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Recorded in late '78 on the "Love Gun" tour, the bands explosive live set featured songs from "Destroyer", "Rock n' Roll Over" and "Love Gun". Starting with the crowd pleasing opening duo of "Detoit Rock City" and "King of the Nighttime World", you can almost taste the excitement of the crowd as the fireworks explode and the band strut through their best tunes."Love Gun" is a particular highlight, being a peak of frontman Paul Stanleys seemingly endless excitement with its famous drum beat and classic Ace Frehley solo. Gene Simmons "Calling Dr Love" is full of the bass demon's lascivious charm and charisma, and both Ace Frehley and Peter Criss get a chance to shine with "Shock Me" and "Hard Luck Woman" respectively, with both showing their unique onstage personalities.
The second disc kicks off with the explosive "I Stole your Love", and carries on with a series of the bands live favourites; Peter Crisses slushy crooner "Beth", the menacing Gene Simmons "signature" song "God of Thunder", Paul Stanleys dynamic "I Want You" and the utterly brilliant and anthemic "Shout it out Loud". The last five songs on the album were recorded in the studio after the tour dates had been recorded. There are no true classics like "Shout it out Loud" etc, but they are a good set of fun songs. Four of the songs do not feature Ace Frehley on lead guitar, but instead the likes of Bob Kulick. Of these songs, the best is the grand "Larger then Life". The fifth song was written and performed by Ace Frehley and thundering drummer Anton Fig alone - "Rocket Ride" features an epic riff, and is the best song on this side of the album by a cosmic mile. The album ends with yet another vaguely camp 60's cover, this time of "Any Way You Want It".
All in all, this album, like its predecessor, showed that KISS were much more at home playing to huge crowds with pyrotechincs and stack heels than in the confines of a studio. The live songs here all possess a certain verve and dynamism that their studio equivalents did not quite match. If you are getting into KISS, then this is a good album to buy. A truly awesome live album.
Brilliant vocals from Stanley twinnned with the pagesque guitar from Frehley, makes this one of the best live albums ever. Although my musical tastes have evolved and changed, Kiss Alive 2 remains one of my most played cd's.
The sound is excellent (undoubtedly doctored in the studio), and if you're new to Kiss, this would be a very good place to start.
"Alive II" showcases Kiss' brand of hard-rocking metal with a pop sheen, full of big riffs and catchy hooks. There may not be too many genuine hard rock tunes here (most of the melodies are pure pop), but the crashing drums and heavy riffs makes it all sound like big-time heavy metal, and that's not too bad at all!
Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons wrote some truly memorable hooks, and the best songs on this album are superbly catchy little gems. Listen to "Love Gun", "Detroit Rock City", "Ladies Room", "Calling Dr Love" and "Shout It Out Loud" and tell me that's not pop!
But we are also treated to some real heavy metal, courtesy of "Demon" Gene Simmons: "God Of Thunder" and the dirty fantasy of "Christine Sixteen" has Simmons' larger-than-life stage persona stamped all over them, and the big bass player with the flexible tounge and the big, larynx-shredding roar of a voice takes the lead vocal on both songs (as well as on "Calling Dr Love").
"God Of Thunder" actually became something of a signature song for the bass player, which is somewhat ironic since it was in fact penned by Paul Stanley.
Drummer Peter Criss performs his tender ballad "Beth", much to the delight of a very audible female part of the audience, and the album winds down with five studio recordings which originally took up the fourth side of the double LP-format.
There aren't any real classics among those five songs, except perhaps for Ace Frehley's smutty "Rocket Ride", but "Rockin' In The USA" is a fun, catchy little rock n' roll song, and one has to wonder why Kiss has never performed the grand "Larger Than Life" in concert.
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