In the summer of 1976, KISS’ popularity was exploding. In less than four years, Gene Simmons, the late Ace Frehley, Paul Stanley and Peter Criss had risen from New York bars to one of the hottest concert draws in the United States. By August, they’d graduated to stadiums, and 50 years ago today (Aug. 20), they strode into Anaheim Stadium and conquered the biggest crowd they’d ever seen: a 42,000-strong sweaty throng packing the home field of the California Angels.
The show has long circulated in bootleg form, but as of tomorrow, fans can finally own the pristine, buffed- and beefed-up audio of that night, thanks to KISS Destroys Anaheim ‘76, the concert’s first official release. Simmons and Stanley kicked off the campaign by throwing out the first pitch at the Aug. 15 game between the now-Los Angeles Angels and Kansas City Royals.
Featuring everything from a stacked bill to literal daredevils, the 1976 show feels as much a dream today as it did then, says bassist/singer Simmons. “We were just awestruck by the whole thing,” he tells SPIN. “We were staying at the Sunset Marquis on Sunset Boulevard, and you literally walked to the corner and right there was a billboard — ‘KISS: Anaheim Stadium.’ We never had billboards!”
Simmons and singer/guitarist Stanley were stunned when they arrived at the gig after making the roughly 30-mile drive south, emerging from their vehicle and gazing into the crowd. “Gene and Paul [who were 26 and 24 at the time] just looked at each other, and Paul said, ‘Wow, I’ve never seen this many people!’” guitar tech Barry Ackom says in the liner notes to Destroys Anaheim.
“It felt massive,” says Brad Elterman, who was a 19-year-old photographer shooting backstage that day. “There was definitely something in the air. I was at Sly & the Family Stone at the L.A. Coliseum, which had more bodies. But this was a cooler event.”
Just months away from the release of Night Moves, Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band opened, as did Montrose and Ted Nugent, who, after the sound went out during his set, scaled to the top of and eventually danced on the P.A. Flo & Eddie, featuring Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan of the Turtles, hosted and introduced KISS while wearing kabuki makeup, which was painted on by the actual band members. In between groups, Steve “Unique” McPeak walked a quarter of a mile on a wire above rowdy audience members, some of which attempted to pelt him mid-trick with garbage.
Selling tickets for $10, promoter Fun Productions bombarded fans with radio ads in the lead-up to the show, promising “giant color video” screens in print ads while band manager Bill Aucoin teased a next-level sound system in the press.
“Once we got there, we started putting the makeup on,” says Simmons. “We heard the opening bands doing their stuff. There was a lull between the last band and us going onstage and then all of a sudden, you started to hear 50,000 fans going, ‘We want KISS! We Want KISS!’ over and over again. It was unbelievable!” The crowd, says Elterman, “sounded like thunder.”
But the gig got off to an auspicious start for Simmons, who took a tumble in his seven-inch platform boots. “We start playing ‘Detroit Rock City.’ You’ve gotta make sure your fingers are on the right fret, make sure your boots don’t trip over themselves and make sure to hit the stage by a certain point in the song, otherwise you’re behind the band,” he recalls. “There was so much fog on the stage, and we’ve got a bank of amplifiers that’s about 20 feet high and we appear on top of the amplifiers and then there’s the stairs that lead to the stage and they have lights on them, kind of like Vegas lights. Well, halfway down I see myself disappear in the fog and tumble down the stairs. Somehow, I had the good fortune of keeping my bass up so that it didn’t go out of tune. In the video, you can see me jump out of the fog and continue, like, ‘Oh, yeah, I always plan that.’”
To be sure, Aucoin delivered on the sound system. If KISS destroyed Anaheim, among the ruins was 10-year-old Nick Cotrufo’s hearing (at least temporarily) and maybe a bit of his innocence. “We had our first contact high!” he says. “And I couldn’t hear much for a few days!”
Cotrufo was at his first concert, having come down from Burbank with his buddy Dave Fogerson, whose dad drove and chaperoned. “When I think about that day, it brings me back to a magical time in life. It was a dream come true,” he says. “The anticipation of seeing Gene Simmons was intense; the excitement of hearing Flo and Eddie announcing them; the explosions and pyrotechnics; Gene blowing fire and spitting blood; Ace’s guitar solo and being in awe of watching it float through the air afterwards; the two big panthers on each side of the drum riser with glowing green eyes. The KISS bug was on!”
Touring in support of the then-new Destroyer album, KISS brought a much bigger production than had been seen on the previous tour. The iconic flashing logo behind and above the band was larger, Simmons’ side of the stage was modeled after his demon persona and Frehley’s was themed around his associations with outer space. The 17-song set was essentially a live KISS greatest-hits collection, including “Strutter,” “God of Thunder,” “Deuce,” “Hotter Than Hell” and “Cold Gin.”
Rather than its usual finale of “Rock and Roll All Nite” (“we hadn’t as yet realized the anthemic nature of it,” Simmons notes), the band closed the gig with a crushing rendition of the Criss-sung “Black Diamond,” capping what the drummer claims is his all-time favorite KISS show. “It was so exciting. I remember going to the stage in golf carts, getting closer and hearing the roar of the crowd and these people stomping on these metal seats through this huge stadium and the echo,” Criss, now 80, says in author Ken Sharp’s fascinating liner notes. “I’ll never forget that sound. My heart pounded like it was gonna go through my chest.”
The relationship between the original four band members has been famously turbulent in the decades since, but on that Anaheim night in 1976, KISS still very much “had this kind of all-for-one, one-for-all idea,” says Simmons. “We depended on each other. In the beginning, we may have all been brothers from the same KISS mother. If you said anything bad about KISS, we’d all gang up on you, or if you said anything bad about any one of us, we’d run to each other’s defense. When success came in and different people were whispering different things in each of our ears, you started to see divisions coming. But we couldn’t have been here without Ace and Peter. There was something about that chemistry, the personalities, the way the band played. You can’t describe it, but you know it when you hear it and see it.”
By the end of the year, KISS had four different albums on the Billboard 200 chart, and weeks after Anaheim, Criss would again take the spotlight thanks to his tender lead vocal on the hit single “Beth.” Having played two nights at the Forum in nearby Englewood earlier in the year, only to return a few months later in a nearby baseball stadium, was it all a strategic move for KISS to officially conquer Southern California?
“We didn’t make assessments like that then,” says Simmons. “The word ‘marketing’ was alien. We just chugged along day after day after day. I think it’s the way a sculptor sees a big block of rock, and all he’s got is a hammer and chisel. You just keep pounding away at that rock, trying to get some image underneath. That’s what it’s like being in a new band.”
Indeed, band members were only making about $85 a week by the time they played Anaheim, a number that was occasionally higher thanks to nascent merch sales. Plus, most of the band’s earnings went back into the touring spectacle. “It was just blue-collar work ethic,” Simmons says. “We were not even aware this was filmed or recorded. I’m just glad that it was. You know, it’s just like a fairy tale: once upon a time in Anaheim…”