Kiss – ‘Unplugged’ – Album Review (The Kiss Bootleg Series)

I have been doing a Kiss Bootleg Series for years. You get a review every time I add a new one to the collection. Well, after buying 38 Bootleg CDs from John Humphrey’s personal collection,… More

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Kiss – ‘Unplugged’ – Album Review (The Kiss Bootleg Series)

I have been doing a Kiss Bootleg Series for years. You get a review every time I add a new one to the collection. Well, after buying 38 Bootleg CDs from John Humphrey’s personal collection, I figured let’s jump right back in and do a whole lot of reviews on the Bootlegs. Oh, if you don’t know who John Humphrey is, you need to know he is a massive Kiss collector. And he is the drummer of the band Seether. John decided to sell off his entire collection…sort of…he kept all the vinyl (like 4,000 of them). He did it through an auction at Backstage Auctions and I had to have a piece of it…and I did wind up with somethings.

As it says in the liner notes, Kiss has done numerous acoustic performances over the years on radio and TV (excluding MTV unplugged). This compilation takes those performances and puts them in one disc. It covers the time periods of 1990-1994 which makes most of it having Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Eric Singer and Bruce Kulick. But we do get Eric Carr and Ace Frehley tracks as well. The sound quality if actually pretty good and we get 12 fun and exciting tracks and wildly good time as it shows the humor of the guys as well as these are very loose and crazy performances.

The first track is from The Howard Stern show on February 25, 1993 and you can hear Howard and Robin joking it up with Paul and Gene. They play “Detroit Rock City” and Gene is a cut-up throughout the whole thing. I love it when he points out where all the explosions would be when they play it live. Paul sounds relaxed and vocally is on point. I love seeing the lighter side of the band.

The next batch of songs is on July 1, 1993 from WAAF 107.3 FM radio station. They start off playing a Garth Brooks song called “Hard Luck Woman”. Obviously they are promoting Kiss My Ass as Garth covers the song on that tribute album. Now, instead of Peter singing, we get Paul on vocals. A very cool track to have knowing that fact. You get a lot of clapping from the people in the studio. They then go in to “Cold Gin” and Gene hams it up and forgets the lyrics, but it is still so cool. Then Paul picks it up and does “Lick It Up” and he really hits those high notes. They skip the solo and go right in to the end of the song which gives us a new take on the song. But they still manage to finish the song and have a lot of fun with it.

Next is a three song set from May 15, 1993 where Paul kicks things off with “I Still Love You” and how I love this song. Paul sounds amazing and has still got it at this point. He hits a high note and Gene screams out and congratulates him. Gene is such a child and we love it. They don’t finish it before they stop and Gene has Bruce do the solo but that ends it.

They then go into “Calling Dr. Love” and Gene being the cut up he is does the Italian version then messes up the verse (tries an Italian accent). He can never be serious and man he makes a ton of mistakes and then covers it up with humor. They finish it up with “Detroit Rock City” and if you think they are going to take it seriously, you are so wrong.

The next radio show (European show it sounds like) sees Paul only and he does an acoustic version of “Every Time I Look At You”. This was in May of 1992, but no exact date given. He doesn’t do the whole thing, but he nails it for the part he does. Another radio or TV show and we get Gene and Paul doing “Going Blind” and this was March 17, 1994. A more serious take and no joking here. Gene sounds awesome.

Net up is a weird one, but a cool one. It is Skid Row with Sebastian Bach and Ace Frehley doing “Cold Gin”. Ace was on guitar and this was supposed to be some time around 1990. It is a complete mess, but the guys are having fun and another cool piece to have. It is short and sweet.

Then is an interesting acoustic jam from 1990 that includes Eric Carr. They play a brief bit of “Help” by the Beatles. Then they go in to more Beatles and next thing you know Gene is joking around again and screaming and embarrassing the guys. He goes in to some shark story. It is pure mayhem. They do an unusal take of “Forever” as well with Gene singing part of it and howling. Wow! Lastly, is a very rough recording of the band doing “Rock And Roll All Nite” acoustically. It is a wild version of the song where they forget the lyrics and then it just ends. Not sure why they added this one as it should’ve been left off.

And that is it. This is a killer little set that is wild, crazy and so much fun. You don’t necessarily get a bunch of fully played out songs, but you get some interesting and fun takes on them. Gene is definitely a ham throughout and has to be the center of attention. As Paul says, Gene needs a camera all the time. It was a great idea for a compilation and glad they put this one together. Where else are you going to get little gems like these except through a bootleg. My Overall Score is a 4.0 out of 5.0 Stars as they should’ve left off “Rock And Roll All Nite”, but the rest is killer.