It’s been a long time between drinks for me as far as attending live music concerts go.

How long? Put it this way. The last time I attended a major stadium concert (for the curious and nostalgic alike, it was Bob Dylan on his ‘True Confessions’ tour) the internet had not yet been invented, Ronald Reagan was in the Whitehouse in the U.S and legwarmers – pants for your calves – were a thing.

And now I’m about to break that drought in, well…if I’m forced to chose a description – WHOLLY SPECTACULAR FASHION!

My G.O.A.T (Greatest Of All Time) band are coming to Brisbane and I’m so happy to announce I’ll be there to cheer them on. The END OF THE ROAD tour is being promoted as the last opportunity fans worldwide will have to see the band live before they hang up their touring boots forever. Not sure I entirely believe that claim but I do know I have no plans to see them again in the future so for me this will be it.

I remember I was in Year 9 at school when KISS visited Australia as part of their UNMASKED TOUR. That was back in 1980 and at that time KISS were big beyond any comprehension. The media compared them to The Beatles for the amount of hysteria they generated amongst fans. Thousands gathered at airports around the country to greet them and wherever they went an army of the most dedicated would camp outside their hotel rooms.

Their Brisbane concert was held that year on November 25th. My mate Google tells me that was a Tuesday night. I remember the next day at school, a boy by the name of Joe Cranitch, who’d gone to the concert, telling the rest of us what we’d missed. It sounded completely life-changing. Well, I was fourteen.

41 years on, the Brisbane KISS concert I’ll be attending will also be on a Tuesday night – also in the final week of November. It’ll be back to work the next day for me. If I make it. I’m not sure I will. In any case it’s seven months away. Seven months to savor one of life’s great pleasures. Antici……………………….pation!

In a confession you can be guaranteed would be considered blasphemous to any lifelong rabid committed KISS fan, I’ll admit I hesitated long and hard before actually going ahead and splashing out the coin to buy a ticket. It wasn’t so much the $200 asking price, ’cause by all accounts that’s more or less the going rate these days to see a name act of this heft.

No, it was the thought I wouldn’t be seeing the band at their peak (key members of the band are now either approaching or in their early seventies) and did I really want to run the risk of tarnishing an unblemished, idyllic recollection of what at one stage you could, if you were really straining for words, refer to as a ‘band’ but a band which many decades ago most assuredly morphed into an out-and-out cultural phenomena.

And while I was in the entertaining-miscellaneous-doubts game, I threw this one in as well : Was I too old to enjoy having my ear-drums assaulted by a reputed 136 decibel noise level (the equivalent of a jet taking off 100 metres away or the loudest human voice shouting one inch (2.5 centimetres) away from your ear) while attempting to be entertained by the sight of a lead singer resembling a Japanese Kabuki performer spitting up blood and breathing fire?

In the end I surprised myself and concluded I wasn’t too old to still get a kick out of such hoo-ha. Toss in the fact I’ve never seen KISS live before and there’s the distinct possibility this could be the last opportunity to do so, and, with the encouragement of my wife, I set about being among the first to purchase a golden ticket on-line the minute they went on sale a few months back.

Funny thing happened on the way to that on-line KISS concert ticket purchase though. I almost fell for the ‘ol fake ticket scam. Even now, when you enter BUY KISS CONCERT TICKETS into the Google search engine, the first site that appears at the top of the page is something called viagogo.com

I came within a hair’s breath of purchasing my ticket from this site before I looked more carefully and realized they are a reseller of event tickets, not an authorized seller.

Late last year viagogo were ordered by the Australian Federal Court to pay a penalty of $7 million for breaching the Australian Consumer Law by making “false or misleading representations when reselling tickets for live music and sports events.” 

Elton John fans who bought tickets on-line from the site got stung badly back in 2019 when they fronted up to some of his Australian concerts and were refused entry because the tickets they’d bought turned out to be fakes.

Consumer magazine CHOICE dropped the axe bigtime on viagogo in this article HERE last year condemning the company for shonky business tactics. I’m confident in saying I dodged a possible bullet by not buying my ticket from these guys.

After having bought a proper ticket from the official Australian seller /https://premier.ticketek.com.au/ I know where I’ll be seated is in the front half of the venue (capacity 13 500) on the right hand side. I won’t need to bring binoculars. Perfect ’cause I don’t own a pair.

Two questions remain…

(1) Will I wear KISS make-up on the night? ANSWER: No

(2) Will I wear my KISS t-shirt on the night? ANSWER: Definitely maybe.

And finally, here’s to the fans…

Ps. And for no other reason than it doesn’t come much weirder than this, PLUS… if you’ve made it all this way through the post you deserve at the very least … a KISS-flavored Scooby snack!