Kiss – ‘Live in Maryland 1977’ – Album Review (The Kiss Bootleg Series)

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.

The next bootleg up is ‘Live in Maryland 1977’. This was was recorded at the Capital Centre in Largo, MD way back on December 20, 1977 for the Kiss Alive II Tour. According to various spots on the internet, this show was actually recorded on video with expectations to be used for the American Music Awards show, but I don’t think were ever used. You do get those show in an edited format as the bonus disc on Kissology Vol. 1 from the Wal-Mart edition sold. This recording we have here on CD is that version as it is not a full show.

What does that mean of the sound, well, if you’ve seen the video, you know it sounds fantastic. The quality is great as it was taken from the DVD, I’m sure. Happy to have that show, even if edited, on CD. This particular disc was released in 2014 and is in a digipak. The pictures used on the back cover and inside are pretty grainy and are probably copies of a copy. It is only 1 CD and a soundboard recording.

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Kiss – Return to Capital Center (Bootleg Series) – Album Review

We have another Kiss Bootleg to discuss in this series.  We are on #4 and this one is from the 1979 Dynasty Tour and took place in Largo, Maryland on July 8th, 1979 at the Capital Center.  This was a time in Kiss that is quite interesting as the band was imploding, basically.  Peter couldn’t play drums like he did just a short time earlier and Ace was shall we say, “high” on life.  This tour was supposed to be huge.  The costumes, the stage show and well, everything was to be bigger and better.  Well, it was far from it.

Before we get in to the music, we go through the packaging first and this set is delivered beautifully.  The set was done in 2018 and it was put together quite nicely.  Here is the first little nugget, it is a a little side card that bends around one end kind of like the OBI strips for Japanese releases.

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After that there is a large, album sized Disco Sticker included.  It is supposed to be in a Disco Ball style and is a little hard to see, but cool nonetheless.

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