Post #271382 by donhonyc on Fri, Dec 8, 2006 10:40 PM

Gene Simmons may be one of the biggest egomaniacs in the world, but he's one of the few shameless egomaniacs that I'm actually a fan of. My Kiss fan days go back to 1976. I saw them for the first time on the Paul Lynde Halloween Special which aired on ABC. From then on I was hooked. I had 'Alive!' on 8-track and played it until my little portable 8-track player ate the tape. Then I moved on to 'Alive II' which I had on LP. Once Ace & Peter left the band I got disinterested. I never did get to see them live with make-up, but I did see them sometime in the early 80s on I think the 'Lick It Up' tour. At that point Eric Carr and Vinnie Vincent were in the band. Believe it or not they couldn't sell out the place and the arena was like half full. They almost cancelled the show because of low attendance.

ANYWAY...this new Kissology DVD is pretty amazing, showcasing the vintage early years 74-77 in recorded concerts and TV appearances. We all get so blown over with the image of Kiss, it's easy to forget how fuckin hard they rocked in the early days. Pure, full-on sleazy rock and roll. They would have been an amazing band musically, at least in the early days, WITHOUT the make-up. So if you're an old school Kiss fan this is a must have, and this is coming from a person that was skeptical about getting this. I just didn't want to see hours of the same Kiss concert video over and over in different variations. Not to say this isn't like that, but there's concert footage and more. Once you turn this thing on it's hard to turn off. Kiss is defintely one of the all time best American rock bands of the last 30 years.