The O2 Dublin is full; a sizeable percentage of the crowd sporting make up and face paint; the stalls outside charging €5 to render an approximation of the band member of your choice. There is a huge black curtain across the front of the stage emblazoned with that logo.

A crack of fireworks and the curtain falls to the floor to reveal the drummer behind his kit, high above the back of the stage. As the pyrotechnics explode a cantilevered platform rises from behind bringing the rest of the band up and over the drum kit, depositing them at the front of the stage.

Wearing the traditional make up and black leather, they stride around the stage on stackheeled boots that have been outlawed in the civilised world since 1975. But Kiss are no respecters of the laws of man or good taste.

I am no long term fan, but tonight Matthew I am part of the Irish Kiss Army - which sounds unnervingly like a group of touchy feely terrorists. With only four musicians onstage it is hard to tell how much of the display is live, but it hardly seems to matter. Every chorus is chanted to the rafters, every flick of Gene Simmons’ tongue - shown in hi-res diamond vision - elicits cheers and hysterical applause. ‘Black Diamond’ is a sing-a-long highlight. The spitting fire, and rocket launching guitars are pure theatre.

Gene is slightly larger than in his younger days - think Fleegle from the Banana Splits - and I imagine several beefy roadies hauling him up to sing from the very top of the lighting rig. For a man who doesn’t play rugby, he has a ready way with a blood capsule ... and he has a bass shaped like an executioner’s axe ... see what he did there?

Paul Stanley, pinched mouth and pointed chin, resembles nothing so much as a tubercular Patricia Hodge, although from the back, shaking his thang, he does a very convincing Donna Summer, particularly during ‘I Was Made For Loving You’, sung from a spinning platform in the middle of the audience. He talks - or more correctly shrieks - like a slightly fey New York cabbie and the carefully scripted in-between song banter whips up the crowd.

‘Kiss are not one of those bands that tell you how to live your life, or how to make poverty history. We can save the world tomorrow’ he says, ‘tonight is a night off.’ And for that moment there isn’t a U2 fan in the house.

God may have given rock’n’roll to us for free, but everything else - the Kiss T-shirts, scarves, hats, dolls, badges, mugs, posters and programmes - you have to pay for handsomely. Cash only please.

This is nakedly commercial rock’n’roll, Hollywood style. It should be everything I hate but I had a spectacular time.

I’ll be joining Greenpeace tomorrow obviously but, just for tonight, you can call me ... 'Dr. Love'.