1. Detroit Rock City
2. King Of The Night Time World
3. Let Me Go, Rock 'N Roll
4. Strutter
5. Hotter Than Hell
6. Nothin' To Lose
7. Cold Gin
8. Shout It Out Loud
9. Do You Love Me
10. God Of Thunder
11. Rock And Roll All Nite
12. Deuce
13. Firehouse
14. Black Diamond
The tour that followed the successfull Alive! and was billed as The Spirit Of '76 Tour. It was their first tour of stadiums and they didn't disappoint. Great set list of classic songs to the new songs from Destroyer. First they wanted to have a car crash on stage at the end of "Detroit Rock City" but the idea was dropped because of the costs of that effect. This is the best concert available (only 2 or 3 are available) for the Destroyer tour.
Allen Dunn's review
This review looks at a concert that took place during one of my favorite periods in Kisstory, the Destroyer tour. On August 20, 1976 Kiss played what was at that point the biggest show they had ever done. Approximately 60,000 people filled the sold-out Anaheim Stadium in the eastern suburb of Los Angeles. Kiss proceeded to put on a show that would go down in history as one of their most memorable and oft-referred to performances.
After a rather lame introduction by "Flo and Eddie" formerly of the Turtles, Kiss rips into the show. Why they decided to drop there trademark "You wanted the best..." intro in favor of these two losers is beyond comprehension. On most copies of this show on video, there are audio problems on the first two songs: Detroit Rock City and King of the Night Time World. These problems are most noticeable on Paul’s vocals. Audio problems aside, these songs sound great and I still think these are the most powerful one-two punch songs Kiss ever opened their shows with.
The show continues with a fairly standard set list with no real surprises. The Destroyer tour stands out as being the tour where the band made the most changes to the usually "carved-in-stone" set list featured on most Kiss tours. The beginning of the tour saw Flaming Youth played on a regular basis and even Watching You and 100,000 Years were played on rare occasions. Where on most tours, night after night, the set list would never change, on the Destroyer tour the order of songs would vary often even when they were playing the same songs as a previous show.
Let Me Go, Rock 'N Roll is next. This is one of my favorite versions of the song. While it is the "trimmed down" version from previous tours, it still packs a real punch. Hearing Gene scream "Anaheim!" between verses sends a chill through me every time. Strutter, Hotter Than Hell, and Nothin' to Lose follow, all delivered with classic Kiss intensity. Look for the small flub during the transition between Hotter Than Hell and Nothin' to Lose. Next it is Ace's turn in the spotlight. The Frehley penned Cold Gin leads into the Spaceman's smoking guitar solo. This is a classic. Ace pulls off all of his signature riffs in this one and the performance is great. There is one small glitch in the solo however. Before the usual "break" in his solo during which time the final notes Ace plays are recorded and sent into a looping effect which fills the void when he is changing guitars, the notes didn't take. Instead of the other-worldly looping effect filling the ears of the audience, there is only feedback. One can only imagine how annoying that must have sounded at concert volume before the soundman cut the guitar off.
Shout It Out Loud follows and is just about the weakest song of the show. Shout It Out Loud was never one of my favorite Kiss songs and this version of the song just falls flat. The band quickly recovers with what is probably my favorite version of Do You Love Me. I really like this song live. Even though it was only played on the Destroyer and Rock and Roll Over tours, then retired for 19 years until the reunion in 1996, this song rocks. Paul really belts out this version. I love the ending to this one as well. God of Thunder follows an amazingly graphic display of blood spitting by Gene. The song is sung very powerfully by Gene who uses some interesting phrasings during the chorus. Unfortunately the song is broken up by another ho-hum Peter solo (as all of his solos seemed to be following the Alive! Tour). Rock and Roll All Nite closes out the show in impressive fashion. But I do have one question: Where is the confetti? There is a little bit blowing around, but certainly not the amount you're accustomed to seeing at a Kiss show.
The Encores: Deuce is my favorite song from this show. It is played with incredible intensity from beginning to end and I think it fits the set list better in the encores. Most people (Gene included) think Deuce is the perfect opening song for Kiss while I have always preferred Detroit Rock City. Firehouse is the second encore. This is the only tour when this song would be used as an encore. It is pretty strange placement for it, but it's really not bad at all. Check out the Ace/Paul musical exchange on the intro to this song. It's one of my favorite moments from any Kiss video. Black Diamond, my favorite Kiss song of all time, ends the show. Paul's intro on this version is not to be missed. Something to look for: At the very end of the song just as Paul is saying "good night" and the camera is on Gene, something flies from the audience and hits Gene on the left side of his head. He doesn't seem to notice but it is pretty obvious.
Random Thoughts: This show took place just around the same time that Beth was about to become a huge hit for the band. In November, for the Rock and Roll Over tour, Beth would be inserted into the encores of every Kiss show until Peter's departure from the band in May 1980. As much as I do like this song, I've never cared for it live. I think it tended to slow down the tempo of the encores, and thus the ending of the shows. Just curious, but does anyone know what the heck happened to the diamond/crystal things that used to sit in front of the monitors on this tour? I've seen tons of photos with these things in them but they never seem to be in any of the video footage that was taken of the tour. If you have any ideas, let me know (Note from the webmaster: If you know the answer e-mail the webmaster and he'll gave you Allen's e-mail adress). While I consider this show one of my favorites, it does contain some questionable camera work. For example, during many of Ace's solo's the camera never even shows Ace, not even once. It tends to stick to Gene and Paul while they are just standing there strumming power chords. Go figure. Plus they show very little of Peter. Bottom line on this video is that it is a great sample of Kiss in their prime. It is also the only pro-shot full-length video from the Destroyer tour known to exist. For that reason alone, this video should be added to your collection.
Final Rating: ***1/2 stars out of 5.
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