Tag: Fits Like a Glove

Kiss – ‘Boxx (Vol. 2) – Live in Europe 1984’ (1993) – Album Review (The Kiss Bootleg Series)

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I have been doing a Kiss Bootleg Series for years. You get a review every time I add a new one to the collection. Well, after buying 38 Bootleg CDs from John Humphrey’s personal collection, I figured let’s jump right back in and do a whole lot of reviews on the Bootlegs. Oh, if you don’t know who John Humphrey is, you need to know he is a massive Kiss collector. And he is the drummer of the band Seether. John decided to sell off his entire collection…sort of…he kept all the vinyl (like 4,000 of them). He did it through an auction at Backstage Auctions and I had to have a piece of it…and I did wind up with some things.

This time around we have another Australian Bootleg which means it has a big “UNAUTHORIZED” across the cover. It is called Boxx (Vol. 2) – Live in Europe 1984 and was released in 1993 by a label called Banana and distributed by Apple House Music. What is with the fruit references?? It’s packaging is identical to the other two we’ve reviewed from this company All were made in Australia. This time we get a Gold Disc for the CD which is different.

This show has Bruce Kulick on guitar and he was not yet an official member. All the songs are from a show at the Gaumont Theater in Ipswich, England on October 11, 1984 for the Animalize Tour. I have a full show from this European Tour and it was the October 26 show in Stockholm on the “They Only Come Out at Night” bootleg. This one here is only 10 tracks, it is not a full show, but with only 3 songs are classic 70’s Kiss and the rest are all from the 80’s, I am truly okay with that as I love the 80’s songs. Heck, the 80’s were the era I grew up in. The 70’s, I was a little kid and influenced heavily by my brother’s taste. The 80’s were all my doing.

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Kiss – ‘Off the Soundboard: San Antonio, TX 12-3-1985’ (2025) – Album Review (The Kiss Review Series)

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It has been a couple years since we received any new ‘Off the Sounboard’ albums from Kiss. They were busy ending their touring career and selling off the rights on their image and catalog. Now that things are settled, we are back with the newest ‘Off the Sounboard’ and this is the 6th album in the series. This was was filmed in San Antonio, Texas on December 3, 1985 at HemisFair Arena, which puts right in to the Asylum Tour. If I’m not mistaken, this is the first one we get with Bruce Kulick on guitar. This means we are only missing one from the Vinnie Vincent era as all other members have been covered so far. The rest of the band is of course, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons with Eric Carr on drums. A great lineup of the band.

For this one, Kiss changed things up. It is still similar in packaging in the flimsy brown cardboard box, but instead of a plan brown cover with a stamped on logo, they actually added a picture of the band. However, jury is still out if I like the change or not. It does change the look when you place it against the others, but it is still kinda cool. But the thing that really pisses me off is on how they were offered. You could only get the vinyl on Kiss Online and you could only get it in a bundle which means I had to buy a T-Shirt as well which jacks up the already over-inflated price. There was only the color version of the vinyl and not a standard black and there was NO CD!! Well, there was no CD anywhere in the world except for Japan. So, CDJapan received another big order from me as I want to make sure I get enough stuff to make the shipping worth it. I have to say, the choices on what we were able to buy were limited and very disappointing.

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The Collection: Ep. 64 – ‘Off the Soundboard: San Antonio, TX 12-3-1985’ by Kiss – Album Review

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This week on the collection, we are going to show of the new Kiss ‘Off the Soundboard’ release we have on both vinyl and CD. The show is from San Antonio, TX recorded on December 3, 1985 and is the first ‘Off the Soundboard’ release to feature Bruce Kulick on guitar. The tour was for ‘Asylum’ which is one of the tours I saw and I actually saw the show later that month in 1985 in Atlanta. We will talk the packaging, the crappy things Kiss Online store do and talk the show itself.

So go check it out as it will be live tonight right now, July 7, 2025 at 7pm. Thanks for stopping by and please click “Like” and hit “Subscribe” as it helps out the site when you do.

Kiss – ‘Lick It Up’ (2023) – 40th Anniversary Picture Disc Box Set (The Kiss Review Series)

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The ‘Lick it Up’ album, which came out on September 23, 1983, garnered way more attention than it’s predecessor ‘Creatures of the Night’ for one main reason. The band finally took off the make-up which is something they had been talking about doing since at least the ‘Music from the Elder’ era. They finally did it and the big reveal was on MTV during primetime. I remember this vividly as this was event TV for me as I was a lifelong Kiss fan at the time (and still am today). I remember seeing each member in make-up and then without and I remember thinking, “PUT IT BACK ON!!! OOOOH THE HORROR!!!” No, it really wasn’t that bad. It was actually pretty cool. And just like that Kiss was back in the public eye and they had some songs that could back it up.

Now, 40 years later, Kiss was rumored to be releasing another Box Set like say ‘Creatures’ or ‘Destroyer’, but those plans were squashed probably due to the fact the other box sets didn’t sell out…but who knows why. Instead they released a new Japanese Edition with a lot of little extras (but no extra discs or music) and a Picture Disc box set for ‘Lick It Up’ that included two 12″ Singles that were picture discs as well. They were limited to 3,000 copies and my copy is 1,729. This was way better than what happened to the Japanese edition which instead of #’s, a lot of them just showed XXXX…man, that would piss me off. The box is a heavy duty cardboard box embossed in silver rather than the white of the original album. It is quite nice.

I have already reviewed ‘Lick It Up’ in great detail which you can click here and read…Kiss – Lick It Up (1983). For this post, we are only going to show off the new picture discs and packaging for the box set. I hope you enjoy.

‘LICK IT UP’ – THE ALBUM

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Kiss – ‘Off the Soundboard: Poughkeepsie, NY Mid-Hudson Civic Arena, November 28, 1984’ (2023) – Album Review

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Kiss has been killing it with live releases and the ‘Off the Soundboard’ Series. It was a brilliant idea for them to take control of their live shows and rather than not make any money with all the bootlegs out there, but to release their own bootleg versions of these shows. This is the 5th one I believe and might be one of the cooler ones they’ve done. It was recorded in Poughkeepsie, NY on November 28, 1984 at the Mid-Hudson Civic Arena. Wait, this is their 5th one, which means there are still 2 I haven’t reviewed yet. I need to get on that. Well, back to this. What makes this one so special? It is because the guitarists on the album is Mark St. John. The band at the time also had original members Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley as well as Peter Criss’ replacement Eric Carr on drums. Now, by this time, Eric is considered a regular and not the new guy anymore. And one of the nicest guys ever.

Mark was hired after they let Vinnie Vincent go because they didn’t feel he deserved the contract that Vinnie thought he deserved and thank goodness they didn’t. Mark recorded the guitars on the ‘Animalize’ album and immediately let the world know this was not the same old Kiss. And with these Kiss songs played live, Mark adds his own flair and isn’t out there to copy anybodies parts. Nope, not at all. This show is Mark doing it his way.

Sadly, Mark had developed reactive arthritis which caused his hands and arms to swell making playing very difficult. He went out on tour with the band and the band also brought along Bruce Kulick to be the back-up guitarist if Mark couldn’t play. It turned out that Mark was only able to play on 3 of the Kiss shows and this was one of them. That’s right, they actually have the recording of one of the shows with Mark and that is what makes this set so cool. I already have a bootleg from this tour, but my show has Bruce on it. I also saw this tour and that show had Bruce in it. That is why I think this set is so freaking cool. Great job Kiss!!

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Kiss – ‘The Ritz On Fire’ – Album Review (The Bootleg Series)

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I can’t believe we are on our 20th Review in the Kiss Bootleg Series. Nuts to think I’ve picked up that many. This one is called ‘The Ritz on Fire’ which is from August 12, 1988, The Ritz, New York City. A radio broadcast, from the Crazy Nights tour. This one is not the full show, but sort of a Best Of Compilation of that show. There are a bunch of different ones out there, some with full shows and some like this. I do have a show from the Crazy Nights Tour that was recorded on April 18, 1988 in Osaka, Japan, so I figured I’d grab this one as well as why not, you can never have enough Kiss Bootlegs…obviously or we wouldn’t be on #20.

I have found that this version is one of the few bootlegs that get all the packaging correct. They have the right band members in the pictures (Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Eric Carr and Bruce Kulick) and the right song titles and I don’t see any mistakes which is rare in the Bootleg world.

This is Kiss live much in the same vein as their current “Off the Soundboard” series in that there are no touchups, it is as you heard it when it happened and in this case as it was on the radio broadcast. The first 9 songs on this 10 song set are in order of the original setlist and it isn’t until the 10th song that it jumps ahead a number songs and plays one more. Basically, it is the first half of the show.

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Kiss – ‘Lick it Up’ (1983) – Album Review (The Kiss Review Series)

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Right after the Creatures of the Night Tour, the band went back in to the studio to complete the follow-up album. Michael James Jackson would stay on board as the producer as the sound he got on “Creatures” was amazing and the band wanted to continue that harder sound. Vinnie Vincent was now an official member of the band as he was on the cover. However, he actually wasn’t an “official member of the band” as he never signed his contract which became an extreme soar spot with Vinnie and the band which we will discuss a little later on in our story.

The ‘Lick it Up’ album, which came out on September 23, 1983, garnered way more attention than ‘Creatures’ for one main reason. The band finally took off the make-up which is something they had been talking about doing since at least the ‘Music from the Elder’ era. They finally did it and the big reveal was on MTV during primetime. I remember this vividly as this was event TV for me as I was a lifelong Kiss fan at the time (and still am today). I remember seeing each member in make-up and then without and I remember thinking, “PUT IT BACK ON!!! OOOOH THE HORROR!!!” No, it really wasn’t that bad. It was actually pretty cool. And just like that Kiss was back in the public eye and they had some songs that could back it up.

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Kiss – Look Wot You Dun To Me (Bootleg Series) – Album Review

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The second review in the series is for a bootleg of the 1988 tour of Crazy Nights.  And of course, this is another tour that I saw.  This one was recorded on April 18th, 1988 at the Castle Hall in Osaka, Japan.  Now, I saw the tour on February 10th at the Omni in Atlanta, GA.  At my show they only played 13 songs.  They played those same 13 songs in Japan plus 6 more tracks.  Yes, just like the Japanese Edition of CDs, Japan gets extra tracks during live shows as well.

Now the packaging for this release is not quite as nice as the first review.  It is a double LP, but not a gatefold.

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There is no pictures or posters included, but it is a colored vinyl.  It is a pretty white with a white label on one and a black label on the other.

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“My First Time” with Kiss – ‘Lick It Up’

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We are now to the end of the “My First Time” series. I ended up skipping it in November as their were too many new albums to review, plus I just wasn’t in the mood,  That got me thinking.  I don’t like being tied down to a specific album or theme.  I want to review albums whenever I am in the mood to do it.  Doing this series, limited me a little so I figured I would do one more and then just start reviewing any album, any time…no theme.

I figured if it was going to be my last, it needed to be something special.  For me, that means Kiss!!  The “My First Time” series is about the FIRST album I bought from a band.  Believe it or not, that album is ‘Lick It Up’ by Kiss.  A couple of my brothers were huge fans and had all their albums, but I had never bought one.  That changed with the excitement of this release.

What was all the excitement about this album?  Well, I am glad you asked.  Kiss sales had been in the decline.  Even with the stellar album ‘Creatures of the Night’ (one of their best), Kiss needed to do something to shake things up.  So they did just that.  They removed the make-up.  It was such a big deal, MTV held a special for the band to reveal themselves without make-up.  They also introduced the video for their first single, “Lick It Up”.  Here is the MTV special reveal…

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