Black Diamond 2: Excerpts
Chapter Fifteen: "Private Video Recordings"
The following list, as with such audio recordings discussed in Chapter Eight, deals with concerts by KISS that have been video-taped and/or filmed over the years. As has been stated by the band members in several interviews, KISS had always made it a priority to be a visual band, and the best way to make sure this occurred was to film their shows. While in the early to mid 1970s video equipment was seldom in the use by the general public (it was not until the 1980s when it seemed to become cheap enough and fashionable for everyone to have a video camera), there was an absolute boom for such equipment in the New York City area. At the time many artists, performers and comedy teams began to experiment with almost prehistoric video equipment to get their uncensored messages across, it became relatively easy for the band themselves to get hold of the equipment for their own use.
Essentially, these shows were taped so that the band could judge their performances. The Winterland concert in San Francisco on May 30, 1974 is the first concert that is widely known to have been filmed. They also, if it is to be believed, videotaped themselves in the studios while recording some of the early albums. Thus, there may be more concerts and oddball recordings that were done, yet there are no definite information if any of this exists outside of fans' hopes and dreams.
Many of these concerts were video-taped with a variety of cameras (at least two) and from a variety of angles. As these were filmed with the band's permission, they are usually of high quality and of excellent graphics. As the band reach their peak of popularity in the late 1970s, some shows were also video-taped on a primitive "pay-per-view" system that allowed fans to see the concert(s) even if they could not make it to the actual show itself (this explains why productions credits can be found on the "Largo" show from 1979, among others).
With the advancement of camcorders in the mid-1980s, fans and bootleggers soon started to videotape the concerts as well. What these recordings usually amounted to was a kid about five millions miles away from the stage, quaking so much with fear of being caught by security that the camera shakes continuously, and trying to get the demented fan in front of them to put his fists down long enough for them to film the tiny specks dancing around on stage. This is, of course, an exaggeration -- but not by that much. The sound is usually very poor and the picture quality is
usually bad as well. During the 1995 BAD BOYS Tour on which Ace Frehley and Peter Criss co-headlined, many of their shows were videotaped at the performers' request. These shows were usually filmed from behind the soundboard with one lone camera. Still, it could mean that some of these shows (or portions) of shows may pop up in fan-circles before too long. Whether on legitimate or bootleg video tape is another story.
A brief mention should be made of a small group of home movies that exist from the 1975-79 period. All of this footage is silent and goes from a show in 1975 where Gene accidentally sets his hair on fire; to a montage of clips from a DYNASTY show. All in all this footage lasts about 20-30 minutes and quality on most copies are extremely dark. Still it is some of the earliest of fan-shot material that is available on the band.
To differentiate between the professionally shot videos and those of the fans, the following legend will be used: (p) for pro-shot; (f) for fan-shot. The following list is only of known videos and is not to be considered complete. Not all shows listed are of the entire shows and may only be in portions (i.e. just the encore from a shows; solos missing from the video; etc.).