Archive for the 'Bulgaria' Category

Kiss alive

Saturday, May 17th, 2008

I've never been a Kiss fan, but went to see them while in Bulgaria. The show was excellent, lots of fireworks, fire breathing and all kinds of effects. More theatre than music, but fun nevertheless. It's a whole different experience than for example Pearl Jam, which is my kind of show, because it's all about the music and being simple, honest and non-celebrity. I was looking to recognize a piece that Mike McCready from Pearl Jam says he stole from Kiss, in turn stolen from The Doors. The piece in question is the beginning of the Alive (Pearl Jam) solo, which is like the beginning of Five To One (Doors) and the middle of the She (Kiss) solo, at least I think She was the song.

Tried to do a few photos with a camera phone.

cinderroad.jpg
The opening band, Cinder Road, apparently something like a post-glam band, inspired by bands (from one of the worst periods in pop music ;) ) like Poison, Motley Crue and obviously Cinderella.

cinderroad2.jpg
In fact I think Cinder Road sounded better than Kiss, maybe because they couldn't rely on effects but had to actually play.

kiss-gene.jpg
Gene Simmons

kiss-gene-paul2.jpg
Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley

kiss-gene-paul.jpg
Yep, I was close to the stage, although I moved away eventually. The sound from the back was better.

kiss-guitar.jpg
Starchild, I think was the nick name of this dude.

kiss-snow.jpg
At some point there were lots of flying little pieces of paper, lots and lots of them, much like snow.

kiss-moon.jpg
The moon

sister.jpg
My sister in the foreground, yet another explosion of sound and light on the stage in the background.

 

Back to Bulgaria

Thursday, May 8th, 2008

I spent the 10 hours flight LA-Munich mainly standing up, walking or sitting on the armrest while the two kids occupied three chairs sleeping, which was totally fine, who wants to sit for 10 hours with cranky underslept kids. Then spent two hours with the noisiest kids on the Munich airport and two more on the Munich-Sofia plane. The little one said "Daddy, we going into the plane's belly" and yeah, that's exactly how I felt at the end of the journey: as something that has been into someone's belly and then followed its natural way back to the light of day.

The important thing is that we're here now and the joy of getting together grandparents and grandchildren: priceless. Other than that Bulgaria is cool, unseasonably.