KISS, technically, retired this year, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still rock and roll all night with the greasepaint and pyro legends. The band announced the upcoming release of a huge box set celebrating the 50th anniversary of their landmark Alive! concert album.
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The Super Deluxe version of the album will feature 4 CDs + Blu-Ray audio, an Alive! track list t-shirt with 120 tracks, including 88 previously unreleased tracks. The first CD features the original album on one disc for the first time ever, newly remastered from the original 1975 stereo analog master tapes. In addition, CDs two and three will feature two full-length concerts from the 1975 Dressed to Kill tour at the RKO Orpheum Theatre in Davenport, Iowa on July 20, and the Wildwood Convention Hall in Wildwood, N.J. on July 23, newly remixed by the legendary engineer Eddie Kramer from the original multi-track analog tapes with no overdbubs.
The fourth CD will pull together five rehearsal tracks from the Davenport show, including an impromptu jam and another six songs from Cleveland Music Hall in Cleveland, Ohio on June 21, 1975, remixed by Kramer from the original multi-track recordings. The Blu-Ray audio disc will contain a new Alive! mix from Kramer from the original album multi-track analog tapes in Dolby Atmos and Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround, as well as newly remastered stereo in 192 KHZ 24-bit and 96 KHZ 24-bit PCM stereo set to a new visualizer with unreleased photos and tape box images.
The Super Deluxe version ($400.48) has a number of other extras, including a 100-page hardcover book with extensive liner notes by Ken Sharp and new interviews with singer/guitarist Paul Stanley, bassist/singer Gene Simmons and other notable Alive!-era KISS team members, as well as a number of unreleased photos and rare images. In addition, it will fold in an Alive! 1975 press kit with: four black and white glossy photos, an Alive! tour program, album cover lenticular, t-shirt iron-on, four live color glossy photos, a Peter Criss drum head litho, a number of concert posters, ticket stubs and backstage passes, coasters, guitar picks, bumper stickers and a track-by-track interview with Kramer discussing nearly all the tracks in the collection.
The anniversary edition will also come in a 4-CD box set version with a t-shirt ($287.55), a deluxe picture disc edition with sweatshirt ($251.89) and a premium color vinyl version with a sweatshirt ($125.98). All the editions are slated to ship on Nov. 21, with Kiss Army members eligible for pre-order now here.
Alive! was KISS’ fourth album and their first live LP, as well as a kind of standard-bearer for live rock albums going forward. Though they’d released three albums by that point, the band rose to a new level of fame thanks to the double concert album that collected songs from the theatrical group’s 1974 self-titled debut, as well as that year’s Hotter Than Hell and 1975’s Dressed To Kill, including such future stone-cold live staples as “Deuce,” “Strutter,” “Firehouse,” “Black Diamond,” Cold Gin” and “Rock and Roll All Nite.” (Click here for a taste of Sharp’s extensive history of the making of Alive!)
The album features the indelible work of late founding guitarist Ace Frehley, who died last month at the age of 74 following injuries from a fall in the studio. Frehley will become only the third person to receive the Kennedy Center Honor posthumously when KISS collect the award at a ceremony slated to tape on Dec. 7 and air on CBS on Dec. 23.
Check out the track list for the Alive! 50th anniversary box set below.
CD ONE:
1. “Deuce”
2. “Strutter”
3. “Got To Choose”
4. “Hotter Than Hell”
5. “Firehouse”
6. “Nothin’ To Lose”
7. “C’mon And Love Me”
8. “Parasite”
9. “She”
10. “Watchin’ You”
11. “100,000 Years”
12. “Black Diamond”
13. “Rock Bottom”
14. “Cold Gin”
15. “Rock And Roll All Nite”
16. “Let Me Go, Rock ‘N Roll”
LIVE IN DAVENPORT, IOWA – RKO ORPHEUM THEATRE – JULY 20, 1975 – SECOND SHOW*
CD TWO:
1. “Deuce”
2. “Strutter”
3. “Got To Choose”
4. “Hotter Than Hell”
5. “Firehouse”
6. “She”
7. Ace Frehley Guitar Solo
8. “Nothin’ To Lose”
9. “C’mon And Love Me”
10. “100,000 years”
11. Peter Criss Drum Solo / “100,000 Years”
12. “Black Diamond”
13. “Cold Gin”
14. “Let Me Go, Rock ‘N Roll”
LIVE IN WILDWOOD, NEW JERSEY – WILDWOOD CONVENTION HALL – JULY 23, 1975*
CD THREE:
1. “Deuce”
2. “Strutter”
3. “Got To Choose”
4. “Hotter Than Hell”
5. “Firehouse”
6. “She”
7. Ace Frehley Guitar Solo
8. “Nothin’ To Lose”
9. “C’mon And Love Me”
10. “100,000 years”
11. Peter Criss Drum Solo / “100,000 Years”
12. “Parasite”
13. “Black Diamond”
14. “Cold Gin”
15. “Let Me Go, Rock ‘N Roll”
BONUS LIVE
CD FOUR:
REHEARSALS – LIVE IN DAVENPORT, IOWA – RKO ORPHEUM THEATRE – JULY 20, 1975*
1. “KISS Jam”
2. “Room Service”
3. “Strange Ways”
4. “Rock Bottom”
5. “Watchin’ You”
LIVE IN CLEVELAND, OHIO – CLEVELAND MUSIC HALL – JUNE 21, 1975*
6. “She”
7. Ace Frehley Guitar Solo
8. “Nothin’ To Lose”
9. “C’mon And Love Me”
10. “100,000 Years”
11. Peter Criss Drum Solo / “100,000 Years”
BLU-RAY AUDIO – ALIVE!:
DISC FIVE:
[Dolby Atmos* / Dolby True HD 5.1* / 192kHz 24-bit & 96kHz 24-bit PCM Stereo]
1. “Deuce”
2. “Strutter”
3. “Got To Choose”
4. “Hotter Than Hell”
5. “Firehouse”
6. “Nothin’ To Lose”
7. “C’mon And Love Me”
8. “Parasite”
9. “She”
10. “Watchin’ You”
11. “100,000 Years”
12. “Black Diamond”
13. “Rock Bottom”
14. “Cold Gin”
15. “Rock And Roll All Nite”
16. “Let Me Go, Rock ‘N Roll”
* Previously unreleased
