Saw it now, they are at least honest about it, especially Gene ("At that time, live, I made tons of mistakes."). But his best quip is at 11:22 when talking about the Nothing to Lose lyric ... "But(t?) what poetry!".
Whether they invented the live double album is another matter though. I remember the early and mid-seventies as the age of the live double album. Grand Funk's Live Album, Humble Pie's Rockin' the Fillmore, DP's Made in Japan, Allman Brothers' Live at Fillmore Eat, Rare Earth's In Concert, Uriah Heep's Live '73, ELP's Welcome Back my Friends to the Show That Never Ends and Yes' Yessongs were all double (or more) albums, million sellers and pretty much in every household, years before Kiss Alive. Matter of fact back then having a live album in a gatefold sleeve out was considered de rigueur if you were worth your salt as a live band. Kiss with their Alive album weren't so much leading the way but, in a last ditch effort to make it, hopping the bandwagon.
I never thought that Kiss Alive sounded that much like a live experience ... I think they got the big arena sound down nicely, but the performance didn't quite have the frantic intensity you might expect with an act like Kiss. Kiss bootlegs from the era sound, bum notes aside, more frantic and "falling over one another in excitement". Alive sounded not so much of the moment, but a bit calculated. Which we now know from the vid it was!
Doesn't matter, it put them on the map and is a fun album to hear, especially Peter's (over-)phased drum solo! I sure liked my copy (with the SS-runes on Peter's kick drum airbrushed out as was mandatory in Germany where showing Nazi insignia outside of their historical context is a criminal offense). No wonder I couldn't recognize that Gene played a Grabber and not a Ripper!
Us poor Krauts also didn't get the booklet, probably because it had the SS-runes all over it.
German cover as it came out in 75:
German cover in later years, Kiss had money to pay for proper photo doctoring:
US cover: