Experience Kiss live at SCCC
NEWTON — Offering a chance to experience a time long gone, when people rocked and rolled all night, and partied every day, Alive! 1975 will perform at Sussex County Community College Friday and Saturday.
The show is more than just a concert or a Kiss tribute but an immersive experience dedicated to a defining point in the pantheon of music history by bringing the Kiss Alive! album to life.
"That really was a turning point. It was a classic time for the band and has been called one of the greatest live recorded albums of all time,” said Anthony De Lucia Jr., the show’s creator and producer. “Up until that point the band had been touring primarily in the United States and Canada. They would play anywhere — a high school gym, a small club, anywhere — so they had a following based on their live show that earlier albums didn’t capture. This album really catapulted them into every living room ‘Rock and Roll All Nite’ exploded onto the scene and the album itself was a milestone album so the show itself is trying to bring that to life."
Pleasing fans
While many major acts have dedicated fan bases, Kiss fans pride themselves on their devotion and those tough critics are exactly the ones the show is aiming to please, according to De Lucia.
“We have been embraced [by the fans]. We have had contact and exposure with the hard core fans. We were featured on kissasylum.com and in a podcast on ‘Podkisst,’” he explained. “So it has been great feedback from a lot of folks, but there are always about two percent that will criticize every little thing. We are working hard to please that two percent. A lot of what we hear as far as feedback is that nobody has done what we are doing. There are tons of Kiss tributes that dress up and play songs but we are recreating a period in time and taking great pains to bring all of elements in that time to life. I was just at Ken Keller Welding in Branchville to talk about a wrought iron candelabra that they built me. It is the same one that was standing on stage in 1975 behind Gene Simmons so rabid fans will say ‘Oh my gosh look at that.’ The only difference is the pyrotechnics because there different safety precautions now.”
Trip back in time
The show itself is unlike anything most people have experienced before.
“There are actually two parts to the show. Folks arrive for a pre-show experience that will bring you back to 1975,” De Lucia said. “In the lobby we have got a time warp with Bill St. James playing overhead and then two audio visual displays. One is looping 1975 movie trailers like ‘Dog Day Afternoon’ and ‘Jaws.’ The other is showing TV commercials and clips from shows from 1975. There are tons of wall space covered with posters and art from 1975, all sorts of memorabilia and art and movie posters and things from Broadway like ‘The Wiz’ and ‘A Chorus Line.’ There is news and events as well so you will see things about Gerald Ford and Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger.
“There are news events and magazine covers to peak interest and start discussions. Folks will spend time in the lobby before entering the theater to see and hear and feel and smell and when the curtain goes up it is pure 1975. The show is incredibly loud. It is done the way things would have been amplified and delivered with the equipment and in the way it would have been. The band was enamored with 'The Who' and wanted to be loudest they could be so they used way too much horsepower and that is the experience that we are trying to duplicate. For folks that are there, they should leave thinking or feeling that that’s what it was like and for people that went the first time they can feel like they lived it again.”
While the highlight of the night is certainly the music, this is not simply a tribute concert.
“People should understand that it’s not a tribute show,” De Lucia said. “There is an entire experience before we deliver the rock and roll. It is obviously for Kiss fans and just for 1975 fans that get all of that. With this show, it’s what sets it apart big time. There has also been tons of local support. WNNJ has done some promo days and they are holding an after party Saturday night. We had a local business, Sign Connection in Andover help. We have been surprised with how eager to sign on people have been they just say they would love to be part of the show and want to be allowed to make show the bigger and better.”
Alive! 1975 will be performing two shows at Sussex County Community College on Friday, Nov. 7 and Saturday, Nov. 8. Both shows will be held in the Performing Arts Center and begin at 8 p.m. Ticket prices start at $27.