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Kiss

Kissology – The Ultimate Kiss Collection Vol. 1 1974-1977 DVD

Review by Greg Olma

Kiss was the band that got me into music on a serious level.  From the first time I laid eyes on the Kiss Alive! record cover, I was hooked and I couldn’t get enough of the visuals.  The hard part back in the 70s was that you would have to see them in concert if you wanted any video, and even though they did appear on television, it was generally played once and if you missed it, you were disappointed.  Kids today don’t understand that because they live in a world of Youtube where they can watch whatever they want whenever they want.  I, for one, love DVDs, and this set is the perfect collection of Kiss video footage from their beginnings to their heyday.  Disc one contains material that I have not seen previously (some I had in bootleg form), but all of this is in the best possible quality.  It starts off with the song “Acrobat” from a live show in California in 1974.  This is a rarity for sure and something I have never seen.  Then we move into some of the television appearances like the ABC In Concert and The Mike Douglas Show.  These have made the rounds in video tape trading circles, but this is the best quality I have ever gotten.  The disc continues with a Hotter Than Hell tour show from Winterland along with The Midnight Special and Alive! Promo films.  Again, these were part of the bootleg circuit but never in this condition.  The first disc ends with a documentary on the Cadillac High School football team and the town that welcomed the band with open arms.  I have seen bits and pieces of this but never all the footage presented here.  To cap things off, we get a show from Cobo Hall on the Alive! tour.  I would have been in seventh heaven if I was able to have a copy of this back in the 70s.  That was the perfect way to end that disc.

The second disc focuses more on the band’s peak with The Paul Lynde Halloween Special.  This was when America really saw the band during primetime, and Kiss delivered with a few tunes from Destroyer.  Then we get a Rock And Roll Over tour concert and one from the Love Gun tour, as well.  Sandwiched in between those two concerts, we get the Rock and Roll Over promo films that were aired on the Don Kirshner's Rock Concert back in 1977.  While I have seen some of the concerts, the ones presented on these DVDs are in great condition and are the best possible versions that are out there because Kiss themselves were the source.  I can’t speak highly enough about this package because you really get the best of all the footage from this era and in fantastic quality.

This review is available in book (paperback and hardcover) form in Music Street Journal: 2022  Volume 4. More information and purchase links can be found at: garyhillauthor.com/Music-Street-Journal-2022.

 
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