If you’re a KISS fan, you might be taking a second mortgage as the “hottest band in the land” seems to be on a mission to release a series of box sets from their past. This Alive! 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition celebrates the band’s original 1975 release that rocketed Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Peter Criss, and Ace Frehley to the top of the charts and made their live version of “Rock And Roll All Nite” an anthem for the ages. This fourth album from KISS is not only an iconic live recording of the era, but also one that truly elevated the four-piece make-up-wearing hard rockers to superstardom.
Surely, KISS and their record company Casablanca needed the shot in the arm Alive! gave them. Although the band was establishing a solid reputation as a bombastic live act not to be missed, their studio releases were not selling. Because their live performances were far more appealing, releasing Alive! seemed a logical, if not last-ditch attempt to save both the band and its label. And it worked.
The performances here draw specifically from shows at Detroit’s Cobo Arena, the Cleveland Music Hall, Iowa’s RKO Orpheum Theatre, and the Wildwood Convention Hall in New Jersey. With the extras offered here, it is important to note these specific shows.
KISS producer Eddie Kramer completed new mixes of these gigs, plucked from the original multi-track tapes, with no overdubs, across the 16 tracks that make up the original Alive!. Beyond the remixes of this seminal release, there are five rehearsal tracks from Davenport, as well as the sets plucked from the aforementioned shows. As you’d expect, the set has lots more ‘Kollectibles’ like a 100-page hardcover book, unreleased photos, a reprint of the press kit, a T-shirt iron-on, to name but a few goodies.
Sure, the shows here might feature the same set lists pretty much, but there are differences to discern when listening to this set as a whole. The “KISS Jam” from the rehearsals in Iowa set is not something you are going to hear every day. All this on four CDs or eight LPs, with a Blu-ray Disc to boot. With that, dare I say, the Alive! 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition box set might make you feel ever more alive.
~ Ralph Greco, Jr.
Purchase Alive! 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition
