BY MICHAEL CHAIKEN | REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN
In Paul Brod’s book “They Just Seem a Little Weird: How KISS, Cheap Trick, Aerosmith, and Starz Remade Rock and Roll,” the author details the many ways the four bands were connected to each other.
Besides the ties between them, the bands had plenty of connections to Connecticut.
Cheap Trick played one of its first gigs in New England when they played at the Palace Theater in Waterbury in 1977. The Brass City gig was also one of the group’s first headlining gigs outside of its Midwestern home. Subsequently, the group returned to the Palace in 1980 for its first headlining tour after losing one of its original members.
Two original KISS members, guitarist Ace Frehley and drummer Peter Criss, lived in Fairfield County once the band had hit the rock and roll stratosphere. (Frehley also experienced his darkest moments in the Nutmeg State, explaining in his own biography that he often thought of driving his car into a tree on the commute back from New York City.) The group also recorded its album “Music from the Elder” at Frehley’s home in Connecticut. Frehley also was known to party all over the state, including Candlewood Lake.
Also, the first time KISS was set to play in Connecticut, on Sept. 11, 1976 to promote its breakthrough album “Destroyer” at Colt Park in Hartford, the show had to be cancelled. They wouldn’t play the Nutmeg State until Dec. 18, 1976, when they stopped at the New Haven Coliseum to promote its “Rock and Roll Over” album.
Ace Frehley, lead guitarist for KISS is seen here at a 1977 concert at the Hartford Civic Center. Frehley lived in Connecticut for many years after the band became stars.
Aerosmith first played its classic song “Dream On” live for the first time at the Shaboo Inn in Willimantic, Conn. The band’s first Connecticut gig was a two-night stand at the University of Connecticut on Nov. 18 and 19, 1971, which was two years before the release of their self-titled debut.
And KISS and Aerosmith ended a long running rock and roll feud as to which was the best hard rock band in America by hooking up for a concert tour in 2003. That tour opened in Hartford.
The connection to Connecticut for Starz is a little bit more tenuous. The group never touched down in the Land of Steady Habits, even when they opened for top name acts like Rush and Styx. But Starz’s spin-off, The Hellcats, focused their touring itineraries on the Connecticut, New York and New Jersey area.
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