1968 - 1980 | 1981
- 1986 | 1987 - 1995 | 1996 - 1999
| 2000 - into the future
In the spring of 1988 the rumors about a new KISS tour began. There were also a lot of rumors about “things not were the best in the KISS camp”. Gene and Paul were not in agreement of the bands direction. So I thought it was best to see them one more before the quit (I could not have been more wrong). The concert was in Skedsmohallen (Lillestrøm) in September 1988. It was a much better show than in 1984. They seemed to be in much better spirit, even if the show wasn’t that much to talk about. But even if the show was better it did not ignite the fire inside of me that had been burning so brightly in the beginning of the 80’s. We met the band once again outside the SAS hotel in Oslo. A friend of mine met them later in the day also. He took pictures and one of them ended up in the Norwegian magazine TOPP. If you remember Paul together with a fan with an enormous hairdo, that’s him….he he. Then the Crazy Nights tour was over for me and Kiss more or less went into oblivion for me for a while. I also bought all of Frehley’s comet’s releases during this period. Not that they did do much for me. And “Second Sighting” was a real “stinker”. The two new songs on “Trashes smashes and hits” were really bad also. I bought the record and just put it on the shelves. “Chickara” was also bought during the same period and I listened more to that one. So it was probably the remixing of the songs on “Trashes” I didn’t like much. The video for “Let’s put the X in sex” was just embarrassing 1989 came and it was “army time” for me. We played a lot old Kiss and “Crazy Nights” in the camp. The fall came and Ace’s “Trouble Walking” and “Hot in the shade” came out within a couple of weeks. I really liked “Trouble Walking” and were really geared up for the new Kiss record. Eivind and I went into Oslo to get it before the shops closed on a Friday night. They played “Betrayed” on the radio on the way into Oslo. So we were banging away in the car. The “HITS” record was OK, nothing more or less. Too many songs with too little work done with them. But today it has aged much better than “Crazy Nights” anyway. It stayed in the cd player for a week or two, just to be replaced with something else.
II don’t really know why I started to get interested in Kiss again as early as in the spring of 1991. It's probably just because I'm a "completist". And started to try to get some of the demos I knew some of my friends have. And one thing led to another. Suddenly I had most of the Kissvision tapes that were out at the time. Even if they were crappy versions compared to the ones I have on DVD-R now. I just understood what I had been missing for all these years. Kiss had suddenly become "my band" again. "Sammy" is really the one that I have to thank for making this happened” “God gave rock’n’roll” came out during the summer/early fall and I thought it was the best Kiss had released in ages. The video was pretty cool with all the old video clips also. Too bad it was the last thing Eric Carr did with Kiss. But it felt like Kiss had entered a new era. Exit “bad hair band”, welcome “cool rock’n’roll band”. I joined both the “Kiss Crazy” fan club in England, “Kiss Army international” in Italy and “Kiss This” in Canada. So most of the information I got about Kiss during this time came from these sources. I had gone back to school during the same period, so my earnings was not that much. But my spending on Kiss stuff exploded. More than one girlfriend has left me because my obsession I believe…. Eric Carr died and there was quite a lot of exposure in the media. Both “Kiss Crazy” and Kerrang had great articles about the new record coming out in the spring. The Kerrang pictures were the first look we had of Kiss “Revenge style”. And I loved it. Gene looked mean and the rest of the band looked like a real rock’n’roll band again. We heard the record for the first time at a listening party in Oslo the week before it came out. I had bought the “Unholy” single a couple of days before, and it soon became one of my favorite Kiss songs. The rest of the record was also great. It was at least the best non-makeup record anyway, probably better than some of the makeup ones also. I really wanted to go England and see them live on the tour. But I could not afford it on the money I was living on at the time. Kiss came on a promo tour to Norway in late spring/early summer of 1992. We met them at the airport. And I got autographs from the whole band on a Revenge promo poster I had brought with me. I videotaped most of the visit, but just the signing session the day after came out any good. Eivind got autographs for me on the Revenge CD while I was videotaping the signing session. In 1992 I visited Nico “Kiss army international” in Rome. I spent most of the day chatting about Kiss with him. When I left I must have spent about $300 on stuff I bought from him. He also showed me the picture of Gene that was later used for Alive III (that I had got on a promo tape earlier in the spring). The 90’s went on and I finished school. Got myself my own apartment and a job as a graphic designer. Lost a couple of girlfriends along the way. Still collected everything I could get my hands on, as long as it was Kiss related. In 1995 it was time for the “Unplugged” show. And it was shown on MTV later in the fall. I must have watched it over and over almost 100 times. The reunion was in the horizon…
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