On 12. December 1976, Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley is nearly electrocuted when he grabs a metal railing on the poorly wired set, at a show in Lakeland, Florida.
At the end of 1976, Kiss were touring their fifth studio album “Rock And Roll Over” with Uriah Heep as their opening band. On 12. December, they arrived in Lakeland, Florida. They were scheduled to play the Lakeland Civic Center and it was another sell-out.
The band’s opening song for that tour was “Detroit Rock City”. The band had a spectacular entrance, where the band would appear on a metal landing above each side of the drums and walk down a stair construction onto the stage amid smoke and fire.
Guitarists Paul Stanley and Ace Frehley usually appeared on the stage left side, with bass player Gene Simmons taking the ramp on stage right. Stanley would usually rush down the flight of stairs confidently and quickly, leaving Ace to take his time.
Frehley is known for having poor balance at the best of times. Ahead of traversing the steps that evening, he grabbed onto the railing so he would keep steady.
The railing was made of metal, and as he found out, this time it was also unearthed. With his guitar being electric, he created a connection. Sparks flew as this potentially lethal situation led Frehley to get electrocuted. Frehley’s hand was locked to the railing for several seconds, but as luck would have it, it shook loose after a short while. At that point, Frehley fell off the platform to the ground a few meters below – a bad enough fall in itself as well.
The platform was next to Peter Criss’ drum set, and his drum tech Chuck Elias was well positioned and saw what was happening. “It happened very fast,” he later said, “right at the beginning of the show and basically right above my head. Ace was standing on top of the stairs. I saw him grabbing the rail and not being able to move, and then eventually hitting the ground. We were up there instantly, but he was stunned more than anything else, which was lucky because it could have been life-threatening.”
The incident inspired Ace to write the song “Shock Me,” which wound up being the first track he ever sang on a Kiss album. “I got electrocuted in Florida and I survived,” Frehley recalled to Rolling Stone. “The guys said, ‘Why don’t you write a song about getting electrocuted?’ And I came up with ‘Shock Me.'”
