Remember Your First KISS?

The dazzling spectacle of show time returned to the Forum on Friday, but it was by way of an improbable starting lineup--Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss.

The original members of KISS have regrouped for the first time since Criss and Frehley departed in 1979, and the band has donned its distinctive makeup, costumes and towering platform boots for the first time in 13 years, all for the sake of a grandly staged world tour that began in June and will extend into next year.

It boggles the mind that on a summer night in 1996, Los Angeles concert-goers had a choice between the anarchic glee of the reunited Sex Pistols on one side of town and the re-stoked lust of KISS’ “Love Gun” on the other. Those who chose to relive the KISS experience--in the first show of the band’s three-night stand--got full, furious, blood-gurgling, flame-blowing entertainment value.

The merits of KISS as a bona fide rock band have been a point of contentious debate. Where some have heard a rousing call to a loud, good time, others have seen crassly packaged outrageousness. But at this point, the package and the good times are one and the same, and in an era of reluctant rock stars and music of angst-driven earnestness, the shameless, over-the-top antics of a full-scale KISS show came across as a thoroughly invigorating blast of rock ‘n’ roll fun.

The KISS oeuvre doesn’t sound any smarter or deeper than it did when the band began back in 1973. Virtually all their songs are crudely fashioned power-chord anthems celebrating baser instincts. But the band has always been more about the show than the songs, and despite the fact that there are now some jowls apparent beneath the face paint, the original crew members remain master showmen. From the explosive opening of “Deuce” to the leering examination of “Calling Dr. Love” to the stage-in-flames set piece of “Firehouse,” KISS stomped and schticked through early favorites with undimmed authority, triumphant glitter gods of their own cartoon universe.

The band worked a few hilarious concessions to ‘90s temperance into its celebration of hedonistic excess. Stanley shrieked out a quick “Hey, kids, don’t drink and drive” public service announcement in his faux-gospel vocal intro to “Cold Gin,” a paean to inebriation. Later, he announced: “I’m going to dedicate this song to all the girls, but since these are socially conscious times, I’m going to dedicate it to the women too,” before the band crashed into its ode to a stylish young prostitute, “Strutter.”

As far as the band’s stage characters go, Stanley’s preening and posturing star-lover hasn’t aged quite as well as Simmons’ demon, Frehley’s spaceman or Criss’ cat--his theatrics sometimes seemed more “La Cage aux Folles” than rock ‘n’ roll. But he effectively used every trick in the frontman playbook to keep the energy level high.

Simmons had his moment of glory during a bass solo turn. As lights flashed and smoke machines belched, he plucked single notes, letting his effects units do the rest, and earned thunderous applause when he coughed up a gallon or so of stage blood, wiggled his prodigious tongue, and ascended to the rafters by way of hydraulic cables.

Frehley’s old-school guitar heroics--full of tasty note-bending single lines and crashing chords--were a musical treat among the theatrics. He also worked some high-mindedness into a showcase guitar solo, working up a riff-crunching approximation of Beethoven’s 5th that ended with a squeal of feedback and some emphatic pelvic thrusts.

Criss bashed out his workmanlike, rock-steady drumbeats and even managed to turn that dreaded staple of ‘70s rock shows, the extended drum solo, into a powerful and entertaining bit of showmanship.

The audience roar grew loudest when the four players embraced one another at the concert’s end and took a united bow. They returned for an encore set that included a “Detroit Rock City” dedicated to L.A., a Criss solo performance of the band-before-love ballad “Beth,” and a pumped-up rendering of “the national anthem of the KISS nation--”Rock and Roll All Nite.”