Kiss - Symphony: The DVD
KISS bassist/chief provocateur/world-class swagmeister Gene Simmons once infamously claimed that his cartoon shock-rockers were more influential than Dylan, though the driving sentiment behind this double-disc DVD chronicle of the band's liaison with the Melbourne Symphony seems to paraphrase "Love Minus Zero": "There's no success like excess / and excess is the best success of all." The history of the fusion of rock bands and orchestras is a long and notoriously spotted one, though matters of decorum have seldom concerned--or deterred--KISS. Disc 1 outlines the genesis of the project, with an earnest and typically irony-free Simmons meeting with perpetually bemused conductor David Campbell to discuss mutual musical quandaries, like synchronizing explosions and whether the orchestra can get their KISS makeup on with due haste. Rehearsal and preparation footage display an unusually affable orchestra and band, a mood that carries over into its pyrotechnic-punctuated greatest hits set with the band (Tommy Thayer ably filling the platforms of the departed Ace Frehley). It all works surprisingly well, if at some pitched, Vegas-showroom-in-hell level of bombast. It's a technically impressive show and package, if one that feels distinctly padded as a double-disc (the performance of the "Symphony"'s Act III is repeated on both discs). Less is more? Not here.--Jerry McCulley