The three songs Kiss have played live over 2000 times
Kiss are a live band. Yes, they might have released a ton of studio albums during their run, but they are an act you want to experience live.
Don’t believe me? Just ask the members of Black Sabbath. Sabbath were an innovative, pioneering band who completely changed the way that people saw rock music. As a result of this innovation, the band managed to amass a huge number of listeners who would follow the band around the globe. It was truly a sight to behold, and yet, when they took Kiss on tour with them, they found themselves getting upstaged.
Now, I don’t want to ruin the subjective nature of music, but if we were to play Kiss’s and Black Sabbath’s albums side by side and forensically analyse both bands, we would probably consider Sabbath as musically superior. And yet, when they were on tour with Kiss, fans were falling in love with the support so much that the headline act simply couldn’t match it. Why? Well, it’s because, like I say, Kiss are a live band.
“Kiss was the first one to use pyro,” said Geezer Butler, reflecting on the tour the two bands went on together. “You’ve never seen that. I mean, the shock of that. And they were supporting us, so they weren’t even headlining. I went out and watched them. There were all these flames coming out the stage and everything. It was like ‘Oh my God, what’s going on here?’”
He continued, “It was a completely new direction for people […] People had to start thinking about stage production after Kiss. It was tough to follow them. We went on just as an ordinary band, no effects or anything, and everybody else still had their mouths wide open from seeing Kiss.”
The look was one thing, but Kiss could also play live. All four members were exceptional musicians, and the result was that they were continuously taking to the stage and blowing the minds both visually and sonically of everyone in range with every second of their set. Pair that with the make-up and flamboyant stage presence, and you have a band that people aren’t forgetting in a hurry. There are no shocks that the band’s best-selling record (Alive) is a live album, as anyone who has experienced the magnitude of Kiss is desperate to relive it in any way they can.
There are plenty of great songs that make up the extravagant setlists of Kiss, but three of their songs are such dominating factors, have become such staples of their live show, that you can guarantee they will be played at some point or another. As a result, each of these songs has been performed live by Kiss over 2000 times: that’s one hell of a run. These songs represent stadium rock at its very best, and they include ‘Rock and Roll All Nite’, ‘Detroit Rock City’ and ‘Love Gun’.
There is a lot to love about Kiss, but some of the biggest factors are their live sound, catchy choruses and complete devotion to hard rock. All three of these elements are celebrated to the highest degree on the aforementioned tracks, which is why they slot nicely into whatever setlist the band were putting together. Open with them, close with them, put them in the middle of a set when the show is going through a lull, whatever the decision was, these songs were always guaranteed to get a big reaction.
Kiss are a live band, and these are some of the best live songs on the planet.
