Ace Frehley @ The Gov, 6th May ’15
Ace Frehley! Hard to believe that we had the absolute pleasure to see the original Spaceman play at Adelaide’s finest live venue The Gov.
The former lead guitarist and founding member of the legendary band Kiss taking on the persona Spaceman or Space Ace returned for his first Australian tour in five years supporting his relatively new release Space Invader. With the full house sign up there was a sense of anticipation of what was about to unfold.
The intro by the tour promoter fired the crowd up saying, “Adelaide what’s going down here, come on! All I hear is promoters saying that Adelaide sucks, no one comes to shows, they’re not bringing shows here, all I can see is a fucking sold out arena here right! Who did you come to see? The Spaceman has landed here in Adelaide, the legend, the icon, Mr Ace Frehley!” The crowd roared as he hit the stage and funnily enough I’ve never heard of The Gov being referred to as an arena but nonetheless the atmosphere was awesome.
1-2-3-4 and it was straight in to Rocket Ride and his band consisting of Richie Scarlet, bass guitarist Chris Wyse (Ozzy Osbourne and The Cult); and Scot Coogan (Lita Ford and Nikki Sixx) were on song. The crowd were right in to it lifting another notch on Gimme Me A Feeling. Ace’s opening remarks were “Adelaide, great to be here, we’re winding down our Australian tour, so far so good, you guys might end up being the craziest fucking audience on the whole tour!” I think Adelaide gave that a fair ‘ole tilt. Toys was great but the biggest signs of appreciation were the Kiss classics such as Parasite which is about the chicks hanging around that you can’t get rid of. “Back in the 70s there was a lot of cocaine when I wrote this song” served as the intro to Snowblind.
Love Gun was epic and one of the big moments in the set as was Breakout which was dedicated to former Kiss drummer Eric Carr. There were no ebbs and flows just straight up rock for two hours. Even Ace acknowledged “it’s getting hot in here” proceeding with Space Invader. The crowd continually found voice on Kiss classics such as King Of The Night Time World and Strutter. Breaking away from the Kiss covers for a moment Ace mentioned he had a crazy idea to do a Rolling Stones song in the seventies taking on 2000 Man. Bass solo? A little indulgent in my view but still showed plenty of class. More Kiss with Strangeways and Talk To Me with my favourite moment of the night coming by way of Hello cover New York Groove – plenty of chances for the crowd to sing-a-long.
Back on the Kiss greatness it was Shock Me that got a nod before by an Ace Frehley guitar solo shrouded in smoke it was like watching a master class before closing the main set out with Rip It Out. The encore really topped the night off brilliantly with the infamous Detroit Rock City followed by Deuce.
It was a brilliant show and those who didn’t go or couldn’t get tickets really did miss out but as was eluded to in the show he’ll be back. Waiting to catch a glimpse of the great man like many others he was ushered out the venue by a team of security into the night.
Whether it is rummaging through vinyl at record stores such as Clarity and Title finding hidden gems to scouring the internet to find that album by the next big thing or chasing bands to get that elusive autograph and photo his passion is music all the way.
- Aversions Crown - January 27, 2017
- Sick Of It All - January 19, 2017
- Refused - January 11, 2017
