Section 7. Properly known as the "Winter Tour 1976/77," the set list underwent transition during the first month of touring before settling into a somewhat static and standardized form.
"Rock And Roll Over" Tour
1976, November 7-13
SIR Studios B
New York City, NY Set list:Detroit Rock City /
Take Me /
Let Me Go, Rock 'N' Roll /
Strutter /
Ladies Room /
Firehouse /
Hard Luck Woman /
Do You Love Me? /
Cold Gin /
Makin' Love /
I Want You /
Hard Luck Woman Notes: Audio recordings of rehearsals. It's a guess that these recordings were from the SIR sessions, but in a twisted bit of logic it makes sense that studio rehearsals would be recorded on audio, and stage production rehearsals on video. The songs are in various stages of completion, and some are repeated. Quality: This audio version is usually found in very reasonable sound-quality, though there is some fluctuation throughout the tape. The last song, while a complete take, is more "muddy" than the rest of the recordings. However, cleaned-up with a bit of audience over-dub, presto, that's what "Hard Luck Woman" sounded like live in concert in 1976.
1976, November 14-21
Camp Curtis Guild Armory
Redding, MA Set list: Cold Gin / God Of Thunder / Rock And Roll All Nite / Deuce / Black Diamond / Love 'Em And Leave 'Em / I Want You / Hard Luck Woman Notes: Video recordings of rehearsals. "Love 'Em And Leave 'Em" is a separate lip-sync practice, and the finaly two songs, plus the aforementioned "Rock And Roll Over" song were eventually professionally filmed on the stage-set for use on Don Kirshner's "New" Rock Concert with over-dubbed audience. Quality:
As it's the earliest recording known from the tour it provides the earliest known concert recordings of "Take Me," "I Want You," "Ladies Room," and "Makin' Love." The last of these songs started out in an encore position in the set before being re-sequenced to the end of the first third of the show. "Ladies Room" also features a slightly different arrangement, including a breakdown, almost sing-a-long section, on the final chorus. The song soon returned to a form closer to the album recording and more familiar to the fans, but still needed more cowbell. With the guitar style of "I Want You" it's not surprising that "Hard Luck Woman" followed it in the set. The performance is very much a band effort with more obvious backing vocals, notably from Paul. However, Peter sounds very much into performing the song, though it really did slow the set down. Paul seems almost confrontational as he introduces "Rock And Roll All Nite" telling the audience to get up off their seats. (Excerpt from "The Other Side Of The Coin," 2007). Quality: An average audience recording from the 1970s. The lineage of the recording that circulates is Master > WAV > CD-R, though a better transfer exists that doesn't circulate.
1976, December 3
Mississippi Coliseum
Jackson, MS Set list: Notes: Quality: Partially captured on Super8 silent video.
1976, December 19
Capitol Center
Largo, MD Set list: ~unknown. Notes: Rumoured to exist. Quality: ~unknown, but it would be a pro-shot house feed.
1977, January 1
Civic Center
Providence, RI Set list: Detroit Rock City / Take Me / Let Me Go, Rock 'N' Roll / Ladies Room / Firehouse / Makin' Love / I Want You / Cold Gin / Do You Love Me? / Nothin' To Lose / God Of Thunder / Rock And Roll All Nite / Shout It Out Loud / Beth / Black Diamond Notes: This show established the "standard" set for the tour, though it's not currently known at what point during December the band finally settled on this order. Quality: The end of "Black Diamond" cuts.
1977, January 15
McNichols Arena
Denver, CO Set list: Detroit Rock City / Take Me / Let Me Go, Rock 'N' Roll / Ladies Room / Firehouse / Makin' Love / I Want You / Cold Gin / Do You Love Me? / Nothin' To Lose / God Of Thunder / Rock And Roll All Nite / Shout It Out Loud / Beth / Black Diamond Notes: Quality: Partially captured on Super8 silent video in addition to AUD. Cuts in both "God Of Thunder" and Peter's drum solo.
1977, January 20
Pershing Auditorium
Lincoln, NE Set list: Detroit Rock City / Take Me / Let Me Go, Rock 'N' Roll / Ladies Room / Firehouse / Makin' Love / I Want You / Cold Gin / Do You Love Me? / Nothin' To Lose / God Of Thunder / Rock And Roll All Nite Notes: The band didn't sing "Happy Birthday" to Paul, but Ace did announce the fact to the audience following "Rock And Roll All Nite." Since no women were around, the band dressed up in drag to mark the event and provide fans with an infamous photo. A local review of the show: "It's easy to tell when something weird is coming down, but harder to define what it is. A sell-out crowd came to Pershing Auditorium Thursday night to hear Kiss, a hard rock band short on talent and long on hype. I didn't understand what I saw there why a 14-year old girl would stomp a beer bottle to bits then kick the pieces at strangers I can t grasp why people enjoy tossing flashcubes at the performers. But a lot of people enjoy this band. As early as 3:30 p m Thursday, people were waiting outside the auditorium for the concert five hours away. The crowd that eventually filled the place was young, mostly between the ages of 10 and 20. I listened to this crowd. I heard it get more aroused over smoke bomb explosions and fire-breathing stunts than the music. And I realized I didn't know what rock means anymore.
This music is meant to impress rather than express emotion. I don't know what happens when a band makes it because it thinks of new ways to be disgusting or because it has the most cornea-searing light show. I wonder what's the limit. Kiss performed here last year, another packed house. They have two hit singles - "I Want to Rock and Roll All Night (And Party Every Day)" and "Beth."
Kiss is one of the few successful practitioners left of what was once called "heavy metal" rock. The music is guitar driven. The sound is muddy but the rhythm will throb your body if you stand still long enough. The band has its models: Gene Simmons busts his guitar to smithereens, something Pete Townsend of The Who used to do. Paul Stanley can rasp deliveries a la Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin, as if sandpaper covered his larynx.
But the music is not the point, the stage show is If it weren't for the greasepaint fire bombs fog screens sirens twirling cheery tops and blinking roller-dome lights Kiss would be out on the street, driving cabs in Peoria. Kiss has things no one else has. It has Gene Simmons' tongue When he waggles it about it almost curls under his chin. When Kiss appeared on Paul Lynde's Halloween special Simmons was forbidden to stick it out. Simmons can leer better than Snydelv Whiplash. His samurai topknot and makeup make him look properly revolting.
During one song, Simmons, while mugging disdainfully at the audience, chomped down his teeth and red liquid squirted over his face. Another time, he appeared to suck in fire from a torch, then flame it out his mouth. Stanley kept the audience in frenzy between the numbers by shooting forth this rock-and-roll savior rap, its fervor matching that of a Fire Holiness Baptized Pentecostal evangelist. "I know there are people out there who are a little high," he rasps. "YEEEEAAAAH!" says the crowd. "I know some of you have had a little alcohol. Southern Comfort? Tequila?" Judging by the volume of the roar, tequila won hands down" (Deb Gray - Lincoln Star, 1/22/77). Quality: The final song on this recording cuts and the encores are missing.
1977, January 22
Chicago Stadium
Chicago, IL Set list: Notes: Quality: Partially captured on Super8 silent video.
1977, January 29
Cobo Arena
Detroit, MI Set list:Detroit Rock City /
Take Me /
Let Me Go, Rock 'N' Roll /
Ladies Room /
Firehouse /
Makin' Love /
I Want You /
Cold Gin /
Do You Love Me? /
Nothin' To Lose /
God Of Thunder /
Rock And Roll All Nite / Shout It Out Loud / Beth / Black Diamond Notes: Most stunning of the "Rock And Roll Over" tour archive is this incomplete video from the band's final and hastily added third show (Paul references it as the last of the shows during the introduction to "Let Me Go, Rock 'N' Roll"). It is fitting, perhaps, that this Detroit show is available to collectors, though somewhat sad that the lesser MSG show was featured as a bonus for the KISSology Volume 1 DVD in terms of wider distribution. Professionally filmed to a standard that in the opinion of the author exceeds the previous year's shows, Cobo '77 is sourced from a 3/4" master tape that surfaced on E-bay in June 2006. That tape was snapped up by a European collector for a bargain $5,000, though the seller, lacking any integrity, immediately started selling DVD copies to others. Once that occurred a free-for-all took place with traders making the video available in as many places as possible for free and reporting the auctions to the E-bay police to get them shut down. Quality: Incomplete, but stunning pro-shot video. Starting with backstage footage of the band heading to the stage (presumably shown on the venue screens), "Detroit Rock City" is joined in progress. The encores are also missing. What is known is that the video for "Beth," from one of the three Cobo shows, was used during the February 10, 1977 broadcast of "The People's Choice" awards show.
1977, February 18
Madison Square Garden
New York City, NY Set list: Detroit Rock City / Take Me / Let Me Go, Rock 'N' Roll / Ladies Room / Firehouse / Makin' Love / I Want You / Cold Gin / Do You Love Me? / Nothin' To Lose / God Of Thunder / Rock And Roll All Nite / Shout It Out Loud / Beth / Black Diamond Notes: This show was always considered to be the moment the band had "made it," at least in their own minds, playing their home town major venue to family and friends. Part of a local review: "Stumbling in the darkness into a Kiss concert, as this well-meaning observer did Friday at Madison Square Garden, might lead on directly to dire meditations on the decline of Western civilization. How else, after all, are we to interpret an entertainment that highlights a bass player spitting 'blood' atop a tower, surrounded by swirls of smoke and bathed in bilios green light, all the while dressed in a black leather and silver costume that makes him look like a diabolical armadillo? And the sight of this apparation evoking a dull, throaty roar of appreciation from the sold-out house, the cries of the multitude overlaid with the treble piping of a large pre-pubescent minority" (New York Times, 2/20/77). Parts of this show were officially released as a an unchaptered bonus disc for the "Kissology Vol. 1" DVD package. Quality: Pro-Shot video. However, there are some camera focus issues that detract.
1977, March 29
Royal Festival Hall
Osaka, Japan Set list: Detroit Rock City / Take Me / Let Me Go, Rock 'N' Roll / Ladies Room / Firehouse / Makin' Love / I Want You / Cold Gin / Do You Love Me? / Nothin' To Lose / God Of Thunder / Rock And Roll All Nite / Shout It Out Loud / Beth / Black Diamond Notes: Quality: Low-generational very good AUD recording. The best version of this show is noted to have come from a 3rd gen tape.
1977, April 1
Budokan Hall
Tokyo, Japan Set list: Detroit Rock City / Take Me / Let Me Go, Rock 'N' Roll / Ladies Room / Firehouse / Makin' Love / I Want You / Cold Gin / Do You Love Me? / Nothin' To Lose / God Of Thunder / Rock And Roll All Nite / Shout It Out Loud / Beth / Black Diamond Notes: Usually sourced from the "Mama Weer All Crazee Now" bootleg which some indicate is a SBD, but is certainly not. Quality: Low-generational very good AUD recording.
1977, April 2
Budokan Hall
Tokyo, Japan Set list: Detroit Rock City / Take Me / Let Me Go, Rock 'N' Roll / Ladies Room / Firehouse / Makin' Love / I Want You / Cold Gin / Do You Love Me? / Nothin' To Lose / God Of Thunder / Rock And Roll All Nite / Shout It Out Loud / Beth / Black Diamond Notes: The band played two shows, one at 4pm, the other at 8pm, with television station NHK filming both for domestic broadcast. These shows were also recorded by Eddie Kramer for a planned, but later abandoned, Japanese only live album. The mixed audio was used for the TV broadcasts, on NHK's "Young Music Special" and later HBO (See Below). Quality: Low-generational very good AUD recording. The 4pm show is probably the poorest of the circulating shows from this tour. The video from these shows is stunning, and was broadcast in both Japan and the US. It was officially released as part of the "Kissology Vol. 1" DVD package in complete form, though fans debate whether other unofficial versions are better.
Best way to submit corrections/clarifications or note any errors is by emailing HERE rather than leaving a comment that may be missed here! Your contributions are welcomed and appreciated -- no one can ever know it all, the mission remains!
Twitter
Facebook
YouTube