Bruce Kulick Recalls an ‘Incredibly Horrific’ 1988 Kiss Concert

Bruce Kulick does not look back on the last show of Kiss‘ 1988 world tour fondly.

In a new Guitar Player interview Kulick has a clear answer when asked about the worst show he ever played with his former band, choosing the final show of their Crazy Nights tour, which took place Oct. 3, 1988 in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Already on edge as a result of seeing armed police “in full force” in the conflict-laden city, Kulick was soon introduced to the punk rock tradition of “gobbing.” “The excited fans at King’s Hall were spitting all over us!,” he recalled. “They were quite gifted at spitting, even reaching my fingerboard, while I was doing my best to play guitar. As you can imagine, this was incredibly horrific.”

Only drummer Eric Carr was safe from the attack, hidden behind his drum kit at the back of the stage. Kulick, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons weren’t so lucky. “I had their spit in my hair and all over my clothes,” Kulick remembered. “Later we were told that’s how audiences in Ireland express their love for a band – by drenching them in phlegm. Sorry, no, thank you!”

The Punk Rock Origins of ‘Gobbing’

In his 2012 book Great Expectorations: The Cultural History of Saliva from Jesus Christ to Iggy Pop, traces the gobbing craze to the early days of punk rock. “The first people I remember spitting were when we played with the Sex Pistols in Amsterdam,” recalled Vibrators drummer John “Eddie” Edwards. “John Black from the Evening Standard wrote an article saying that punks liked to be spat on while onstage, and that was it. The following week, every time you went to a gig, there were kids down the front gobbing on the band. There wasn’t a band that liked that.”

Joe Strummer is quoted in the book supporting the practice: “It was a salute, a connector, it connected you to that guy standing there, if you could lob a good gob on his forehead then you had a Saturday night.”

But the Clash star also suspects the practice led to him coming down with hepatitis in the late ’70s. “I reckon I caught it at a gig in Newcastle,” he told Rock On! magazine. “The kids in the audience were gobbing at us like mad. ….This bloke must’ve been a really good aim [because] he got me right in the mouth. And by accident, I swallowed it.”