Creatures of the Night Tour/10th Anniversary Tour

Creatures Of The Night/10th Anniversary Tour
Tour by Kiss
Associated album Creatures of the Night
Start date December 29, 1982
End date June 25, 1983
Legs 2
Number of shows 56 played
Kiss concert chronology

The Creatures of the Night Tour/10th Anniversary Tour[1] was a concert tour by the hard rock group Kiss in support of their album of the same title. It was the second tour with drummer Eric Carr, his first in his home country, and the first tour with guitarist Vinnie Vincent, (née Vincent Cusano) who replaced Ace Frehley.

Wearing a make-up design of an Egyptian "ankh," Cusano was promoted as "Vinnie 'The Wiz' Vincent" who was "even weirder than we are" in the tour's press release. The groups' lucrative record contract with PolyGram required Kiss to be composed of founders Gene Simmons (bass), Paul Stanley (singer/guitarist), and Frehley.[2] The release did not say Frehley had quit, but instead stated Frehley was too injured from a recent car crash to tour, but might make appearances onstage when able. The band used group photos containing Ace Frehley for the tour's press kits and ad material during early dates; these were used by promoters for advertising, so many fans did not realize Frehley was replaced until they came to the venues. Before Vincent was announced, new photos were taken and later dates featured the band with Vincent in show ads.[3]

Attendance in North America was abysmal; even though the band had returned to its signature hard rock after several years of pop and disco-influenced music, very few people showed up at the concerts on the tour. Even worse was the fact that the band couldn't drum up interest despite it being their 10th anniversary and their first tour of the US in over 3 years, an unprecedented amount of time for them during that era. Co-frontman Paul Stanley recalled a show in Lexington, Kentucky where he threw a pick that went over the entire audience of 2,500 and hit the floor. They later cancelled the rest of the US leg, and were offered some dates in Brazil, where they played to the biggest crowd of their career at Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with over 250,000 people in the audience.[4] According the band management, promoters were actually interested in booking Kiss in smaller venues. The band, however, refused to play anything except arenas and large theaters.

During their North American tour, Kiss was met with accusations from religious groups of promoting Satanism through their music and image, and several protests were held by such groups outside concert venues; however, Kiss politely denied the accusations and the tour continued.[5]

This tour is the only tour to feature live performances of "Rock and Roll Hell" and "Keep Me Comin" from the Creatures of the Night LP, although both would be dropped from the set almost immediately. "I Want You" returned to the setlist for the first time since the Alive II Tour in 1978. The band sang the chant that opened and closed their new main single "I Love It Loud", but by the tour's end, this was changed and only Simmons sang it.

When the tour ended, Kiss decided on a change in their image. They elected to abandon their trademark make-up and wild costumes before releasing their next album Lick It Up. They would later return to the makeup in 1996, reforming their classic lineup with Frehley and Peter Criss.

The Plasmatics was the opening act in the middle of the tour while heavy metal band Mötley Crüe opened for KISS early in the tour—but was dropped due to bad behavior. Night Ranger was the opening act for several concerts on the tour, too, replacing the Plasmatics.

Stage Set

Simmons described the tour's visual effects: "There's some fire-breathing and blood-spitting into the air and we give birth on stage and there's some fire balls that go thirty feet up into the air. And it rains fire and also some rockets take off on stage, and the stage looks like a tank sixty feet wide. You actually feel it in your chest when the tank moves. And then the drum riser, which is on top of the tank, goes forward, moves left and right, and actually fires like a real tank."[6]

Marketing

The tour was billed as their "Tenth Anniversary Tour", and silver was used in tour promotion and for the guitar pick and drumstick signatures in keeping with a "silver anniversary" theme. The band sold T-shirts, jerseys, black baseball caps, and pins at their concession stands. The tour program was not available for sale until mid-February, shortly before the tour ended, making it one of the rarest Kiss programs and very sought after by fans of a certain age.

Tour setlist

  1. "Creatures of the Night"
  2. "Detroit Rock City"
  3. "Calling Dr. Love"
  4. "Cold Gin"
  5. "Firehouse"
  6. "I Love It Loud"
  7. "Guitar Solo" (Paul Stanley)
  8. "I Want You"
  9. "Guitar Solo" (Vinnie Vincent)
  10. "War Machine"
  11. "Drum Solo"
  12. "Love Gun"
  13. "Bass Solo"
  14. "God of Thunder"
  15. "I Still Love You"
  16. "Shout It Out Loud"
  17. "Black Diamond"
  18. "Strutter" or "Deuce"
  19. "Rock and Roll All Nite"

"Rock and Roll Hell" was dropped after the first three shows.[7] "Keep Me Comin" was also played live on this tour, but it was dropped after the first two shows. "I Love It Loud" was played twice in São Paulo-Brazil (instead of "Strutter"). "Deuce" was also played early on in the tour instead of "Strutter".

Tour dates

Date City Country Venue
North America
December 29, 1982 Bismarck, North Dakota United States Bismarck Civic Center1
December 30, 1982 Sioux City, Iowa Sioux City Municipal Auditorium
December 31, 1982 Rockford, Illinois Rockford MetroCentre
January 1, 1983 Terre Haute, Indiana Hulman Center
January 3, 1983 Charleston, West Virginia Charleston Civic Center
January 6, 1983 Lexington, Kentucky Rupp Arena
January 7, 1983 Saginaw, Michigan Wendler Arena
January 8, 1983 Toledo, Ohio Toledo Sports Arena
January 9, 1983 Dayton, Ohio University of Dayton Arena
January 12, 1983 Quebec City, Quebec Canada Colisée Pepsi
January 13, 1983 Montreal, Quebec Montreal Forum
January 14, 1983 Toronto, Ontario Maple Leaf Gardens
January 15, 1983 Ottawa, Ontario Ottawa Civic Centre
January 16, 1983 Glens Falls, New York United States Glens Falls Civic Center
January 18, 1983 Syracuse, New York Onondaga War Memorial
January 20, 1983 Rochester, New York Rochester Community War Memorial
January 21, 1983 Portland, Maine Cumberland County Civic Center
January 22, 1983 Worcester, Massachusetts The Centrum2
January 25, 1983 Norfolk, Virginia Norfolk Scope
January 27, 1983 Huntsville, Alabama Von Braun Civic Center
January 28, 1983 Birmingham, Alabama Boutwell Auditorium
January 29, 1983 Chattanooga, Tennessee UTC Arena
January 30, 1983 Nashville, Tennessee Nashville Municipal Auditorium
February 1, 1983 Knoxville, Tennessee Knoxville Civic Coliseum
February 3, 1983 West Palm Beach, Florida West Palm Beach Auditorium
February 4, 1983 Lakeland, Florida Lakeland Civic Center
February 11, 1983 Pine Bluff, Arkansas Pine Bluff Convention Center
February 14, 1983 New Orleans, Louisiana Louisiana Superdome
February 16, 1983 Dubuque, Iowa Five Flags Center
February 18, 1983 Bloomington, Minnesota Met Center
February 19, 1983 Sioux Falls, South Dakota Sioux Falls Arena
February 20, 1983 La Crosse, Wisconsin La Crosse Center
February 22, 1983 Richfield, Ohio Richfield Coliseum
February 23, 1983 Detroit, Michigan Cobo Hall
February 26, 1983 Indianapolis, Indiana Market Square Arena
February 27, 1983 Springfield, Illinois Prairie Capital Convention Center
February 28, 1983 St. Louis, Missouri Kiel Auditorium
March 1, 1983 Kansas City, Missouri Municipal Auditorium
March 9, 1983 Dallas, Texas Dallas Convention Center
March 10, 1983 Houston, Texas Sam Houston Coliseum
March 11, 1983 San Antonio, Texas San Antonio Convention Center
March 13, 1983 Beaumont, Texas Beaumont Civic Center
March 14, 1983 Corpus Christi, Texas Corpus Christi Civic Coliseum
March 18, 1983 Biloxi, Mississippi Mississippi Coast Coliseum
March 19, 1983 Shreveport, Louisiana Hirsch Memorial Coliseum
March 20, 1983 Norman, Oklahoma Lloyd Noble Center
March 21, 1983 Amarillo, Texas Amarillo Civic Center
March 23, 1983 El Paso, Texas El Paso County Coliseum
March 26, 1983 Irvine, California Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre
March 27, 1983 Universal City, California Universal Amphitheater
March 28, 1983 Phoenix, Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum
April 1, 1983 Las Vegas, Nevada Aladdin Theater
April 3, 1983 San Francisco, California Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
South America
June 18, 1983 Rio de Janeiro Brazil Maracanã Stadium3
June 23, 1983 Belo Horizonte Mineirão Stadium
June 25, 1983 São Paulo Morumbi Stadium4

Postponed/Cancelled Dates

Date City Country Venue Reasoning
December 27, 1982 Rapid City, South Dakota United States Rushmore Plaza Civic Center Severe snow storm
January 23, 1983 Providence, Rhode Island Providence Civic Center Poor ticket sales, tickets for this show were exchanged for the Worcester, MA show.
February 6, 1983 Charleston, South Carolina Charleston County Hall Poor ticket sales
February 8, 1983 Asheville, North Carolina Asheville Civic Center Poor ticket sales
February 17, 1983 Duluth, Minnesota Duluth Arena Poor ticket sales
June 20, 1983 Belo Horizonte Brazil Mineirão Stadium Electrical outage during show, rescheduled for June 21, as a result only 30,000 of the expected 80,000 showed up.
June 24, 1983 São Paulo Morumbi Stadium Poor ticket sales

Notes

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, April 01, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.