Kiss Alive 3 --Any Love for It?

[p86]

Been listening to Alive 3 this week. I always thought this album was great.

Nice to have live versions of Creatures, Domino, God Gave Rock and Roll to You, and Heavens on Fire on here. I wish they would have included War Machine and Love Gun on here too, or made it a double album. Kiss sounded great in this era. Singer gave them a metal edge around this time. The best version of I Was Made for Lovin You is on Alive 3, I though.

Any love for Alive 3?

[Spongie]

I love it. Or I should say I loved it in 1993. But still listen once in a while. Damn good.

[rockker]

I like it for what it is.

Had they (Gene specifically) not over sold it prior to
Its release, I would likely hold it higher.

[Love_Industry]

I like it for what it is.

Had they (Gene specifically) not over sold it prior to
Its release, I would likely hold it higher.

Yes, I remember being disappointed by both packaging and setlist when it came out but it's not bad.

I understand the US version has one song less, Take It Off is missing?

[TooOldToCare]

I like the mix of songs, though it sounds more artificial than 1 or 2.

[Hair I Go Again]

Hot take: III > II

Justification: I don't think all of the songs on II are "live-album worthy"; it's hard for me to get through "Beth" and "Hard Luck Woman"; and most of the studio tracks are stinkers.

[Wiseacre]

Sucks. All the old tune sound particularly like crap with Eric S playing the drums, IMO.

[Wild Obsession]

I like it. IMO,, that lineup and time period was KISS firing on all cylinders as a live band.

[ParaDime77]

Played the hell outta Alive III. Honestly, Eric Singer makes the band sound like it’s on steroids with the huge double kick.

[pieceofme]

I like it more than the live part of alive II.

Good album, but wish it was longer.

[p86]

I like it for what it is.

Had they (Gene specifically) not over sold it prior to
Its release, I would likely hold it higher.

Yes, I remember being disappointed by both packaging and setlist when it came out but it's not bad.

I understand the US version has one song less, Take It Off is missing?

Yes, Take It Off was on the Japanese version. It also appeared on the Alive Box Set.

[p86]

I like it more than the live part of alive II.

Good album, but wish it was longer.

Yes, they played War Machine, Shout It Out Loud, Love Gun, and Cold Gin on that tour. Add those 4 plus Take It Off and they could have had a 21 song double live album.

[KISStian]

By all accounts, I should, I was there. Cleveland (Richfield Coliseum, it's literally an empty field now. Totally returned to nature) but I rarely, if ever play it. Maybe it's because they left out so many songs? Maybe it's because I later found out they were "done" recording before they even got to Cleveland? Maybe it's because the Revenge tour crashed and burned? Maybe because within a few years it was reunion fever and this lineup was buried like the COTN non-makeup cover? I dunno?

[HueyRamone]

Always disliked it, not due to the performances, which were good- but for:

1. Shitty album cover. Alive 1 is iconic. Alive 2 has the best Gene pic ever. Alive 3 is ... just nothing.
2. Shitty packaging. Just some family tree? Spend some fucking money and put a booklet in! Just trying to get the advance and picket s much $ as they could. Revenge stage looked cool, why not document it?
3. Alive 1 and II were culled from 3 albums each. Alive 3 had 14 fucking albums to cull from, and they still had to go back to the well ad reuse tracks from Alive 1 and 2.
4. As said before, it's not a double album! 66 mins, they could have even fit a song or two more to flesh out all the room on a CD, if they were too cheap to make it a double CD (or werent allowed to by the label) and make it the length of the other ones.
5. Every time I hear him lisping about a "Damn christmas tree" I get annoyed!

[KISStian]

Always disliked it, not due to the performances, which were good- but for:

1. Shitty album cover. Alive 1 is iconic. Alive 2 has the best Gene pic ever. Alive 3 is ... just nothing.
2. Shitty packaging. Just some family tree? Spend some fucking money and put a booklet in! Just trying to get the advance and picket s much $ as they could. Revenge stage looked cool, why not document it?
3. Alive 1 and II were culled from 3 albums each. Alive 3 had 14 fucking albums to cull from, and they still had to go back to the well ad reuse tracks from Alive 1 and 2.
4. As said before, it's not a double album! 66 mins, they could have even fit a song or two more to flesh out all the room on a CD, if they were too cheap to make it a double CD (or werent allowed to by the label) and make it the length of the other ones.
5. Every time I hear him lisping about a "Damn christmas tree" I get annoyed!

I think the plan was, initially, to have it like Ozzy's Live & Loud and AC/DC Live was where there would be multiple versions, aka a single disc and a deluxe. Gene and Paul hyped up miniature drumsticks being made to go with 3 guitar picks in the double disc set. It just never materialized. I do imagine the label was probably kinda like "wait, you want to recoup money from a lackluster tour by putting out a live album from said tour!?"

[kytepunches]

Do peeepul actually like God Gave R&R To You 2 ? . That song is unlistenable sappy garbage… even more so “live” .

[VinnieStJohn]

By all accounts, I should, I was there. Cleveland (Richfield Coliseum, it's literally an empty field now. Totally returned to nature) but I rarely, if ever play it. Maybe it's because they left out so many songs? Maybe it's because I later found out they were "done" recording before they even got to Cleveland? Maybe it's because the Revenge tour crashed and burned? Maybe because within a few years it was reunion fever and this lineup was buried like the COTN non-makeup cover? I dunno?

I was at that show as well. Didn't they play Tears are Falling and say that it was the only show they were recording it and only chance to make the record? Doesn't mean they weren't lying

[BernieTaupson]

Yeah it barely went gold so the expanded edition with Love Gun, Parasite etc never happened.

Was INSANE that War Machine wasn’t on it. And Tears Are Falling which they were occasionally doing on that tour, but I can understand wanting to distance themselves from hair metal.

That being said, they did put the fucking disco song on it.

Which was never even played on that tour. Same as I Still Love You, which was last done in 1985/6. Total sound check/studio job.

Reportedly Kramer mixed this to sound like the last two albums and then Gene went in and remixed everything to sound “modern” and fucked everything up.

You can hear the crowd noise loop really obviously before COTN, listen on headphones, you hear the same scream looped about four times.

COTN kicks ass, even if it sounds nothing like the actual live version they were doing, Paul never sang it like that live.

Deuce - pretty good.

I Just Wanna … has dated terribly. Just corny shit.

Unholy - Gene could never sing this live. Paul or Bruce even said in the guitar magazines at the time that it was a hard song to pull off live and for the first three quarters of it people were just standing there not getting it.

Heaven’s On Fire : never liked this song. The blatant pushing up of the audience noise faders for “I hear you breathe Uh Uh Uh Uh!” is so bad.

Watchin’ You shouldn’t be on there, there’s a bunch of songs that only make sense for the original lineup to do. 100,000 Years is another one. They’re like spotlight songs for Ace. Getting Spruce or FrankenThayer to play them is just a slap in the face.

Domino : fine, I guess. It’s not much of a song.

I Was Made : fake, with the fake pyro, and the fake audience yelling fake screams when it fake goes off.

I Still Fake You : makes you wonder if Paul was trying to get Donna Ackroyd back, because that’s the only reason this song was written in 82.

RNRAN : much like Watchin You, this just sounds weird to me when any lineup other than the OG’s do it. Imagining Spruce partying every day is even funnier than imagining Gene doing so.

Lick It Up : pretty good

Forever : excellent

Take It Off : man, Paul’s songs from Revenge were really lacking. After the early 80s he just could not get out of Bon Jovi mode. All of his Revenge songs also have the same boring breakdown slow part in the middle, once you notice it you can’t unhear it. Heart of Chrome was the best one and that’s a VV song.

ILIL : I’m with Paul, this is a crap song. It works on the album with the big beefy drum gimmick, without that (also see : Smashes Thrashes and Hits remix) it’s not much of a song.

Detroit : pretty good.

God Gave : pretty good. Hard song to do live with all the weird guitar parts and layers of vocals. They pulled it off pretty well. Saw Thayer do it in 2004 and he was so out of his depth.

Star Spangled : this followed Love Gun in the show which didn’t make it to the album. See the KISS My Ass video for the Detroit Love Gun, it’s one of the best ever KISS performances, really good. Some people don’t like this instrumental but I think it’s pretty good. At least they’re being somewhat creative.

Weird album. Some of it works, a bunch of it doesn’t.

[Anthrax442]

I love it. Owned before I owned Alive I or II, and played the shit out of it.

[EatTheGlass]

I like it a lot...but hate the canned audience on loop. It's blatanly obvious and extremely lazy.

[Tommy2Tone84]

Meh 3 out of 5 aging hairbands from the 70s. Their live albums are all kinds of bullshit. I prefer their audience and soundboard recordings.

[p86]

I didn’t realize IWMFLY wasn’t played live. I still love the version on here though. I Still Love You should have been deleted, but there was so much potential with the other songs they played on that tour. I’m ok with recycling some of the classics tracks from Alive 1 and 2 because they were actually playing them on those shows.

[GoodJudge]

I was at that show as well. Didn't they play Tears are Falling and say that it was the only show they were recording it and only chance to make the record? Doesn't mean they weren't lying

Do you also believe bands who tell the audience they're the best / loudest crowd ever?

[Tyketto Meniketti]

I played it heavily for years. Great tour setlist. I was at the Indy show which also shows up on the album. Band sounded really good then.

[KISStian]

By all accounts, I should, I was there. Cleveland (Richfield Coliseum, it's literally an empty field now. Totally returned to nature) but I rarely, if ever play it. Maybe it's because they left out so many songs? Maybe it's because I later found out they were "done" recording before they even got to Cleveland? Maybe it's because the Revenge tour crashed and burned? Maybe because within a few years it was reunion fever and this lineup was buried like the COTN non-makeup cover? I dunno?

I was at that show as well. Didn't they play Tears are Falling and say that it was the only show they were recording it and only chance to make the record? Doesn't mean they weren't lying

They said something to the effect of "if you don't really get into it, it's not going on the album" and the crowd went ape.

[KISStian]

I didn’t realize IWMFLY wasn’t played live. I still love the version on here though. I Still Love You should have been deleted, but there was so much potential with the other songs they played on that tour. I’m ok with recycling some of the classics tracks from Alive 1 and 2 because they were actually playing them on those shows.

IWM & ISLYU were recorded at soundchecks in Indy, Detroit & CLE. As was "Crazy, Crazy Nights" instrumentally but no vocals were ever laid down for it. There is a DAT of it out there.

[NeonKnite]

Everything about it is underwhelming. From the lame cover/packaging. It's only 66 minutes, the shortest of all three.

Bad fakery too that doesn't accurately replicate the live experience. Hearing the crowd in the middle of the songs is just so awful.

[Mister Freeze]

Nothing on the album is live. Maybe the drums. If you watch the Detroit bootleg from the tour, which is great, it sounds nothing like Alive 3.

Highlights are IWFLY, Creatures, and RARAN/Lick It Up.

I find the mix distracting. Eric's high-hat is strangely high in the mix. Then it drops out for a few bars after the solo on "Forever." Did he drop a stick? Was it intentional? Did Eric Carr (or the drum machine) play it like that in the original, but I never noticed it buried in the mix?

Alive 3 marks a depressing era for the Kiss discography, where Paul and Gene realized they could sell the same amount of albums (gold-level) by rehashing old shit on the cheap instead of recording and marketing new material. Thus... Alive 3, Kiss My Ass, You Wanted the Best, etc. ...

[KISStian]

Nothing on the album is live. Maybe the drums. If you watch the Detroit bootleg from the tour, which is great, it sounds nothing like Alive 3.

Highlights are IWFLY, Creatures, and RARAN/Lick It Up.

I find the mix distracting. Eric's high-hat is strangely high in the mix. Then it drops out for a few bars after the solo on "Forever." Did he drop a stick? Was it intentional? Did Eric Carr (or the drum machine) play it like that in the original, but I never noticed it buried in the mix?

Alive 3 marks a depressing era for the Kiss discography, where Paul and Gene realized they could sell the same amount of albums (gold-level) by rehashing old shit on the cheap instead of recording and marketing new material. Thus... Alive 3, Kiss My Ass, You Wanted the Best, etc. ...

I think all the basic tracks were done at Market Square Arena and The Palace of Auburn Hills during rather long soundchecks and the rest is studio doctory.

[Black Stuff]

hated it with all the enhanced crowd cheers, a la Alive II