Customer Reviews

Alive: The Millennium Concert (2000)

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This album is only available in the KISS ALIVE Box Set and separately as an MP3 album on Amazon. This was supposed to be the true ALIVE IV release, but red tape between the band and the record company, the release was delayed (By like 6 years) and KISS Syphoney was slapped on with the ALIVE IV sub-title....

This live collection is pretty good. I actually think the Live version of FIREHOUSE on the cd is like the best live version I own. Shout it Out Loud sounds good and really like the live version of LOVE GUN found on here to be excellent. There are a few gems on here like the Original Four performing HEAVEN'S ON FIRE, I LOVE IT LOUD and LICK IT UP. In concert, though, Paul alone played I STILL LOVE YOU before they ripped into BLACK DIAMOND and was disappointing it wasn't featured on this cd. Ace's into the void was on here and sounds great. Must say: Psycho Circus and Duece sounds much better on the Symphony/Alive 4 album for current recordings. Though not a complete show released on cd, it is a nice addition to a KISS collection. Someday, like with the KISSOLOGY DVDs, I wish KISS would release KISSOLOGY CDs of complete live shows from such tours like CREATURES OF THE NIGHT, LICK IT UP and REVENGE--Gene, are you reading this? LOL!!! It's KISS, it's an ALIVE release--They rule, even now with the new cd SONIC BOOM...I think KISS may actually be around to do a 50th anniversary tour--and could even maybe release an Alive 5 and 6 in the future!!!

Just like they did with the Kissology DVD's (especially the third one) and Alive 3 (the shows during the Revenge Tour all had 25-27 songs compared to the weak 16 that is Alive 3), Kiss has released yet another incomplete concert. The actual show, which was played on New Year's Eve 1999 in Vancouver, had 20 songs, compared to the 17 here (missing from this MP3 version are Shock Me, Cold Gin, and Detroit Rock City). Could they at least have cut Into the Void, that worthless Ace Frehley song from the joke that was Psycho Circus , and given us Shock Me? And what's a Kiss live album without Detroit Rock City? Seriously guys?

But wait, the news gets better. If you were one of the die-hards that bought the Kiss Alive box set that came out a few years ago--the only place you could initially get this concert--you received an even more incomplete show. That version of the concert only had 15 songs (it was missing Shock Me, Cold Gin, Detroit Rock City, God of Thunder, and 2000 Man). So, basically, Kiss released this exclusive concert with the box set only to re-release it as an MP3 download with a few extra tracks later, and it's still incomplete! Would it have been so damn hard to make a nice 2 cd set with the whole show?

But wait, there's more. Like they've done on every single live album they've ever made (Alive 1, 2, 3, and the travesty that is Alive 4, it was supposed to be this show but then they came up with the great idea of doing that lousy symphony thing) Kiss went into the studio and doctored the recordings, re-recorded parts, whatever it is that they "need" to do. I can't understand for the life of me why Kiss always insists on doing this? I have a ton of Kiss bootlegs, and you know what? They sound fine. For some reason, Gene, Paul and co. are so insecure that they can't give us an unpolished, COMPLETE, live album. Would that be so much to ask from the fans who have made a bunch of average musicians billionaires?

You know what the really sad thing is though? I, and millions more like me, will continue to support Kiss, to buy their albums, shirts, concert tickets (at ridiculously exorbitant prices because no band has the balls to attempt to cripple the Ticketmaster monopoly) etc., even though they've routinely shown a complete disregard for their fans (despite their repeated claims to the contrary) by continually releasing incomplete, overdubbed trash and a million greatest hits albums. Why not free up some vault space by releasing some of the thousands of (unedited) live recordings that every band in the world has stored away? I guess that would be too much to ask from fans that have shown nothing but unflinching loyalty, even in the darkest of times (Music from the Elder, Peter Criss' unforgivably terrible drumming during the latter half of his second stint with the band).