KISS - ANIMALIZE - LIVE UNCENSORED

It was the video boom. Video rental stores were sprouting like wildfire throughout small towns and more than likely you found yourself looking towards the family’s videocassette recorder for your ‘media’ fix. KISS lent themselves to the home video evolution quite well after establishing themselves as one of the most visually enticing bands of the 1970’s.
1984’s ANIMALIZE LIVE UNCENSORED served as KISS’ first venture into the world of home video. The band themselves, with their feet still firmly planted in the (the makeup’s off – how do we act?) awkwardness were featured in rare live concert form as they performed a gripping live performance filmed in Detroit on December 8th, 1984, originally to be aired on MTV’s Saturday Night Concert series.
Makeup and huge explosions aside, ANIMALIZE – LIVE UNCENSORED can simply be labeled as ‘cool’. Coming from a band whom since 1982 had only made minimal television performances and released a handful of videos, this was a pretty rare glimpse into a world most of us were not privilege to. Some of the coolest moments of the concert occur when Simmons, Stanley, and Eric Carr present for the first time (sans makeup) bass, guitar and drum solos’. As a kid, unless you or your older kin were KISS die-hards this quite possibly served as your ticket into catching a glimpse of the band live and in concert with all of the ‘extra’ concert gimmicks thrown in to-boot. Classic tracks like "Detroit Rock City" and "Love Gun" still made the set list as well as new comers, "Fits Like A Glove" and "Thrills In The Night", and with the chance to see Simmons breathe fire at the end of "War Machine"…this video is basically a no-brainer. Plain and simple fun…the way KISS has always done it.
ANIMALIZE – LIVE UNCENSORED represented a good start into an increasingly better line of home videos from KISS. KISS would continue this good fortune throughout the 1980’s releasing other gold mine successes like EXPOSED, X-TREME CLOSE UP, and THE SECOND COMING. Sadly, for a band that had adapted themselves so creatively to image related media KISS had a hard time adapting to the DVD age. However, for an intro into the Home Video movement….ANIMALIZE – LIVE UNCENSORED was the sweet beginning KISS needed.