On november 14th we arrived, after a 12 hour flight, at 2 PM in Las Vegas for the KISS Kruise Land Locked In Vegas event. Took a cab and headed to the Virgin Hotels.
At check in we got some cool KISS room key cards!
After we’ve settled in our hotel room it was time for the KISS Kruise Land Locked In Vegas Pre-Party, which was a tribute to the late Ace Frehley who sadly passed away a couple of weeks before. It was held in 24 Oxford and we had a good spot there. Around 7:30 PM it was time for the world's largest toast to Ace Frehley, this was a very emotional toast with a special video about Ace that was shown. Followed by a salute to the music of Ace show with the members of his band for 7 years Ryan Spencer Cook, Jeremy Asbrock & Scot Coogan.
Special guest was Steve Brown, producer of Ace’s latest album 10.000 Volts, who sang with them.
This was the setlist:
Rip It Out, Snow Blind, Getaway, Hard Times, Love Theme From KISS, Rock Soldiers (with Steve Brown) 2000 Man, Detroit Rock City, Strange Ways, Rocket Ride (with Todd Kearns) & Shock Me.
This again, was a very emotional show for us fans as them as well.
At 9 PM it was time for the KISS Alive album 50th anniversary concert, followed by the Handsome Devils who played a deep cut KISS set! They sounded great and it was a pleasure to see them for the first time live! This was the setlist:
Exciter, Saint And Sinner, The Oath, Rock And Roll Hell, Lick It Up, Fits Like A Glove, Keep Me Comin’, Dark Light, Million To One, I Love It Loud, All Hell’s Breakin’ Loose, Killer, Danger, Warmachine, I’ve Enough (Into The Fire) & Young And Wasted. We had a blast, tired but satisfied we went to our room for some well-deserved rest after more than 24 hours awake.
The next day (november 15th was the real start of the event) we woke up early, because it would be a busy day for us. First we picked up our laminates and welcome gifts.
A signed event poster by Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Eric Singer & Tommy Thayer!
Also a awesome 12” vinyl album!
And it's on red vinyl!
After breakfast we explored the hotel property. There were KISS decorations all over the hotel, like the all elevator doors were covered with KISS iconic images.
Also large wall posters were all over the hotel erea and even Sam the serpent was there.
For more decorations, see video:
Then we headed over to Wentworth Art Gallery for the Paul Stanley Art, there were some new paintings to admire.
We saw a few that really pleased us (we still have our original Paul Stanley Self-Portrait hanging on our wall in our living room!)
See video for more Paul art:
After taking in all the art we made a stop to get some coffee with KISS pastries.
And these tasted so good!
Next up was to check out the KISS merchandise store and bought some cool KISS shirts:
All over in the merchandise store there were cabinets placed with some cool KISS items.
The complete individual make-upstations of each member was displayed aswell the Gene blow up figure!
Check out the video for more displayed KISS items:
We continued the day outside to the lawn for the welcome to Vegas toast by Bill Starkey & Jay Evans, the founders of the KISS army.
After the toast it was time for the KISS Unmasked Acoustic show, like they did on the previous Kruises. When Gene, Paul, Eric & Tommy took the stage a huge cheering from the fans. But before the show started they held a memorial for Ace and 1 minute silence to remember him! It was an emotional moment for us all and it’s hard to start the show after this moment. But then they went ahead and started with Comin’ Home. We couldn't believe that after the last time we saw them live in Cologne 2023 we would ever see the band perform again and he we are!
It was so unbelievable to see them again and we had an awesome time, even though there was no surprising set list. We enjoyed to hear: A World Without Heroes, Goin’ Blind or Sure Know Something after a long time live again.
It was great to see them all performing together again and they were full of energy and was fun for us to see them play again.
For more photo's see video:
I was lucky enough to catch an Eric Singer guitar pick.
This was the setlist:
Comin’ Home, See You Tonite, A World Without Heroes, Hard Luck Woman, Christeen Sixteen, Nothin’ To Lose, Goin’ Blind, Hide Your Heart, Plaster Caster, Beth & Love Her All I Can.
After the show it was time to get something to eat and then we headed to the Theater venue for the Q&A with producer Eddie Kramer & Jeff Fury, hosted by Keith Leroux.
They had a lot of interesting things to tell about the KISS Dressed To Kill & Alive Box sets and the debut album as well. It was a great opportunity to finally hear those (behind the scenes) stories from these legends!
An hour later it was time to see the shows of Quite Riot and Pearcy & Demartini (Ratt) we had a great time.
On saturday november 15th we got up early because we headed over to the Skybox for the artists meet & greet were we’ve meet Pearcy & Demartini and tribute band Mr. Speed. This was so cool. Also every day at this event people come up to us and we get compliments on our KISS blog and that’s always great to hear! That is the reason I still get inspired to do it all!
Right after some breakfast we went to the Theater for the Future Of KISS with Doc. McGee, as always he had some cool things to share with us fans.
At 12 PM it was time for Cooking With Paul Stanley, he prepared pasta from his own recipe and answered questions from fans. We would have loved to taste some of his pasta, lol.
Next up was the Pick Throwing Contest with Gene Simmons with a Q&A.
After this it was time to taste some of the special KISS pastries again and they tasted really good.
It was a busy day with a lot of activities, with the artists' meet & greet with Bruce Kulick & Sebastian Bach that was up next for us. When it was almost time for us to see Bruce, his wife Lisa recognized and started waving to us. Once at their table they told us it was great to see us, it was such a long time they had seen us. They asked us when it was, and we said it was at the KISS Kruise IX in 2019. Much too long said Bruce, both signed our event poster and gave us guitar picks.
As always it’s a pleasure to meet them.
Next up was meeting Sebastian, who also was great to us, signing a CD & photo for us and we took some photo's with him.
At 5:30 PM we were at the Shag room for the St. James/Thayer New Music Debut.
Jamie St. James & Tommy Thayer launched their new CD Bombshell with 6 songs, some of them were from their Black 'N Blue period and they told about the songs and played 3 of them. It was a great session with also a Q&A and at the end of the event you could buy the CD that came signed as a bonus.
Of course we bought a copy!
When we walked back to our room we ran into Nick Simmons and he was happy to take a photo with him!
Right after we headed over to the Theater to see Sebastian Bach’s show, he did a special tribute to Ace and performed all Skid Row classics, we loved it.
The 2 big black panther statues were placed next to the doors of The Theater. At 9 PM we sat in our seats and waited for the KISS Unmasked Electric show to begin. The curtains were closed and we got more and more excited.
A few minutes later they opened and Gene, Paul, Tommy walked up on the stage with Eric sitting behind his drums and the show started with Deuce and the fans went nuts. They sang and danced along with it.
We loved the stage and presentation too, with a lot of amps, the blown up KISS dolls from the End Of The Road tour and a big KISS logo! The setlist was pretty cool with some surprises, we loved to hear Watchin' You & Let Me Go Rock & Roll.
The new unmasked KISS is very cool, they were incredible and had a lot of energy. Both Gene & Paul sounded great and the whole band had fun and enjoyed their performance, after almost 2 years not playing together.
Also it was great to see Bruce Kulick, as special guest, perform Lick It Up & Rock And Roll All Night together with them and they ended the show with a big confetti storm, while Paul smashed his guitar!
More photo's in the video:
It all ended all much too soon for us and we wished they played for hours.
We loved the show and had a blast and were happy to be there!
We think unmasked KISS is a new beginning for them and that we can expect more in the future! This was the setlist:
Deuce, Take Me, Hotter Than Hell, Dr. Love, Got To Choose, Watchin’ You, I Love It Loud, Love Her All I Can, Let Me Go Rock & Roll, Black Diamond, Detroit Rock City, Do You Love Me, Lick It Up (with Bruce Kulick) & Rock And Roll All Night (with Bruce Kulick)
This day was not over for us and had some few surprises for us.
Just before we wanted to get something to eat we saw Tommy in the casino and he took time for us to take some photo’s with him! Such a great guy. Later that evening we ran into Sophie Simmons and she was so nice to me and our photo together turned out great!
Slowly this day came to an end for us, tomorrow was another busy day for us.
On sunday november 16th we got up early because we had busy schedule started with the Bruce Kulick & Bob Ezrin Q&A.
They talked about Destroyer, Music From The Elder and Bruce's contribution to Revenge. Quite some interesting facts were shared to us fans and the producer role in them.
Next up was Ask Doc Mc.Gee, their longtime manager, where he talked about a possible KISS Kruise next year (maybe one in Europe) and different music releases in the future. He spoke about the avatars and at some point in the session he broke down with tears in his eyes about all that was going on today in the music business.
After lunch we headed over to the Lawn to see Mr. Speed’s show, one of the best tribute bands in the USA. Followed by a very cool session of photographer Lynn Goldsmith in the Theater. She had some cool stories to tell about photographing KISS for over 40 years. We loved it!
Next up was something we were waiting for since the KISS show yesterday evening, the Q&A with KISS. We expected some exciting news. When they arrived on stage and asked the fans what we thought about the show yesterday and a huge cheering and applause was coming from the fans. The highlights of the Q&A was that Paul was writing some new music and the only way he did this was to release it, so there was a hint to a new KISS album in the future! Also a KISS Kruise was a possibility for next year, maybe in Europe, Australia or South America! They definitely said the show last night was incredible and they never thought this would be received so positively by us fans. So, unmasked KISS was thinking about to perform some more shows in the future, no tour, but some dates like a kind of residency. So that was all great news for us to hear and we can’t wait to hear what they’ve in store for us next year!
Next up in the Theater was the Bruce Kulick Band. They started the show with Creatures Of The Night and he and his band delivered a fantastic performance with a lot of great songs like Thrills In The Night, King Of Hearts & Forever. Bruce surprised us with Sword And Stone, a demo from the Crazy Nights album!
His band with Todd Kearns were awesome and as surprise Eric Singer played drums during Domino!
There were tributes to his brother Bob Kulick, Ace Frehley & Eric Carr. We had an awesome time and enjoyed the show! This was the setlist:
Creatures Of The Night, Uh! All Night, Who Wants To Be Lonely, Unholy, Thrills In The Night, Domino, Parasite, Sword And Stone, Larger Than Life, Tears Are Falling, King Of Hearts, Carr Jamm/Paralized/Tough Love/Spit, Forever, Crazy Crazy Nights/Turn On The Night & God Give Rock And Roll To You II.
After a small break it was time for Black ‘N Blue and we knew that Tommy would play some songs together with them, because he played in the band years ago. They started with School Of Hard Knocks, a great opener. The band sounded great and they played some classics such as Life Line, Nasty Nasty & Without Love. Then they announced Tommy and performed Chains Around Heaven, followed by Autoblast, Hold On To 18 & I’m The King. It was great to see Tommy play with his former band from the 80’s. It was the first time for us to see them live. This was the setlist:
School Of Hard Knocks, Stop The Lighting, Does She Or Doesn’t She, Lifeline, Show Me The Night, Nasty Nasty, Action, Without Love, Chains Around Heaven, Autoblast, Hold On To 18 & I’m The King.
With this show our evening came to an end, tired but satisfied.
Monday november 17th, after breakfast it was time to pack in our suitcases and our KISS Kruise Land Locked In Vegas event came to an end for us. What can we say about it? As said before we never thought that, after we saw them in Cologne on july 2th 2023, we would ever see KISS performed live again! Did we get what we expected? Yes it was a awesome experience! Especially the KISS Unmasked Electric show was awesome! The whole stage and presentation worked for us and we can see potential in it with some shows like this in the future! We think it's a big relief for them performing without make-up and their stage outfits. The band had fun and enjoyed to perform again. We have missed all that was going on at the Kruises, since our last KISS Kruise in 2019. So we had a blast and were happy to be there. We hope we’ll see our favorite band in 2026, maybe there'll be a event like this in Europe…
*(c) 2025. All personal photo’s/slideshows/filmed footage may only be used by others if is reference/linked to this site or me and ask me first!
