#strutter

Donington, Monsters of Rock 1988

Kiss' or rather Paul's performance of Strutter at the Monsters of Rock Festival in Donington in 1988 is regularly spit out in popular polls on fan forums, especially when it comes to determining one's vocal best performance as precisely as possible based on a certain representation of a certain era of the band.

And that's pretty hard stuff, as I would like to point out, because I personally always find such a result a little thought-provoking, as my Paul's Balls-in-the-Zipper column owes its name to precisely this appearance.

I can't remember exactly when I first consciously saw and heard this one version of Strutter in today's context, maybe five or six years ago on Youtube, who can say for sure in this age of the internet. I can only remember being pretty sure that I clicked on a video with the title "Kiss Strutter Live Donington 1988" or something similarly unambiguous (1).

I can also remember just as clearly how the further the video progressed, the more unsure I became as to whether it was actually Kiss I was watching, and not in fact a mis-tagged band like Poison or some other shrill-squealing contemporary hair metal band. You have to understand, the picture quality really wasn't the best (2), but my ears still worked without the slightest problem.

Needless to say these doubts only grew in me after I made sure that I hadn't accidentally switched the video to increased speed replay beforehand.

And only then did I take a closer look at the figures jumping around on the stage. Blurry figures with curly long black hair: Check! A drum kit with a good half meter of swirling curls and a round traffic sign with a Japanese symbol on the bass drum: Check! Gene in all black leather gear trying to hump his staccato McBrown bass in routine leg-spreading rock-it poses: Check! Bruce Kulick confidently and casually immersed in his guitar playing and strolling across the stage with playful ease: Check!

But there was this other figure, dressed in white sporty clothes, armed with one of those not really shapely headless Steinberg guitars of that late 80s period that Paul had been photographed with on one occasion or another (3). And I admit, it could well have been Paul, but, it sounded nothing like him.

Maybe it was just the sound engineers having a nasty little joke that everyone but me had missed, but could that really be the case? And so it actually went on for the entire video, until it gradually but inevitably dawned on me: Yep, that's actually Paul, and not Vince Neil after some hardcore vocal training, or a similar figure in a black wig.

Well, and now you know the whole story.

And should this not be the truth in all truthfulness, and I shout this to the heavens with a raised fist, may I jam my balls in my zipper every day for the rest of my life when I get dressed, or undressed!

As my name is Roland Rockover!

Side Note:

(1) The complete concert of their Monsters of Rock performance in Schweinfurth '88, however, was shown on German cable television a few days before Christmas. My mother spontaneously and secretly recorded it on video and surprised me with it, unsuspectingly, the day before Christmas Eve. God bless her immortal soul.

(2) I think I even managed to find this YouTube video again. It's a good five years old, so that should work.

(3) I think Paul had mentioned at some point that he had played these things for hip health reasons, as they were considerably lighter than the classic models he was used to.

Strutter (Live at Donington, 1988)