![]() Today I would have taken several selfies and posted them on social media. Many years later, I discovered that my Mom threw it away while I was at college thinking it was just a piece of scrap wood. It was a little bit disappointing, but I could understand why. What I had was one side of the guitar body and you could see the pre-cuts that were made to make the guitar easily brake apart. That was when I also realized I lost the drum stick. I didn’t dare take out the guitar piece until we were walking back to the train station, so it was only then that I discovered that Paul smashed a fake guitar. She said “It’s either the camera or the piece of guitar.” I held my ground and claimed I didn’t have the piece of guitar and that I was NOT going to let go of my Dad’s camera. When I finally got up off the floor, a girl started pulling my camera stating emphatically that it was hers. I knew if I came up and showed it off that the crowd would over power me and take it, so I stuffed it down my pants. Everyone was standing on their chairs and I honestly don’t remember quite what happened, but I wound up on the ground right on top of the piece of guitar. When the band finished “Rock and Roll All Night,” Paul Stanley smashed his guitar on stage and tossed the pieces into the audience. Oh well.Īce Frehley at Madison Square Garden Februplaying the solo in “Firehouse.” Then Gene blew the fire and the moment was gone. I even tried to rip the film so I could cock the shutter to at least get a partial shot and maybe double expose part of the previous image, but couldn’t do it. One of the shots I was dying to get was Gene Simmons spitting fire at the end of “Firehouse.” As luck would have it, I ran out of film at that precise moment.Īt the end of the song I took a shot of Gene as he held the torch up towards the crowd (which turned out to be blurry because I was nudged just as I took the shot), then I couldn’t advance the film to the next frame – I had hit the end of the roll. What an experience! Through magazine articles and TV appearances I was intimately aware of Kiss’s choreography and knew their songs in and out, so I was patient with my shot selection. Security would be all over the people in the aisle and would toss them back. I can’t imagine getting away with that today. I spent at least half the show parked in the aisle about three rows back. When the lights went down and Kiss took the stage, lots of people rushed to the front – including me. I pocketed it but due some events later in the show, never got it home. During his show I was sitting on the aisle seat and, lo and behold, a drum stick came bouncing down and stopped at my feat. I don’t remember seeing it, but Hagar was so frustrated with the crowd that he exposed himself and then smashed his vintage ’61 Fender Statocaster (see ). Sammy Hagar opened the show and was quite unremarkable. Even though the Vericolor was slow, I really loved its color response – something that looked more natural than the other, faster films from Kodak at the time. For film I had two rolls of Tri-X and one roll of Vericolor. Actually, it was my only camera, but I used it extensively over the years for yearbook pictures, covering sporting events for the local newspaper, and, of course, concerts. I brought my Dad’s Pentax with a 50mm lens – my “go to” camera. Ticket Stub for Kiss at Madison Square Garden February 18, 1977. Madison Square Garden is big – seated 19,600 according to TheSpotlight for this show – so I knew how special it was to be on the floor. I still remember the chills I got as I walked to my seat and looked back – and up – at the rest of the arena. With some finagling, we were able to score seats on the floor in the front, middle section. One of our friends had a cousin who lived in New Jersey where the tickets brokers resided. ![]() ![]() Growing up just outside New York City, my friends and I were always frustrated with not being able to get decent tickets to the big concerts. I was quite jealous, so a couple of years later when Kiss announced their debut concert at Madison Square Garden, I decided to go all in. As with all teenagers, it was extremely important for us to be the “first” to discover and love a new band, and we were hooked very early on Kiss – way before the rest of the world discovered them after their “Alive” album.Ī couple of my friends were lucky enough to score tickets to their show at the Beacon Theater in New York on Ma(remarkably the concert was recorded and can be heard in its entirety on YouTube). Sometime in 1974 my friends and I learned about a new band that was about to release their debut album: Kiss. Kiss at Madison Square Garden February 18, 1977.
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