Ace Frehley returned to his hometown to play a sold out show. The Space Invader Tour included two back to back intimate performances.
It has been common knowledge that our beloved Space Man never puts on the same show twice. In the true spirit of rock ‘n roll, Ace Frehley was roughly thirty minutes late. Taking the stage with his dapper black blazer and a trademark cherry heritage sunburst Les Paul, the band broke into “Rip It Out” followed by “Gimme a Feelin'” and “Toys”. He mentioned how nice it was to be back in his home town as he went into the classic heavy riff-driven song, “Parasite.” Ace who had been sober for seven years opened up about his cocaine use and was inspired to write a song about it, called “Snow Blind.”
Ace Frehley put together an amazing live band. His drummer, Scot Coogan, did an excellent job singing “Love Gun.” After the performance, Ace took a pot shot saying, “I remember Paul Stanley used to hit those notes.” The crowd chuckled. The second night, Ace took a jab at Gene Simmons, stating that “Gene has no clue what’s he’s talking about that rock and roll is dead, it’s not dead tonight.” It was surreal and clearly shows no love is lost with his former band.
On the first night in New York City, Ace mentioned 23 years ago that day, a band mate whom he loved died. He was referring to former Kiss drummer, Eric Carr. With that, he launched into the next song they wrote together, “Breakout.” For this special occasion journeyman drummer, Anton Fig, played on the throne giving us the closest thing to a Frehley’s Comet reunion. Longtime Ace Frehley affiliate, Richie Scarlet, played guitar and handled vocals on this.
This was a good way to pay homage to one of the greatest drummers of Kisstory.
Moving to the present, they broke into “Space Invader” off the new album.  Bass player Chris Wyse performed the bass solo effortlessly, which led into a modernized version of “Strange Ways.” The next few songs were pure rock and roll heaven. Fan favorite “Rock Soldiers” had the audience in full participation towards the outro of the song. The clean Ace Frehley reminded us of his sobriety as the crowd screamed the lyric, “going to play without an Ace in his deck.”
By this point, Ace strapped on his custom strobe light guitar to play the song, “New York Groove.” The guitar effect is always a pleasure to see. This was followed by an amazing performance of “Shock Me” which segued into a guitar solo.
Being in a smaller venue, many were not expecting the smoke bomb guitar solo, but he did it and we ate it up. The band attempted to tease us by claiming the night was over after playing “2 Young 2 Die” and “Rocket Ride.”
As The audience chanted “Ace! Ace! Ace!” the band shocked the crowd by doing “Detroit Rock City,” “Cold Gin,” and “Deuce.” Ace is definitely playing with a clear-headed mind, and it showed. Many critics have said his new material is even better than that of his former Hall of Fame mates. What is exciting in all this is that he is working on creating new material and will only grow and go further as his future unfolds.
Ace is back and he told us so!
Ace Frehly
Website | Facebook | Twitter
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.