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July
25, 1980 -
Dec. 3, 1980 |
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make-up Unmasked costumes huge logo Gene spitting fire Gene spitting blood Ace's
flying smoking guitar Paul smashing guitar smoke bombs drum riser confetti storm fireworks
Ace shooting rockets from his guitar Firehouse helmet Ace lightning guitar Gene
flies dragon |
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The Unmasked show was in almost
all aspects the same as the Dynasty show, but a few changes had been made, though!
First and foremost the
stage was smaller... the stage no longer protruded into the audience, but was just a
generic rectangular shaped stage.
Gone were the two ramps at the sides of the stage, and only the two ramps around
the drum riser were left, and these came down right beside the drum riser (the Dynasty
version had a stack of amplifiers between the drum riser and the ramps!!). There were
still lights chasing down the ramps however!
This was important, since the show was scheduled to tour in Europe, and barely any
halls on the European continent had room for the entire Dynasty staging.
Due to a new law in Germany, outlawing any use of nazi symbols, KISS decided to
have a different logo on stage, just in case
someone mistook the double-S'es, for SS symbol used by nazi storm troopers during World
War II (and that happened a lot in those days!!).
The new logo is seen in
picture 2... this logo was also to appear on every German album release from this point
on.
It wasn't until the December 1996 tour in Germany, that KISS again dared to use
their original logo on German soil, again.
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Set list:
1. Detroit Rock
City
2. Cold Gin
3. Strutter
4. Calling Dr. Love
5. Is That You?
6. Firehouse
7. Talk To Me
8. You're All That I Want
9. 2.000 Man
10. I Was Made For Lovin' You
11. New York Groove
12. Love Gun
13. God of Thunder
14. Rock And Roll All Nite
Encores:
15. Shout It Out Loud
16. King of the Night Time World
17. Black Diamond
Other songs
occationally played:
In Australia they played Shandi
instead of You're All That I Want
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Aside from that, the show was almost the
same: the band was lifted onto the stage by four lifts, each member lighted in his
signature color (including an orange spot for new member Eric Carr), Gene would spit fire
during "Firehouse", and Ace used his 3 special effects guitars: the smoking
guitar (picture 3)... with the
flying stunt, and the rocket launcher guitar for the guitar solo in "2.000 Man",
and the chaser light guitar for "New York Groove".
The only real change in the show, was Gene's flying stunt in his bass solo. Instead
of going up, into the lightning rig, he now flew across the stage, from the platform
marked a in picture 1, to the opposite platform (marked b). Gene was attached to a wire, attached to a
glider on the rail seen in picture 4 (marked a). At least on one occation Gene was moved
with too much speed and ended up banging into the wall. Ouch!!
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The drumkit moved forward, and turned in every direction during Eric's drumsolo in
"God of Thunder", and there were still a display of fireworks
while Eric played (picture 5).
The drum riser also rose up under the ceiling during during "Black Diamond" (dep ending
on the hall they were playing in!). Since there were no longer a catman behind the drums,
the curtain underneath the drumkit no longer showed any cats, but flames instead, as you
can see in picture 6!
The rest of the show also went along
the usual lines: the stage would be covered with confetti during "Rock And Roll All
Nite", and Paul would smash his guitar.
After the European tour, the band took
a break before packing up and going to Australia for a tour in November. The show was the
same, but the stage was much larger since all the shows took place in large outdoor
venues. So the band had much more space to move around on! The sound on the Unmasked Tour
was very "soft", more like a pop band rather than a Heavy Metal band. Back then
Kiss played rather pop music when Unmasked came out. |
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1980England.GIF)
Tourbook |
line-up:
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Gene
Simmons (bass, vocals)
Paul Stanley (rhythm guitar, vocals)
Ace Frehley (lead guitar, vocals)
Eric Carr (drums, vocals) |
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To view the exact
tourdates of the Unmasked tour, go to the Tourdates page.

Many thanks to Jan Laursen for
letting us use these pages.
Here is the link to his website:

 
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