The Big Egg: Fried Alive

Locals call the Tokyo Dome "The Big Egg." I'm sure that's just what the band was hoping the show wouldn't be. You see, performing in this biosphere of a venue is a H-U-G-E deal, kind of a barometer of a group's popularity and market virility. If you flop at The Big Egg, word will ripple across the country, perhaps affecting ticket and merchandise sales in other cities, and no doubt causing distress and embarrassment for band and promoter alike. Conversely, a good stint there can boost your clout and bank book -- not to mention your spirits if the opening night of your tour was memorable only because it was reminiscent of Spinal Tap Mark II at the puppet show.

I decided to head to the venue a few hours early so I could take in the carnival-like atmosphere that always prevails on the grounds before a concert. There, you're encircled by entertainment: to the right, a small amusement park, a sports bar and a long, narrow fountain that pumps thick curtains of water every couple of minutes; to the left, bowling, karaoke, roller skating, restaurants, shopping. I'm at a loss to think of a single reason why anyone would ever want to leave this place if they didn't have to.

The buzz on the street was all about whether or not the Dome's 45,000 (give or take) seats would be filled. This was a Tuesday show, three days after the successful second Yokohama gig, and fans reckoned with a full 48 hours of rest KISS and crew would be primed to make the most of the acreage inside, while hordes of fans would show up to see the big production. The evidence seemed to support this hypothesis: By 5 o'clock, the line at the merchandise booth was reaching critical mass. Scalpers were scalping (Y90,000, about $730, for seats in the first 10 rows), fans in costumes and makeup were posing for photos with other fans, people were eating and drinking, and I was sipping a beer and watching the goings-on. It was obvious from the sheer number of people milling about that the show was going to be packed, a winner, and KISS would not get Big Egg on their faces.

Hopes of being front and center with my media pass were dashed after a long, circuitous walk all over the Dome at the sides of a succession of bewildered security personnel. After I accessed the venue through an underground entrance, I asked one such employee where the media were supposed to go, and he responded with the always-troublesome "Eh? Anno ...," meaning he had absolutely no idea what my media pass meant, let alone what he should do with the 6-foot, 4-inch gaijin (foreigner) asking him the difficult questions. He got on his walkie-talkie and took me to the next security guy, who took me to the next security guy, who took me to the next security guy ... You get the idea.

After about 20 minutes of this, I finally arrived at another corral full of photographers with lenses the size of cheerleaders' bullhorns. We must have been 40 or 50 yards from the stage, a positively hopeless scenario for my poor Kodak. It would have made a lot more sense to have us in the space between the stage and the front row, which was wide enough to accommodate two highway buses, but that area was reserved for KISS, Udo and Egg staff. (I don't think I've ever seen such a distance placed between a stage and a front row.) So futile was this shooting position that I didn't even bother to stay. I chatted with some fans, then sought out my seat.

The comedy of finding the photographer's pen paled in comparison to the odyssey I undertook to get to my seat. To make a long story short, I started on one side of the Dome and ended up all the way on the other. That trek, with a faithful guide blazing a trail ahead of me, rivaled anything Louis & Clark ever dared. The Big Egg is just too big and too cavernous. I was miffed to find that my seat was perpendicular to the stage, at an angle so severe that I couldn't even make out images on the huge video screens. A man of action, I decided to take in the show from another vantage point: the far end of the Egg, directly opposite the gargantuan stage.

Circling the various seating levels in the Tokyo Dome are corridors similar to those found in sports stadiums. They're wide and smooth, dotted in precise intervals by rest rooms, concession stands, smoking areas, vending machines, merchandise tables, ushers, security people and loiterers. By a stroke of good luck, it turned out that the area from which I chose to watch the show was a kind of notch with an unobstructed view across the crowd to the stage and a concession stand that served tasty nama (draft) Sapporo Black Label beer. This space attracted a whole lot of people throughout the show. There was the dad and his dancing baby with Peter makeup. There was the wildly drunk metalbitch who took a dive every time she attempted to shake her thang. There was the out-of-control salariman with the rumpled suit, crooked tie, black shoes and white socks who ran up to me again and again, and shouted "Yeeeeeeeeoowww!!" There was the security guard who laughed as hard as I did.

If you haven't picked up on it yet, The Big Egg is big, which, truth be told, makes it a lousy place to see a concert. This is particularly true because it has the acoustics of Laurel Caverns, the caves at Altamira or any other famous hole in the ground you care to name. One way to explain how sound in the Dome diffuses and rebounds would be to liken it to the "outro" on �Destroyer.� Another way, an anecdote: There was about a half-second lag between the time I saw Eric hit his snare drum on the video screen and the time the beat reached my ears. It was like watching someone hit a golf ball on a golf course when you're standing 200 yards down the fairway. I saw the action before I heard it.

Mediocre sound aside, the show was great. For starters, it was a full house, a house full of rowdy KISS fans ready for a big production value. The gargantuan inflatables from the reunion tour, taken out of the mothballs, flanked the stage, which itself was huge, set back from the front row by the gaping space I described above. Pyro-wise, things weren't as spectacular as I'd thought they'd be, probably because of Japan's fickle fire laws, which can vary literally from block to block, especially in Tokyo, which has a history of devastating experiences with fire.