Description
Double album on blue vinyl with gatefold cover. Limited 300 copies
By the time Animaliz” had been released on September 13, 1984, KISS had settled into their 1980s routine of record-tour-record-tour — while dealing with the issues of Gene Simmons’ growing number of external projects. They also appeared to have settled into a routine of new year, new lead guitarist for what appeared to have become the most temporary job in town. By the time the Animalize tour began the band had replaced Vinnie Vincent with Mark St.John. The album quickly reached #19 on the U.S. album charts and #11 on the U.K. album charts benefitting and building on the accomplishments of Lick It Up a year earlier. On December 12th the album went Platinum. It was the first Kiss album to attain that status since Dynasty some five years earlier. With a Top-Twenty album, more shows could be booked for the US tour. However shortly into the tour Mark was diagnozed with arthritis and had to be replaced by Bruce Kulick. On September 30 the Animalize tour began in Brighton, England and the American leg began on November 15 in Allentown, PA, and by that time the set list had been trimmed and they played 14 songs for most of the U.S. Shows. Late in 1984 the band added Thrills In The Night to the set as they wanted to release as a single early in 1985. However the track was already gone when the band did their final show on the tour at Meadowlands in East Rutherford, New Jersey on the 29th of March 1985, where this album is recorded. This night was a success as Wasp were opening for the band and the two had managed to sell out the arena with an attendance of 15928 people. Hundreds of fans had gathered at sunset in parking lot 22 to embrace New Jersey’s first rite of spring: Putting on a buzz outside the Brendan Byrne Arena. Putting on a buzz means drinking Budweiser or smoking pot or throwing back Jack Daniels, and then lettingthe spirit rise as the sky explodes red over the roaring turnpike and the heavy-metal band Kiss prepares to perform. In the hour or two before the concert begins, it’s time to put on a buzz, al fresco. It will make the chest-pounding weight of the music hit better later, inside. And it’s an opportunity for Kiss fans to socialize. Kiss fills the cavernous space with a thunderously loud rendition of Young And Wasted. It has found its arena, its audience, its parking-lot pilgrims even though the 18-year-old New Milford student, who majors in criminology at Seton Hall, quite lucidly asserts, Beer, pot does not affect my brain. The Kiss drummer stands, holds a drumstick that protrudes from his groin, and gyrates his hips. Kiss singer Paul Stanley leads his flock of 15,000 in a sexually pejorative chant against anybody who has ever said that Kiss can’t play real music. Stanley later instructs a fist-saluting audience on the same sexual deed a telephone operator heard about after seeking 15 cents. A bespectacled, slightly graying woman who works the hot-dog counter near entrance 108 asks a visitor during intermission: Is it true that the first band had a player who was showing his fanny? Oh, that’s not nice, she submits. There are a lot of kids here. The kids leave the concert having been animalized for two hours. They take to the open road and, in the words of one, party some more.
Track list:
1. Detroit Rock City
2. Cold Gin
3. Creatures Of The Night
4. Fits Like A Glove
5. Heaven’s On Fire
6. Guitar Solo – Paul Stanley
7. Under The Gun
8. War Machine
9. Drum Solo – Eric Carr
10. Young And Wasted
11. Bass Solo – Gene Simmons
12. I Love It Loud
13. I Still Love You
14. Love Gun
15. Stairway To Heaven
16. Black Diamond
17. Medley/Oh Susannah
18. Lick It Up
19. Rock And Roll All Nite