For the OG KISS fans…Alright, Largo! KISS Alive in Maryland 1977 (franKENstein Redux)

[zz666]

Incredible job! Thank You

[Kid-Wicked]

the video quality is fucking amazing. well done man.

[Dyslexicheart]

Really looking forward to seeing what you've done with Winterland. Hope it's out soon!

[keyofgee]

great job and no matter what anyone says, those guys where killer in their prime. No one was doing shows like that in that era. You just had to be there.

[daveg]

WOW. Now that is how society should be using AI.

Not sure how you would monetize something like that, but seriously....that was incredible.

[Wiseacre]

WOW. Now that is how society should be using AI.

Not sure how you would monetize something like that, but seriously....that was incredible.

Can't really monetize it since I don't own any part of it (aside from the work I did, of course). Unfortunately, that won't stop the usual @ssholes from putting it on eBay and selling it though.

[eddie lee roth]

I love what you’ve done here.

Looking forward to your next thread.

[Tenacious_Dio]

Sometimes I think, "Why the hell was I ever a fan of this band?"

And then I see something like this, and it all comes back.

[Black Stuff]

Amazing job! THIS is the KI$$ I remember! Thank you!

[TooOldToCare]

Sometimes I think, "Why the hell was I ever a fan of this band?"

And then I see something like this, and it all comes back.

Same. Love them or not, they were fierce back then and took the on-stage persona thing beyond the Dolls (not really personas but make-up and glam) or Cooper. The end was pitiful, yet a part of me says, if PT Barnum was right, keep raking in the cash. But this era and this footage was a cool time to be alive.

[Velvis]

This video is fucking great. Awesome job.

[HueyRamone]

Sometimes I think, "Why the hell was I ever a fan of this band?"

And then I see something like this, and it all comes back.

For all that Paul Stanley wears the same shit and paints his face the same way and sings the same songs, he couldnt be more diametrically opposite in every way to this Paul Stanley in the vid and I often wonder why everyone else doesnt see it.

[FreddyFender]

I'm not a Kiss fan and make fun of them plenty, but this is a very cool. Sounds and looks great.... cool way to spend your time.

But why did you slow one of the songs down? Was this a preference thing or more due to a need to match up with alternate recordings?

[Wiseacre]

I'm not a Kiss fan and make fun of them plenty, but this is a very cool. Sounds and looks great.... cool way to spend your time.

But why did you slow one of the songs down? Was this a preference thing or more due to a need to match up with alternate recordings?

Thanks! “firehouse” is a song that seemed to progressively get faster every week from 1974 onward, ha. By 1977 it was comically fast. I slowed it down by about 5% here just to make it groove a bit more. It’s still much faster than the Alive! version which is faster than the original studio version. Hell, Sean Delaney even sped it UP on Double Platinum and Paul sounds like a chipmunk.

This video is a fantasy version of a “visual” ALIVE II and like I said in the description, not for the purists. Some nights that song was quicker than others, so in my fantasy they played it just a bit slower on this night. all of the audio was synced to match the video performance, so this was just a preference thing. In fact this song was “created” piecemeal since I didn’t want to use Peter’s Alive! drum parts. Like LMG, RnR and Black Diamond, it was done using several sources including his “playing” from this particular show assembled sometimes manually and sometimes using bits of other songs. RARAN comes from the Lost A2, but those other old tunes have no “clean” A2 era sources.

[HueyRamone]

Winterland next, please.

That one always sounded so good to me, I'll be very interested in what your alternate version changes it up to!

[eddie lee roth]

Whenever you complete all the shows you mentioned I want to be the first to request a 79 show please.

Watching some more of it today and can’t get over being impressed with how good it looks and sounds.

[Wiseacre]

Winterland next, please.

That one always sounded so good to me, I'll be very interested in what your alternate version changes it up to!

It’s definitely one of the very best sounding original videos, but I’ve cleaned up (and beefed up) the sound quite a bit. Think of an (arguably) cleaner version of Alive! but with all the original vocals, solos, etc, intact.

I’ve also done a shot-by-shot video clean-up to make it appear that it was lit/shot for black and white. I’ve used masking and layering to even out the lighting on all the members throughout. Peter is very much in the dark much of the time, but I’ve corrected that in pretty much every shot. Same for the rest of the band. I have also used vignetting to correct all of the light bleed around the edges without just over-darkening everything.

It is already finished and will be posted within the next week.

Here is a side-by-side preview of what I've done shot-by-shot to even out the lighting without just doing a one-size-fits-all light/contrast/filter to the whole show...(original left/enhanced right)

[Black Stuff]

Winterland next, please.

That one always sounded so good to me, I'll be very interested in what your alternate version changes it up to!

It’s definitely one of the very best sounding original videos, but I’ve cleaned up (and beefed up) the sound quite a bit. Think of an (arguably) cleaner version of Alive! but with all the original vocals, solos, etc, intact.

I’ve also done a shot-by-shot video clean-up to make it appear that it was lit/shot for black and white. I’ve used masking and layering to even out the lighting on all the members throughout. Peter is very much in the dark much of the time, but I’ve corrected that in pretty much every shot.same for the rest of the band. I have also used vignetting to correct all of the light bleed around the edges without just over-darkening everything.

It is already finished and will be posted within the next week.

oh man, this is awesome news! Thanks!

Any plans for any cobo shows or Destroyer tour shows?

[Wiseacre]

Winterland next, please.

That one always sounded so good to me, I'll be very interested in what your alternate version changes it up to!

It’s definitely one of the very best sounding original videos, but I’ve cleaned up (and beefed up) the sound quite a bit. Think of an (arguably) cleaner version of Alive! but with all the original vocals, solos, etc, intact.

I’ve also done a shot-by-shot video clean-up to make it appear that it was lit/shot for black and white. I’ve used masking and layering to even out the lighting on all the members throughout. Peter is very much in the dark much of the time, but I’ve corrected that in pretty much every shot.same for the rest of the band. I have also used vignetting to correct all of the light bleed around the edges without just over-darkening everything.

It is already finished and will be posted within the next week.

oh man, this is awesome news! Thanks!

Any plans for any cobo shows or Destroyer tour shows?

Those are all owned by private 3rd parties, as far as I know, so I'm not messing with those (not 100% about Houston '76). Obviously, Cobo '76 with this same treatment (combining footage from all three nights) would be epic, and I did start on that months ago when I thought KISS owned those, but it's not worth the effort since they wouldn't stay online for 5 seconds anyway. KISS don't seem to mind certain shows being out there, so I am sticking with the "safe" ones. No matter what you think of any certain individuals, I do respect ownership. Some don't, but that's just me. I'm not looking to make a penny from this stuff and if KISS don't mind certain shows being posted/traded, that's fine. If whoever owns others, that's fine too. Winterland has enough Alive! overlap with Cobo that it covers the majority of that material. What Largo '77 is to Alive II, Winterland will be to Alive!

I am also doing Houston '77 and a combo of the Tokyo '77 shows, Largo '79, Sydney '80 and the Fridays appearance all just like these other 2. Those shows are all on YouTube and don't ruffle feathers. For some dumb reason YT algorithms block my Largo show based on what it thinks some of the audio is, not because of the video. However, every single song from the show stays up, no problem. It's a pain becasue I'd love for as many KISS fans to see it as possible and doing a playlist is a pain compared to the full show, but oh well.

[HueyRamone]

It’s definitely one of the very best sounding original videos, but I’ve cleaned up (and beefed up) the sound quite a bit. Think of an (arguably) cleaner version of Alive! but with all the original vocals, solos, etc, intact.

I’ve also done a shot-by-shot video clean-up to make it appear that it was lit/shot for black and white. I’ve used masking and layering to even out the lighting on all the members throughout. Peter is very much in the dark much of the time, but I’ve corrected that in pretty much every shot.same for the rest of the band. I have also used vignetting to correct all of the light bleed around the edges without just over-darkening everything.

It is already finished and will be posted within the next week.

oh man, this is awesome news! Thanks!

Any plans for any cobo shows or Destroyer tour shows?

Those are all owned by private 3rd parties, as far as I know, so I'm not messing with those (not 100% about Houston '76). Obviously, Cobo '76 with this same treatment (combining footage from all three nights) would be epic, and I did start on that months ago when I thought KISS owned those, but it's not worth the effort since they wouldn't stay online for 5 seconds anyway.

Thats too bad! If there's one stage that needs your help it's the dark-ass Destroyer stage!

[LSD69]

Wow

Good work.

[Black Stuff]

oh man, this is awesome news! Thanks!

Any plans for any cobo shows or Destroyer tour shows?

Those are all owned by private 3rd parties, as far as I know, so I'm not messing with those (not 100% about Houston '76). Obviously, Cobo '76 with this same treatment (combining footage from all three nights) would be epic, and I did start on that months ago when I thought KISS owned those, but it's not worth the effort since they wouldn't stay online for 5 seconds anyway.

Thats too bad! If there's one stage that needs your help it's the dark-ass Destroyer stage!

Totally agree! Not sure what they were thinking without front lighting for the most part

[Wiseacre]

Those are all owned by private 3rd parties, as far as I know, so I'm not messing with those (not 100% about Houston '76). Obviously, Cobo '76 with this same treatment (combining footage from all three nights) would be epic, and I did start on that months ago when I thought KISS owned those, but it's not worth the effort since they wouldn't stay online for 5 seconds anyway.

Thats too bad! If there's one stage that needs your help it's the dark-ass Destroyer stage!

Totally agree! Not sure what they were thinking without front lighting for the most part

I never saw the Destroyer Tour, but have to think the videos we have make it seems worse than it probably was. On the Anaheim show you can "see" everything OK, but Houston is too close up all the time. The real problem to me was that the props were all too low and close to the stage to probably see well for any distance.

[El Vampiro Blanco]

Thats too bad! If there's one stage that needs your help it's the dark-ass Destroyer stage!

Totally agree! Not sure what they were thinking without front lighting for the most part

I never saw the Destroyer Tour, but have to think the videos we have make it seems worse than it probably was. On the Anaheim show you can "see" everything OK, but Houston is too close up all the time. The real problem to me was that the props were all too low and close to the stage to probably see well for any distance.

Nah, even Chris Lendt wrote in his book it was a mistake to design a stage which made it impossible to light it well. They expressed concerns about the design, but the designers assured them it would be alright..... It wasn't, they were mostly in the dark....

[Black Stuff]

My first concert was the Roose3velt stadium Destroyer show. Looked totally different than the dark views you see in the vids. More lighting would definiyely have helped. Its a shame as it was an awesome stage set

[Wiseacre]

My first concert was the Roose3velt stadium Destroyer show. Looked totally different than the dark views you see in the vids. More lighting would definiyely have helped. Its a shame as it was an awesome stage set

I figured as much. Real life looks totally different than any camera/video.

[kreamygoodness]

I thought I would watch a song or two but ended up watching the whole thing. AMAZING! Many thanks and kudos. You framed it perfectly to; the fantasy Alive II is right. You captured what I saw in my head when I heard Alive II for the first time in '77.

Even my cat approves.

[Wiseacre]

I thought I would watch a song or two but ended up watching the whole thing. AMAZING! Many thanks and kudos. You framed it perfectly to; the fantasy Alive II is right. You captured what I saw in my head when I heard Alive II for the first time in '77.

Even my cat approves.

\m/ \m/

[El Vampiro Blanco]

I thought I would watch a song or two but ended up watching the whole thing. AMAZING! Many thanks and kudos. You framed it perfectly to; the fantasy Alive II is right. You captured what I saw in my head when I heard Alive II for the first time in '77.

Even my cat approves.

Me too, though I have to admit, before I saw any KISS live vids ever, in my mind listening to Alive II there was way more fire and bombs!

[Wiseacre]

Even my cat approves.

This is one of my actual cats (Ranger for his "mask"). Whenever I was watching/previewing the show he would come in and stare at the TV. Always during the drum solo too, haha. He even has Peter's makeup which prompted me to photoshop this.