Photos and Review by Tom Bogus
Concert photos HERE
Ace Frehley brings his tour home to New York City for two nights at B.B. Kings Blues Club. I was lucky enough to be in attendance for the first night. The supporting act for Ace on the tour is a band called Killcode. These guys had no problem warming the audience up. Killcode had a special guest guitar player join them onstage for the last song, and it was a good one! That guest guitarist was none other than New York City native Jay Jay French from Twisted Sister. They played the Twister Sister classic “You Can’t Stop Rock n Roll“.
At around 9:15 pm, the house speakers began to play “Fractured Mirror” from Ace’s solo album from 1978. The band takes to the stage. Ace’s current line-up is Richie Scarlet on guitar, Chris Wyse on bass, and Scot Coogan on drums. Lead vocal and guitar for most of the songs, of course, is Ace. They open the set with “Parasite” from the KISS album “Hotter than Hell”, following it up with “Toys”, “Rocket Ride” and “Rip it Out”. Taking the lead vocals for the next song “Love Gun” was drummer Scot Coogan, sounding a lot like Paul Stanley. I was amazed. Scot was not the only member to sing lead vocals. Bassist Chris Wyse sang “Strange Ways” (Kiss) after his bass solo and Guitarist Richie Scarlet sang “2 Young 2 Die”.
Ace kicks into a solo right after “Shock Me”. During his solo, the front pick up on his guitar shoots out a bright light and spews smoke giving the effect it’s on fire. Ace used to do this back in the seventies with KISS, but he used sterno cans and often burnt his fingers. Ace switched guitars out and continued his solo with his signature Les Paul guitar and went into their last song “Cold Gin”. After the 5 minutes of crowd chanting, Ace and the guys returned to do two more songs. Scot Coogan took the wheel on lead vocals during “Detroit Rock City” and did as incredible as he did with “Love Gun”. Ace ended the night with “Deuce”.
The entire performance was great. Ace still has his chops and an incredible band to back him. His set list spanned his entire career from his days with KISS to his current band. I’m glad they played some of my favorite KISS songs.
SETLIST
- Parasite
- Toys
- Rocket ride
- Rip it out
- Love gun
- Snow blind
- Sister
- Emerald
- Rock soldiers
- Bass solo
- Strange ways
- New York groove
- 2 young 2 die
- Shock me
- Ace Solo
- Cold gin
ENCORE
- Detroit rock city
- Deuce