Concert review: Hottest Band in the World still cool (to some, anyway)

Kiss was never a band that required much use of the mind. Saturday night at Target Center, though, the makeup-wearing rock icons' success depended entirely on mindset.

On one hand, the two-hour, mostly by-the-number$ concert seemed as pathetic as those new Dr Pepper commercials with coleader Gene Simmons, whom our own Sen. Al Franken once called "the most awful person I've ever met" (no doubt to Gene's delight).

Awful is certainly an applicable word for the sight of Simmons, 60, wearing a codpiece and singing "Calling Dr. Love," a song that takes on whole new meaning in the Viagra era. His starry-eyed cohort, Paul Stanley, meanwhile, was the usual ham desperate for applause (Paul: "We were in Chicago last night... ." Crowd: "Boo!").

As for the other two positions in the band, they were filled by replacement members wearing the old guys' makeup. The so-called Hottest Band in the World felt quite cooked-up Saturday, especially when guitarist Tommy Thayer -- celebrating his 49th birthday Saturday -- sang ex-member Ace Frehley's "Shock Me." Shocking indeed.

On the other hand, you could also look at the concert with a more impressed mindset. First off, it was nearly sold-out, with around 13,000 attendees. Granted, the band had to revert to an e-mail blast via Ticketmaster on Tuesday offering tickets for $10.

More important, there's something to be said for perseverance; for 60-year-old rockers entirely ignoring their age (heck, these guys weren't acting their age at 25); and for middle-age fans getting to bring their 10-year-old sons to see the band that mattered most to them at that age; and for showmanship trumping integrity, and for brawny rock anthems like "Deuce" and 'Strutter" -- the show's opening pair -- still kicking butt.

Musically, the revamped Kiss (also with drummer Eric Singer) was just as sturdy as the classic lineup, and it dug relatively deep into the discography with "Let Me Go Rock 'n' Roll" and "Parasite" -- along with the usual round of standards. The regular set ended with "Rock and Roll All Nite," and "Love Gun" and "Detroit Rock City" came in the encore. Even the new song "Modern Day Delilah," from the group's Walmart-only album "Sonic Boom," packed a pretty good boom.

Visually, Kiss is still Kiss. The stage was lined with three rows of dizzying video screens, which (for instance) lit up with flames for "Hotter Than Hell." Thayer even used Frehley's old sparks-spewing guitar tricks. Only Kiss could beg this question: Is there a copyright on pyro?

See Kiss' full set list at www.startribune.com/artcetera

Chris Riemenschneider • 612-673-4658