[scaught]

strangeness abounds!

1. ace frehley doing a kiss cover with tommy lee, rob zombie, slash, scott ian (on bass?), and (oddest of all) gilby clark (that other guitarist dude who replaced izzy stradlin when he was kicked out of GnR).

2. then KISS takes the stage minus ace frehley (who was obviously in the building) and no peter criss anywhere to be seen. i know theres been bad blood between all those folks for a while, but it was weird to see. they probably sounded better without peter criss anyway since he's not a very good drummer.

3. earlier in the night, dave grohl and taylor hawkins of the foo fighters BOTH playing drums along with queen drummer roger taylor (3 drummers?). brian may playing amazing as always. and new singer paul rodgers (from bad company, who i'd never heard before with queen) singing queen songs however he frigging wanted to. different vocal patterns/rythms/etc. which at first i was mad about, then i thought about it and if he had just gotten up there and mimic'd mercury, i would have called him a karaoke hack (especially with trying to replace such a legendary and insanely talented singer). there was bits of the original vocal lines in there, but much of his own "influence" on the songs. obviously i prefer the original, but understand why he's doing what he's doing.

anyone else see this? it was alright. there was some other stuff that i didnt see (the def leppard stuff, i didnt see much of the judas priest stuff). if we're talking about rock and "honoring" the influential ones, wheres black sabbath? zeppelin? the who? hell, where's van halen? i guess theres always "next year", but it seems like there was some better choices...

[keekeeree]

I caught the last half last night. Watching the first half as I type this.

I thought the "super group" that covered KISS was awesome. When they started introducing who was going to perform, with each name I got more and more excited. Then when Rob brought Ace onstage, I was seriously pumped. Ace looked good, Slash played amazing, Scott was having a grand ol' time, and Gene has nothing on Rob when it comes to evil personas.

Then when they brought the second KISS cover band out, featuring Gene and Paul, it was sort of anti-climatic for me. I've been a KISS fan since '76, and still can't believe they've been touring and performing with a pair imposters in Ace and Pete's paint and costumes. And it was twice as insulting for them to perform at the Rock Honors without Pete and Ace. The band that was honored was not the one that performed on that stage.

Judas Priest can still rock...great performance. I hadn't heard Def Leppard perform live for years and it was fun to see and hear them performing their classic stuff and their latest cover.

All in all...good stuff, nice surprises and great performances.