Kiss - The Second Coming

Thursday 4th January 2.18pm

Occasionally some things evolve beyond everyday banality and they strike a certain chord with the psyche of the public and become a part of the pop cultural make-up that defines our generation and our everyday lives. Star Wars, Dirty Harry, The Terminator, I'm sure you could name a few quite easily.

Fitting this description to perfection is KISS.

This dvd traces the story of the formation of the band from it's initial incarnation as Wicked Lester, the rapid growth in popularity as the freaked out public revelled in the showmanship and spectacle of the shows, the latter years as band began to self destruct and members came and went and then finally onto their triumphant reformation with the original line-up and a highly successful (and incredibly profitable) 1996 world tour, officially launched aboard a US navy aircraft carrier ("From an aircraft carrier?" you ask. "Where else?" I say).

Friday 5th January 11.07am

Right after watching the dvd again last night, I've decided to revise the intro to my review as follows:

KISS can be summed up with two simple words, as uttered by Gene Simmons during a press conference on this dvd:

"F**k dignity."

This is what has made them the everlasting giants of entertainment that they are. KISS don't pretend to be brilliant musicians, they don't claim to have written the greatest music ever, and they don't say they're bigger than Jesus (although you get the feeling that they might think it on the odd occasion). They just claim to want to give their fans the best show humanly possible. And the figures from their last tour show that the fans are happy with this arrangement.

Watching some of the concert footage on the dvd you can get a fairly good idea what the allure of these four dead ugly guys is. With loud bombastic rock, enough pyrotechnics to take care of Saddam Hussein once and for all, and plenty of footage of girls baring their breasts for the bands enjoyment, who wouldn't want to be either a member of the band or standing in the audience at one of their shows?

This documentary is assembled from a mixture of archive footage, photographs and other various printed media, television footage and material shot for the original video release. As such, the quality of the different sources tends to vary, from some poor early concert footage that shows a very distinct lack of detail and tonal range, up to more recent concert and backstage/on-the-road footage, which is quite good with plenty of vibrancy and detail and represents the upper end of the scale on this particular dvd.

But we shouldn't get too far ahead of ourselves here. The aim is not to replicate the look of, say, Gladiator, which was afforded a fantastic transfer but also had the benefit of undoubtedly fantastic source material to work from. The transfer itself appears spot on for all intents and purposes, it's just that it has some slightly suspect material to work with at times.

In the long run, however, it's the ability of the transfer to do its job transparently and allow the viewer to enjoy the story that matters. So far, I've watched this dvd three times, and I've been more than happy each time, as I'm sure most KISS fans will be.

For more of a "Why the hell not?" experiment than for any real beneficial reason that I can see, we are provided with a DD2.0 and a DD5.1 audio track. Sampling from both, I can't really say that the differences are that important, so as to favour one greatly over the other. For personal preference, I've listened to the 5.1 track more and found the slightly "airy" sound both a bit more enjoyable in the concert footage, and the dialogue a tad easier on the ears.

The 5.1 mix has a few little embellishments thrown in to liven up the atmosphere, but nothing which is really going to tax your system in any way. This isn't going to be your next demo disc, I'm afraid KISS fans. You can forgive the distortion and poor fidelity on some of the short music sections, as they are obviously recorded that way using in some cases nothing more than a handy cam and is not a reflection of the dvd transfer itself.

• Discography
  Listing the thirty albums KISS have released in the past 27 years. Can you believe these guys have been around for so long? Let's see if the current crop of weeny boy bands will be around in 2030. I think not.
• 3 Live Concert Clips
  Contains "Shout It Out Loud" from the 1996 Tiger Stadium show, "Detroit Rock City" from the premiere of the film and "Shandi" from the 1997 show in Melbourne. A nice touch, I think.

As you can see, this dvd hasn't got a great package of extras by a long shot, but they will get the juices flowing for more when inevitably KISS get around to releasing a live concert dvd of their final world tour about to commence. Until then, you'll probably play the three supplied concert clips about a thousand times each. I know I will.

If you're a KISS fan, you'll be wanting to add this dvd to your collection. It will keep you entertained through repeat viewings and help calm you down (or perhaps work you up?) in anticipation of their 2001 Farewell Tour Australian shows. It's pretty funny in spots, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally, and maybe it occasionally seems a little too close for comfort to Spinal Tap, but I think that's half the fun in "The Hottest Band In The World" KISS!!! dadadadadadadadadad-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-DA DUMMMMMM eeeeiiiioouuurrgghHHhh-DA DUMMMMM!!!! I FEEL AWRIGHT ONA SATURDAY NIGHTTTT?." Sorry, got a little carried away there.