Legendary US band KISS play their only Australian concert in 2019 – on a boat in Port Lincoln
KISS played to an audience of just eight lucky people on the back of a boat in Port Lincoln today – were they loud enough to summon sharks, as hoped? We have video.
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“Ladies and gentlemen, you wanted the best, you got the best. The hottest band in the world, KISS, live ... with great white sharks!”
So started what has to be one of the stranger gigs in US rockers KISS’s 46-year history – on the deck of a boat anchored off Williams Island, south of Port Lincoln.
The gig, organised by Airbnb Experience, featured two notable absences – singer and guitarist Paul Stanley, who’s gone down with a nasty throat infection, and the great white sharks that organisers were hoping might be attracted by the vibrations and turn up for the show.
Still, Gene Simmons, Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer put on a heck of a show for the eight diehard fans lucky enough to land the exclusive $72 tickets – and a bunch of Port Lincoln boaties who weren’t going to let a legendary concert in their own back yard go unwatched.
A handful of vessels anchored up alongside the two official vessels, cracked a tin or two and watched the band rip through a tight set of classics including Calling Dr Love, Black Diamond and, of course, Rock ’n’ Roll All Night.
“The seals love it!” Simmons quipped from the floating stage. “And the sharks love it loud. You know this one, don’t you? Come on shark!”
The band launched into I Love It Loud, and the sharks ignored his pleas, but by this stage it hardly mattered any more – this was rock and roll on the high seas and the crowd was loving it. With the current Australian tour cancelled due to Stanley’s illness, this was likely to be the only show in Australia this year, and feasibly the last Aussie show ever.
For Adventure Bay Charters owner-operator Matt Waller, the idea of attracting sharks with rock music isn’t a new one – he’s been doing it for years, usually with AC/DC albums.
Doing it live, however, is a whole new kettle of sharks.
“A couple of crazy ladies from Airbnb contacted me and said, ‘can it be done?’,” Mr Waller said. “I said, ‘yeah, I’ve been doing something like this for years!’”
Mr Waller said he’d tried in the past to get AC/DC to play live on his boat, but logistics always defeated him. Hosting KISS, then, was a dream come true. “I’m just a small tour operator, so it’s been amazing to be able to partner on something like this,” he said.
“KISS are perfect for this event.
“They were the world’s biggest travelling circus, they’ve done the coolest concerts in the most amazing venues, and their personalities mesh with what we’re doing.
“When I said we were keen to do it I gave them the dimensions of the boat and they said, ‘we’re gonna need a bigger boat’.”
So a bigger boat was found, acting as a floating stage in front of the stunning backdrop.
“The other boat is the stage and we’re the mosh pit,” Mr Waller said.
For the eight lucky KISS fans on board Adventure Bay Charters – six from Adelaide and two from Texas in the US – it was like, in the words of devotee Mark Pannenburg, “finding Willy Wonka’s Golden Ticket”.
The 43-year Adelaide schoolteacher took his son Max, 10, along as his plus one.
“I couldn’t believe it had happened. It was one of the most incredible realisations.”
KISS fanatics Lina and Steve Gilbert travelled all the way from Sydney just for the chance to bump into the band at their hotel.
Ms Gilbert says they spied them having dinner on Sunday night but “I didn’t want to bother them, because I’m not like that”.
The couple got their big chance to meet and take photos with the musicians on Monday, and says they were “absolutely lovely”.
She said she and her husband decided to make the most of their trip to Port Lincoln, booking a shark boat trip for Steve “because it’s always been his dream”.
“So I arranged it all and I thought while we’re here, we’ll see if I can see the boys,” Ms Gilbert said.
“When the (national) tour was cancelled I actually had meet and greets organised for my husband, so this, I think, compensated”.
She said while Steve had visited SA before, it was her first trip.
“I love Port Lincoln, absolutely love it, we’re going to come back. I want to do a swim with seals”.
“We’ve had a great two days.”
