Concert Review - The New Zealand KISS Experience - Napier - 29th March 2025

The New Zealand KISS Experience - Photo Credit Andrew Caldwell

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE FULL NZ KISS EXPERIENCE GALLERY BY ANDREW CALDWELL

Review By: Rob Harbers

Artist/Band: The New Zealand KISS Experience

Venue/City: Paisley Stage, Napier, New Zealand

Date of Event: Saturday 29th March 2025

Just over a year after their first Napier appearance, the NZ Kiss Experience returned to the coolest little venue in town. And a ridiculously fun time was had by all present, whether reliving the songs from their youth, or catching up on the rebound!

Similar to my confession at the start of this month re OMD, I’ll admit to having something of a soft spot for the New York ‘glamsters’ in my adolescent years. Yes, again, for all the weird and wonderful music that now gets me through this thing we call life, I was, in an earlier life, quite partial to a lot of this stuff! Having been deprived of the opportunity of the full live experience the last time they were going to come through Aotearoa in 2019 (before the ravages of a certain big disease with a little name), this was a chance to touch the flame, to the extent possible within the confines of the Paisley Stage. And what a fuckin’ show it was!!

Having teased the audience with a walk-through (or should that be a strut?) from the back of the venue to the capacious green room, anticipation was building to a high point before the curtain dropped. Once it did, it was straight into the obligatory ‘Detroit Rock City’, and it was evident that these boys were no mere dabblers, but were indeed soaked in the spirit of the Star Child, Demon, Space Ace and the Cat! Kevin Ryan does a very creditable job of replicating the vocals of Paul Stanley, and played the accompanying hypeman role perfectly, not holding back at all in his commitment to the bit.
After such a storming opening, the ensuing ‘Shout It Out Loud’ and ‘Deuce’ built on the atmosphere, leading the Star Child to point out that “We’re just getting started!”. A reach beyond the core canon, to include ‘New York Groove’, gave Dan Cosgrove the spotlight playing Ace Frehley, and he took it and ran with it!

By this point the crowd was appropriately amped, taken there by the sheer quality of the musicality on display-as I said before, these guys have taken the time to get fully steeped in this material and thus play it very well and very convincingly-for much of the show, you could close your eyes and think you were listening to the real thing. But closing your eyes would be a waste, given the effort applied to the visual aspect, makeup and costume being bang-on in channeling the vibe!

A literally oversized part of the vibe is the performance of Mark Stoddart, bringing the full Gene Simmons effect, towering up to nearly 7 feet in his impressive platforms, spitting blood while maintaining rock-steady bass rhythms, and vocals as required, such as on a very impressive rendition of ‘God Of Thunder’, that he intro’d with a solo.

As makes sense, the bulk of the repertoire was drawn from the 70s heyday, including the odd deep cut, such as ‘Shock Me’ , while touching down on the later career highlights also, a very nice ‘Lick It Up’ being a case in point. ‘Shock Me’ also included a killer guitar solo, demonstrating again that as much as this may be a bit of fun for the boys, there’s some serious chops behind it. Following the little kick in the ass that was ‘Let Me Go, Rock and Roll’, a drum solo allowed hometown boy Jeremy Badger to show us what he could do, and it was quite something! (As much as a drummer of my acquaintance took exception to his technique-but that’s drummers for ya!).

Of course, such a show wouldn’t be complete without the biggest hit, ‘I Was Made For Loving You’, and this was delivered in rousing fashion, its disco beats dragging all but the most leaden of foot out on to the floor. But such was the depth of this set that this was the 20th(!) song performed, out of the 27 of which this set consisted value for money indeed! A further highlight of these closing stages was provided by ‘Cold Gin’ ( the song which helped us to the win in a quiz in a gin bar in London, but that’s a tale for another day), before closing out the 24-song main set with the ever-so-innocently titled ‘Love Gun’.

The encore saw an electric piano being set up on the stage, for Jeremy’s note-perfect ‘Beth’, before ramping back up again into another anthem, ‘Rock and Roll All Nite’, then closing out with a masterful ‘Black Diamond’, complete with a faithful recreation of the original’s winding-down fade out. And then they were done, and straight down into the appreciative audience to press the flesh, pose for photos, and in at least one case, get out of the towering boots. A show that was very well put together, played by a band putting all their considerable skill and craft into it and all coming together for a shitload of fun! But don’t just take my word for it-there was a man there who’d seen the real thing 28(!) times, and has the tattoos to prove it, and he told me that he was truly impressed also- that’s got to be high praise!

SETLIST
Detroit Rock City
Shout it Out Loud
Deuce
Heaven’s On Fire
Strutter
Got To Choose
New York Groove
Crazy Crazy Nights
Hotter Than Hell
Firehouse
Dr. Love
Do You Love Me
Sure Know Something
Shandi
2,000 Man
Lick It Up
God Of Thunder
Let Me Go, Rock and Roll
I Was Made For Loving You
Shock Me
Psycho Circus
Cold Gin
Love Gun
Beth
Rock and Roll All Nite
Black Diamond

The NZ Kiss Experience PR Poster 2025

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