LOS ANGELES — It always gets a little crazy in L.A. this time of year, but this Halloween night had something special in store for the KISS fans piling into Dodger Stadium. The Psycho Circus Tour was opening, and tricks and treats were available in equal abundance.

The biggest treat, of course, was KISS. The original lineup of Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss served up a thunderous helping of hits and fan favorites to the adoring throng. The best trick was the concert's much-publicized 3-D effects — when viewed through the cardboard spectacles handed out at the door, the three large screens to the rear and sides of the stage seemed to burst forth with the band members' guitars, hands, tongues and codpieces.

Though the concert also featured the Smashing Pumpkins, circus sideshow performers and enough explosives to arouse the suspicion of U.N. arms inspectors, the true star of the evening was Stanley. Belting out songs like I Was Made for Lovin' You and Detroit Rock City with passion and urgency, he gyrated from one end of the immense stage to the other for nearly two hours, swinging by a wire over the audience during Love Gun.

Unfortunately, the excitement generated by Stanley's Tarzan act was quickly dispelled by Simmons' lumbering Within, one of the three songs included from Psycho Circus.

But during Deuce, Firehouse, Cold Gin and Black Diamond, all from the band's 1974 debut, the instrumental chemistry was actually as impressive as the pyrotechnical displays they were punctuated with.

While sentiments like "We couldn't have done it without you" might have seemed slightly cynical in light of the overpriced KISS merchandise on sale (including $40 "commemorative" coins and $50 bottles of KISS wine), the costumed crowd — many in full KISS regalia — seemed to feel it received more than its money's worth from the show. As the final notes of the closing Rock And Roll All Nite rang out, the stage exploded in an impressive fireworks display that was promptly echoed by an even larger one in the skies above Dodger Stadium.

In honor of Halloween, openers Smashing Pumpkins took the stage dressed as the Ed Sullivan Show-era Beatles: moptop wigs, black suits and vintage guitars. Though older hits Today and Bullet With Butterfly Wings went over well, the dense, keyboard-heavy selections from the band's recent Adore CD failed to inspire more than tepid applause. And Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan's dour musings were simply not designed to connect with a crowd that had come to rock and roll all night.

Trick or treat! The 50,000-plus people who spent Halloween night watching KISS kick off the Psycho Circus Tour with an appropriately intimate performance at a little-used venue — Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles — got a little of both, starting with the paper glasses you picked up at the gates in order to experience all the KISS 3-D effects that comprise the main selling point of this post-reunion tour.

Aside from a few taped segments involving disassembling skeletons, disembodied heads, and exploding planets, mostly this meant that the four original band members got to poke their various instruments into what seemed like about an arm's length from your face at semi-regular intervals for two hours and 10 minutes.

In the meantime, you got the lights, lasers, fireworks, smoke, explosions, sirens, confetti, three giant video screens, three different rising platform bits (everything happens three times), the drum solo, the guitar solo, and all the fire-eating, blood-spitting, unison guitar-wielding routines from when we first saw 'em back in 1975.

Same goes for about a third of the set list, the best of which — because it's just about the most inspired, nothing but a let's-get-stupid riff in the songbook — was Deuce. (The only possible competition is Strutter, which, unfortunately, they didn't perform this evening.) Oh yeah, they also did Black Diamond, with drummer Peter Criss doing a capable job of filling in on lead vocals for Paul Stanley, whose voice blew out around the two-hour mark. Made you almost forgive Criss for his seated solo peformance of Beth, backed by pre-recorded strings and piano, that began the inevitable multiple encores segment.

As for the Psycho Circus elements of the show, other than KISS opening with that particular tune (the title track to their latest album) and lead guitarist Ace Frehley fronting Into The Void (also found on the new LP), the carnival acts that preceded the musical segments were just your basic sideshow/dare-devil shtick: maggot-eaters, tightrope walkers, and people who drive multiple motorcycles around a ball-shaped steel cage. Basically, this was really just a giant outdoor costume party with KISS' greatest hits providing the soundtrack. About half the crowd turned out in costume — and about half of those were wearing KISS masks or make-up (bassist Gene Simmons' demonic disguise being far and away the most popular).

The Smashing Pumpkins, meanwhile, came out and pretended to be the Beatles circa 1964, blasting out a John Lennon-inspired cover of Barrett Strong's immortal Money that pretty much summed up the real spirit of the evening. Augmented by a drummer and keyboardist, who — like leader Billy Corgan — quickly flipped their bowl-cut wigs in favor of their shaved pates, the Gourds O' Grunge played a politely received 60-minute set that oscillated between rockers and ballads new and old. Occasional guitar maelstroms aside, all that 'my soul is a penguin in bondage' crapola doesn't make it in a stadium-rock situation where people just wanna rock and roll all night and party everyday. Cue the fireworks.

It was a scary sight, even for Halloween: Rotund, thirtysomething men in makeup and high heels singing Do You Love Me? at the top of their lungs. And that, after all, was only the audience, since all the members of KISS are pushing fifty years old — or, in drummer Peter Criss' case, the pushing's already been done. And if blue-collar Detroit Rock City was the best place to kick off the KISS reunion tour a couple years back, Lipstick City seemed the best place to begin promoting the Kabuki-esque quartet's 3-D effects-laden Psycho Circus road show — albeit with varying degrees of success.

Perhaps the show's greatest asset was its lack of material from KISS' average, but nowhere-near-Destroyer quality new album, Psycho Circus. Just three tracks from the record made it into the set, with the title track serving as opener and quickly quashing memories of the Smashing Pumpkins' lukewarm set. To be fair, the Pumpkins served more as an appetizer to the full-course meal the KISS kontingent would soon devour.

While other greats have played at Dodger Stadium — from the Rolling Stones to catcher Mike Piazza — few have tried harder and been as innovative as KISS. And for slightly more than two hours, with bassist/singer Gene Simmons, as is his wont, providing a melodramatic, intimidating on-stage presence, the band dove through a spirited if somewhat mechanical 'greatest hits' set, pretty much like they did on their last tour. Still, classics like Calling Dr. Love, Deuce and Shock Me proved a common rallying point among strangers who hi-fived one another and shouted out loud as if possessed.

The highly touted 3-D effects were passable, but nonessential: The pre-recorded schtick seen on the big screens — Simmons' freakish tongue, Peter Criss' drumsticks and guitarist/singer Paul Stanley caressing the neck of his guitar — were not as immediate or effective as the live 3-D camera that captured the onstage action (especially the fretwork of Ace Frehley) in real time. Explosions, Simmons' trademark fire-breathing during Firehouse and his elevation to the top of the stage (by *nearly* invisible wires) during God of Thunder, were a little too familiar, but nonetheless enthralling. Unexpected, though, was Stanley's transformation into Tarzan. During his signature Love Gun the Starchild hooked one massive boot into a sling, grabbed on to a 'rope', and was transported over the heads of the crowd to a platform mid-stadium, where he performed the rest of the song to the delight of those in the cheap seats. As he soared back to the stage, even Stanley, under the greasepaint, seemed genuinely thrilled.

An encore that included the trite ballad Beth, the Peter Criss showcase Black Diamond and of course Rock And Roll All Nite, was topped off with a histrionic fireworks display. In some ways, it's easy to see why a Kurt Cobain would turn into the antithesis of this over-the-top musical commercialism (the show was promoted heavily via an unprecedented tie-in with the Fox Network, who broadcast part of the concert and featured the band in two of its TV shows). But it's just as easy to see why KISS, who provide bang for the buck and two hours of unrelenting camaraderie and simple delight for so many, are also a necessary rock & roll evil.