The one band nobody wanted to follow, according to Paul Stanley
Kiss is one of the live bands that other acts were absolutely terrified to follow.
And, no matter who you were, there is always a chance that an opening act can surpass your performance. For this reason, and many more, often headline acts would create scenarios in which it is difficult for openers to really make the stage their own. Even a live performance asd resolute as Kiss, who seemed to terrify most people out of ever really offering them opening slots.
It wasn’t just that their songs were great; the make-up, overall look of the group, pyrotechnics, and infectious stage presence meant that audiences were hooked the moment they went on stage. There is a reason that people fill their houses with Kiss memorabilia and have followed the band on tour; put simply, they couldn’t get enough.
They open every gig with, “You wanted the best, you got the best,” and subsequently, they had high standards when it came to live shows. As such, any musical outfit they were scared to follow must be a band worth their salt. While there are few outfits Kiss wouldn’t consider themselves capable of going toe-to-toe with, Paul Stanley reflected on the sheer power that Van Halen had in their sound and why bands were terrified of having them open.
“It was Van Halen,” he said, reflecting on the first time he heard the group dominate the airwaves. “It sounded great on the radio. I mean, ‘Runnin’ With The Devil’ sounded ridiculous… When that album came out it was a game changer, and every band that they played with suffered the consequences of having them opening because they were just a force to be reckoned with.”
Stanley reflected on when the band supported Black Sabbath and how much Ozzy and Co. struggled to keep up with their energy on stage. “You didn’t want to follow that. Ozzy says as much about the shows that Van Halen did with Sabbath. Dave was the guy, I mean, you know, just phenomenal on stage, and the whole band was like a steamroller,” he said, “There was Edward, and there was Randy and a couple of other people, and then there were just a lot of people knocking it off.”
It’s true: Black Sabbath took Van Halen on one of their first big tours, and the result was that they got to experience the group’s force in full effect. Eddie’s shredding guitar mixed with the impactful sound of the band as a whole meant that audiences were stunned into silence before Black Sabbath had even had a chance to take to the stage.
The group managed to do that most difficult of things and create a live performance that encapsulated all of rock and roll at once. They had the romance of rock balladry, the power of thrashing punk and the instrumentation of Van Halen’s maestro playing. They were a unit to be feared.
One man who would become a converted fan was Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi. “Eddie was playing things I’d never seen before,” he said, reflecting on the first time he saw the guitarist on that tour, “We became friends then. Of course, he set off a whole new load of players like that, and now I can’t believe some of them. I can’t follow it. I certainly couldn’t do it.”
Van Halen did bring something new to rock and roll. They maintained the power of the hard-hitting distorted chord but played in an up-tempo and chaotic way. It was impossible for people to listen to them and not have their minds blown, meaning when they eventually started opening for bands, crowds got an insight into something that hadn’t been done before and still hasn’t been fully replicated since.
