Tiger Stadium? Kiss it goodbye

Tough weekend for a couple legends.

First, the Detroit City Council finally agreed to demolish Tiger Stadium, which has been sitting neglected since the last game in 1999.

Then, Kiss co-founder Paul Stanley had what his is calling a "cardiac event" prior to a concert in California, forcing the band to play as a trio for only the second time.

Naturally, I have a story about both. I’ve spent many a night at Tiger Stadium, but the strangest had to be when Kiss kicked off its reunion tour there on June 28, 1996.

You know I’m loyal to a fault, and that extends to bands in addition to baseball teams. So I’ve been a Kiss fan since junior high school. Co-workers think this is odd.

The Journal’s music writer knew of my devotion and brought me along as a "consultant" since they throw you out of the critics club if you know too much about Kiss. That, and I might have begged for a week.

I had a feeling that things could get a little out of control. This was confirmed as we were walking across the dirt parking lot and a female concert-goer decided that would be a good place to stop walking, drop her pants and relieve herself. I think she might have been drinking.

Inside was your typical stadium concert set-up, with the stage running from centerfield into right, with the huge inflatable figures of Paul, Gene, Peter and Ace. The outfield was filled with what I thought were rather flimsy folding chairs, with the first 40 or so rows separated from the rest of the chairs on the field.

We watched opening acts Sponge and Alice in Chains from the press box while Doug filed the first part of his story, then made our way to our seats: Dead center, row 27.

It seemed that security on the field was lax, and perhaps people who did not have field seats were getting onto the field. Thousands of them.

The infield started filling as it closer to show time. I looked back once and saw security guards standing arm-in-arm trying to make a human chain to keep people back, and they were already straining.

Doug, on crutches because of a softball injury, took a look at this and said he was heading back to the safety of the press box, but said I was welcome to stay. I started to go with him, then thought "I’m a big boy. What’s the worst thing that can happen? I’m not going to let a couple, well, a couple thousand, drunks ruin my chance to see the first show of the Kiss reunion tour from the 27th row."

Doug had no sooner escaped when the security line broke and waves of people rushed into the close seats toward the stage.

I looked behind me and saw a guy in a denim jacket and thigh-high Gene Simmons Destroyer-era dragon head boots, red eyes and all. I have no idea where someone can acquire such things.

I told the guy I was impressed. He made it clear that he was going to be closer to the stage, and that I was going to get out of his way. Quickly. Which I did, because you don’t mess with people wearing thigh-high Gene Simmons Destroyer-era dragon head boots, red eyes and all.

Finally, the lights went down, the curtain dropped and Kiss burst on stage playing "Deuce," then "King of the Night Time World."

I last saw the boys in full face-painted glory at my first concert, the 1979 Dynasty tour at Madison Square Garden. So this was like a rock and roll dream come true.

There was a lot of pushing and shoving, but nothing I couldn’t handle. Everyone was standing on the flimsy folding chairs, which had plastic seats and backrests. I could see heads bopping up and down, then they’d shoot down under the line of heads — after their seats broke.

These chairs were light, and somebody got the idea to throw their broken chair up in the air. Then, a lot of people seemed to think this was a good idea. You’d see chairs spinning up in their air like Frisbees, landing on hapless concert attendees several rows away.

This made me a little more concerned. But again, I was a big boy and had the advantage of not being drunk or stoned. Most of these people were too spaced to throw the chairs all that hard.

Occasionally, a person pushing through to get closer tried to camp in our row. One guy, there’s a chance he was drunk, pushed his way into the row in front of me, shoved someone off their chair, stood on it and began flailing his arms wildly, a strange response to "Firehouse" to be sure.

As you can imagine, this was ticking people off. He nearly hit me a couple times. And, he was blocking my view of Ace.

Then, I did something terrible, totally out of character. I gave the guy a one-handed shove right between the shoulder blades, knocking him off his chair. He stood up in a daze — well, he had probably been in a daze since noon — and wandered off into another row.

I was terrible, stunned at my own behavior. Shoving people! I was filled with guilt and remorse. But then Ace roared into "Shock Me" and I felt better.

The historic concert finally ended in a storm of fireworks as the final power chords of "Rock and Roll All Nite" hung in the air. I made it intact.

Dodging chairs, dodging drunks...that’s rock and roll. And it’s one of the reasons I prefer going to see Christian rock bands these days. But it’s also one of the reasons I’ll be sad to see the wrecking ball taken to Tiger Stadium.