Lock Up Your Daughters (Golden Eggs EGG 160/161)
Tingley Coliseum, Albuquerque, NM, USA – January 22, 1984
Disc 1 (49:36) Intro, Creatures Of The Night, Detroit Rock City, Cold Gin, Fits Like A Glove, Firehouse, Paul Stanley Solo, Gimme More, Vinnie Vincent Solo, War Machine, Gene Simmons Solo, I Love It Loud
Disc 2 (50:40) I Still Love You, Eric Carr Solo, Young And Wasted, Love Gun, All Hell’s Breaking Loose, Black Diamond, Lick It Up, Rock And Roll All Nite
There are two excellent soundboard recordings from the 1984 Lick It Up tour, Nashville January 11, 1984 and Albuquerque January 22, 1984. Of the two the Nashville recording is arguably the best since it was recorded for radio and has seen a multitude of releases over the years. The Albuquerque was not done for radio and is a bare bones board tape that has only had a limited release in the bootleg world, the 2002 title You Can’t Break Loose (FH-003/004). As I stated the sound quality is excellent, the balance of instruments and vocals is perfect and the overall dynamics of the tape are great. The audience is very low in the mix hence the bare bones description. This title was also incomplete, the missing portions were the last 30 seconds of Gene’s bass solo and all of I Love It Loud while the last 2:28 of I Still Love You remain and Rock And Roll All Nite fades at 3:30.
This new title from the Golden Eggs is a much needed upgrade to the You Can’t Break Loose title in terms of sound only .This new version comes from a much better source than the one used on the older title and has a much wider frequency range and sounds like layers of age have been removed and what remains is a diamond. After digging into the missing portions, to my ears it sounds like the missing portions of the concert come from the Nashville recording. The timbre of the recording sounds like it, as does the audience, the audience sound on the Albuquerque show is much thinner where the Nashville has a fuller sound. You can also hear the patch in I Still Love You at the 3:15 mark and the remaining time of the song is 2:28. While Nashville and Albuquerque were just days apart, the minor differences in the recording give it away. That being said, the blending of the recordings is excellent and do not diminish my enthusiasm for this title.
The Albuquerque Journal gave this glowing review shortly after the concert:
“I once smashed my thumb in the door of a cab just before getting on a plane. I had to wait in throbbing, swelling agony until I arrived at my destination and could rush to an emergency room. The KISS concert at Tingley Coliseum Sunday night reminded me of that plane ride… The fog machines began to grind out enormous billows of white smoke, and for the first time KISS appeared in Albuquerque with no makeup. This band works hard at a formula reflected by the name KISS, which could be an acronym for ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid.’ The Formula: Lots of amps and speakers for a powerful sound, lots of lights for spectacle and lots of melody, three chords — keep it simple. The magnitude of the KISS light show was diminished only by the fact that ZZ Top’s spectacular show had appeared in the same spot the week before… KISS works very hard at putting on a show… But listening to KISS is like riding in a car without a muffler. Come on! A 15-minute bass solo? They played every old, tired cliché in rock ‘n’ roll. The lead player went on and on like he was strangling a cat. He dug into his box of trite Jimmy Page guitar licks for at least 20 minutes and was followed by an obligatory drum solo. KISS may not come ‘from the pits of hell’ as a Corpus Christi, Texas, minister recently claimed, but they sure put me through it”.
The Lick It Up tour would be the last one to feature Vinnie Vincent on lead guitar, his songwriting skills would be all over both Lick It Up and its predecessor Creatures Of The Night and much of the strongest material from these records features his name in the credits. Great songwriter does not always mean great band mate and after the tour was finished so was Vincent’s tenure in KISS. Thankfully there are two great soundboard recordings and many good to excellent audience sources out for us to enjoy his fiery playing. The setlist for Albuquerque is the same as the Nashville show and is the standard setlist for the tour with about two thirds of the songs coming from Lick It Up and Creatures Of The Night.
Since KISS were on a budget they used the previous 10th Anniversary Tour stage set featuring the Tank with Carr’s drum set on the turret, the sound of the tank moving is the intro music, along with Paul “The craziest mother f***ers in Albuquerque, New Mexico came to see US!” followed by the classic You Wanted The Best intro. Eric’s drum roll leads into the excellent opening song Creatures Of The Night. KISS know how to deliver a killer opening segment, Creatures followed by Detroit Rock City and the Klassic Cold Gin get the audience in the palm of their hands. The band sounds energized and what little audience noise you can hear seems to confirm this, the audience cheer for Fits Like A Glove and, of course, Firehouse. Gimme More features the full band helping with the chorus and the song fires on all cylinders and is punctuated by Eric’s great drumming. The song is followed by a great Vinne solo spot, his and Eric’s solo spots are by far the most effective of the evening. A great Gene combo of War Machine and I Love It Loud, while the Demon persona was no more, he thankfully had strong music to help him forge his new makeup-less persona.
One of the great KISS power ballads is I Still Love You, this is followed by a great Eric Carr drum solo, the much improved sound on this title brings out the power of Eric’s playing and you can hear Eric shout sporadically during it as well. Young And Wasted features a cool call and response by Gene and Vinnie, his leads are blistering and fluent. Paul’s rather X-rated intro to Love Gun has him hilariously saying that while he was getting his “examination”, Gene was getting a gynecological exam, a moment of onstage hi jinks. This version of Love Gun shows how powerful this line up was, the tempo is just a touch faster than in previous years but this works in the bands favor, Vincent’s solo is killer as well.
Paul tells Albuquerque to watch MTV “this coming Wednesday” as the music station was going to premiere the video for their next single, All Hell’s Breaking Loose. Classic 80’s KISS at its best, great riff and catchy chorus and works very well as a live song. Paul stops his intro to Black Diamond to tell the Albuquerque crowd that they are the Rock n Roll capital of New Mexico. The song has an extended ending that is dramatic and bombastic at the same time, you cannot hear any explosions and I am guessing that since many of the 83/84 tours were at a lower budget, the only explosions were musical ones, the chants of “KISS…KISS…KISS…” echo out. Lick It Up begins the encore portion of the concert and brings a real party atmosphere to the concert, all four add vocals to the chorus. Paul asks what the audience wants to hear and they jokingly “play” Do You Love Me? followed by Gene singing a quick part of the song acapella in a moment of pure hilarity. Rock And Roll All Nite (and party every day) is the last encore of this superbly played concert.
The packaging is the trifold sleeve, the typical Golden Eggs packaging. No liner notes just the statement “WE ARE COMING TO YOUR TOWN” and a lot of live shots of the Stanley/ Simmons/ Carr/ Vincent line up. Great title and a much needed upgrade to the older You Can’t Break Loose title, the mastering is superb and is a major improvement in sound, this is an excellent addition to my KISS kollection.
