Reviews

KISS - KISSOLOGY Vol. 1 - VH1 Classic records

I was born in the early 70’s so when kiss exploded into one of the biggest bands of the 70’s I was there to see it unfold and became a huge fan. When the 80’s dawned and Peter Criss left the band it was hard to except considering that their records were getting fairly inconsistent and there was nothing to really look forward to that is until Creatures Of The Night came out. The 79-82 era of KISS was an intetsting time for KISS as they experimented with different sounds and members trying to recapture their mid 70’s glories and coming up way short. That is where this DVD shines in showing the group in their short comings with the TV shows and other appearances that they were dealing with. I was still a fan an d it is a treat to see some of these TV shows like The Unmasked performance for RockPop in Germany. This is a three disc set with a bonus concert only disc. The bonus disc for this set is their Budokan show from the Crazy Nights tour. The first disc opens up with their appearance on the 70s TV show Land Of Hype And Glory which is only an excerpt. The full show is funny and rather interesting so to have it cut in half is of a disservice. The long out of print movie Kiss Meets The Phantom Of The Park was supposed to be their Hard Days Night but turned out to be their own Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, but not nearly as much of a disaster. The movie has about 30 minutes of good parts with the rest being a joke and a bore. The version here is the European version “Kiss In Attack Of The Phantoms”, which I do not understand why the American version is not on this one. It is different with I do believe some added scenes back in and they used solo album music throughout this one. Disc one closes out with one of the best KISS interviews ever, the Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder from Halloween 1979. The interview is excellent and also a pure riot as well and again, it is only an excerpt, not the full interview. My complaint is show the whole thing or nothing at all. The entire interview should be present but that is only my opinion. Tom was not a fan of the band I am sure but he got them and did a wonderful set with them. The second DVD starts off with The campy video for the lackluster first single from Unmasked, Shandi. This was to be the last time that anybody would see Peter in full make up until the 1996 reunion. Peter seemed to be into his playing even though he was already out of the group. Speaking of, there is the CNN interview with Peter post KISS that was informative then but after the fact seems like just a save face now. One of the treats of the DVD is the behind the scenes takes for announcing their Australian tour. It made the band look human and down to earth as well as showing a real sense of humor and camaraderie between the three remaining original members. The RockPop performance for two more tracks from Unmasked seemed forced but interesting to look at considering the audience looked like wanted to be anywhere else but there. The Australian performance is the gem here as it seemed the band were firing on all cylinders and were reenergized by the presense of Eric Carr. The disc closes out with a performance on the old TV show Fridays with them performing material from the ill fated The Elder. The songs were decent but since the album failed terribly the band did not seem into the performance. Disc three contains The final performance of the band in make up and the first performance without make up both in South America. In between the performances there is the MTV unveiling of KISS without makeup for the first time. It was a good show but it would have been more momentous of an occasion if it was Peter and Ace at the table and not Eric and Vinnie. The biggest feature of this disc is the Hot In The Shade show from Detroit. Great show from a long tour that was one of their best tours in years. The one thing that I noticed is that the Asylum/Animalize era is not mentioned on here at all. No shows, videos, nada. Those were good albums and to not have something representing them is travesty to an extent. The bonus disc with this particular set is a Japanese show from the Crazy Nights tour originally aired on Japanese TV. Good set and the band was on fire. This is a great DVD set but there are several things that could have been put in that I have on bootleg but I am not Gene nor Paul so I am not calling the shots. For the die hard KISS fan they have all of this stuff and then very much some but to have it on DVD and remastered is a treat there are more of these to come so here it is to KISS, still the hottest band in the land.

DVD review by Jeffrey Easton