"Actor: Melbourne Symphony Orchestra"

• Kiss - Symphony | DVD | (28/04/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  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 Kiss Symphony, a 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 One of this two-DVD set 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, such as synchronising explosions and whether the orchestra can get their Kiss make-up 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 (Paul 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