the former Korn lead-guitarist.
They really rocked the house in Munich, but I'm afraid their style may have been a bit to metal for the more 'rocky' KISS audience.
In that 30 minutes metal blast they had plenty of energy, hard riffing and great soloingand even an hommage to Parteras 'Walk', as well the shouter did his very best to heat up the audience. Sadly the hall that can keep 1000-2000 people was not even near to be sold out, maybe 500-600 people were attending, so that there was not much of the audience who catched that fire.

At about 9.30 Ace hit the stage after his mates already did a little jamming. He took one of his guitars and hit the strings, hell that was the loudest show I can remember ever to be seen in that hall, the technician later told me they had 130 db (that's about what an aeroplane has when staritng) on stage alone, not even runningt through the PA. They opened with Rocket Ride and it seemed they would take off the roof immediately. On they went with Parasite, Snowblind, Sister, Outerspace, Speedin Back, Rock Soldiers, Love Her All I Can, then 2000 Man, at this one Ace made Joke about Mick Jagger and started to play Satisfaction, just kidding with the audience. Next ones were Fox On The Run then N.Y. Groove, wich he dedicated to his own musical roots. At Foxey + Free he almost burnt one of his guitars wich had the 'fire 'n' smoke' effect built in, during a really excessive almost 10 min solo, which Ace is well know for.
And of course they played some really classic KISS songs: Shook Me, Shout It Out, Deuce and for encore Rip It Out and Love Gun. The audience had a really great time and as well had the band, they really seemed to love the close distance of that club show feeling without having a security pit.

09 12 08
Sham 69 at the Nachtleben Frankfurt
First time for me to visit a Punkrock show at this venue, I wondered why so many people missed this show. The club was not even near to be sold out, but it got a nice mix of people there downstairs. Punks n Skins n Rockers at all ages came to see the classy Sham69, united kids as claimed in their most familiar song 'If the kids are united, they will never be devided' which the band played as the last encore.
But lets start with the beginning. As I walked in about 9:10 Monkey Suite, a lady-fronted local punk'n'roll band, were already on stage.
The band who already had a 'single of the month' and a top 20 indiecharts hit in the netherlands and germany performed their set with a little less empathy i had hoped for, i would have given my last shirt to open the mighty Sham69 with my garage band. At least the singer gave her very best, she screamed her words, whirled her purse and shook her back. Nice to listen to and nice to look at. The band promoted their recent selftitled cd, gave an homage to the early 80ties punk rock, and had a cool surf song as an encore.
After a 20 minutes changeover a quite histrionic intro yelled from the speakers to introduce the great Sham 69. They entered the stage and started to rock.
Almost as powerful as in their old days, they dragged the proned audience from the beginning on. Not only with 'hey little rich boy' at number 2, they loaded their set with all the old classics, just to name a few: rip off, ulster, i'm a man I'm a boy, tell us the truth, sunday morning nightmare, george davis is innocent, hersham boys.
It was really great to watch the old dogs having that much fun on stage, esp Dave Parsons seemed to have loads of lark swinging his guitar. After about an hour of playing old shool punk rock, dedicating songs (Tim V announced white riot to his old friend Joe Strummer), introducing the band (again the energetic Al Campbell of UK Subs on the bass) they left the stage and came back quickly after the crowd shouted for an encore.
As already mentioned they ended up with 'if the kids are united' and left us a night to remember.