A journey through the past of some of the most groundbreaking concert tours in terms of staging and lighting design. Featuring information, videos, and historical context to groundbreaking tours by artists such as U2, KISS, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Metallica, and many more.
This is the first post for this website, and I am going to start off with one of my favorite stage designs of the 1970's, and the one that really got me interested in stage design in the first place: Mark Ravitz's design for the KISS Destroyer and Rock N Roll over tours that toured America from July 1976 through April 1977. These tours marked two of the most successful tours KISS has ever had in terms of attendance, although people tend to remember and favor KISS's stage design for their Love Gun/Alive 2 tours. This stage is very polarizing for some reason, some think it is genius and others really don't appreciate it. I however think it was groundbreaking for the time and it was really the only time that Kiss went out on tour with a stage that was this theatrical and ambitious and played upon their larger than live superhero sensibilities.
Designeer Mark Ravitz was kind enough to talk to me about the design, his background and shared with me some blueprints and photos of the set. One of the reason's that I am a big fan of the design is that it is very theatrical in nature and differed from KISS's previous tours that were compromised mainly of speakers and a drum riser. With the exception of a few, mainly British artists such as David Bowie (who Ravitz had designed his 1974 Diamond Dogs Stage with Jules Fischer for), Yes, and American Alice Cooper, this was one of the first overtly theatrical sets to be taken on tour by a rock band. Jules Fischer was primarily known for designing sets for Broadway productions and looking at the model, it is obvious that this was KISS's most dramatic stage they have ever done. Over 80 feet wide and designed to fit into large indoor arena's and stadiums, the stage was an impressive sight.
It was also the first stage to feature raised platforms on either side of the stage which would be come a staple of rock concerts in the decades to come. Below are pre-show and show photos taken by mark Ravitz.
KISS had met with huge commercial and financial success in late 1975 with their live concert album ALIVE. They had earned a reputation with America's teens as having outdone Alice Cooper with the wildest stage show around, which featured Peter Criss's levitating drums, Gene Simmons blood spitting and fire breathing, and Ace Frehley's smoking guitar. All accompanied by explosions, smoke, and 20 foot tall flame throwers. See Photo Below of their 1975 Alive Tour Set:
Taking it to the Next Level For their next tour supporting their new album Destroyer, they had a larger budget and they wanted to raise the bar, something KISS would consistently do for the next 35 years. Some of the original road crew that had been with the band since the beginning were ditched by management, who claimed the band needed more "seasoned professionals" to handle the more complicated touring production even though they had designed some of the bands most impressive effects. The Destroyer tour took its design from the album artwork and featured a burned out apocalyptic city as the theme. Based on their success not only on broadway but with their crossover work with David Bowie and the Rolling Stones , The Jules Fischer Organization was hired to produce the stage. Mark Ravitz was hired to freelance this design, as Jules had been his professor during his time at the NYU theatrical design program. Mark shared these blueprints with me:
"The idea being that different portions of the stage would thematically correspond to a different band member's stage persona." (from Kiss Alive Forever) It featured a multi-level design that had 8' x 3' platforms on top of the guitar amps and steps that descended from them to the main stage, a theme that would continue though 1980 in various forms. On either side of the drum riser, covering the large stack of guitar amps were theatrical flats that looked like destroyed buildings. See the blueprint here.
Foam pieces that could "crumble" off were attached to the flats but were also dropped due to the time it took to clean them off stage.
Cats
On the drum riser on either side were two large paper mache 6' cats with glowing green eyes that were themed with Peter Criss's "Catman" persona.
UPDATE: At the load out of the August 29th show in Atlanta at the Atlanta/Fulton County stadium, the set of cats were stolen. An order was put in for a replacement set but the new ones had a different design and were bulkier and thicker. The original cats turned up as Halloween decorations outside an Atlanta suburb in recent years. See below:
As you can see they looked a lot sleeker than the cats that replaced them as seen below:
Above Photo: Richard Galbraith UPDATE: The second set of cats turned up in the mid 1980's at a Philadelphia area nightclub called Pulsations. They were on display along with "Sam the Serpent" from Kiss's 1977/78 Love Gun Alive II stage during Halloween in the basement of the club. The casts have recently been spotted in a KISS Themed Rehearsal Studio in New Jersey. See below for photos from Pulsations and the more recent rehearsal studio:
Levitating Drum Riser
t the end of the show, the drum riser would elevate on a scissor lift that was hidden from view by a giant scrim with a snarling cat emblazoned on it. See the blueprints here.
Lunar Landscape and Demon's Castle
Flanking either side of the stage were raised platforms that were accessed via stairs. Each side was covered by a fabric scrim that was themed to Ace and Gene's respective characters. Ace Frehley's raised platform resembled a lunar mountain (Ace being the spaceman) and on which he would solo from atop of. At the 13:05 point of the video below you can see Ace atop it:
In this shot below taken before the show, you can get a nice look at the platforms and the painted scrims covering them as well as the cloud that housed the confetti machines.
Gene Simmons raised platform was designed to look like an old gothic castle from which a bloody stake that would rise up as he did his spitting blood routine(as his bat demon character). Mark Ravitz shared this blueprint for the stake that would also spew fog from perforated holes at the top of it.
* Update July 2022 - Thanks to a recently unearthed angle fromAnaheim1976, we can now see our first clear wide shot of the red stake during the blood spitting spectacle at the 36:22 mark:
A closer angle can be seen here shot at Cobo Hall Detroit in January of 1977:
Electric Towers
Behind and on either side of the stage were three electrical towers, that Ravitz had designed to look like the numerous towers that were on the New Jersey Freeways. They acted as light towers from which par cans and a spotlight and operator were mounted and from which KISS Army banners would drop at the end of the show.
According to the Kiss Alive Forever book, Rick Munroe the band's lighting designer was upset when he saw that the design only had back lighting from these towers and the only front light came from spotlights in the area. This was subsequently changes during the next tour. The electrical towers also had chaser lights that looked like christmas lights that connected them and ran out into the balcony of the arena. You can see those clearly in the photo below:
The electrical towers were scrapped for the Rock N Roll Over Tour in the Fall and Winter of 1976/1977.
Flash Balls
An effect that was left over from the 1975/76 Alive Tour was a mirror-like ball but instead of being covered in mirror pieces, it was covered in flash bulbs. During the intro of Black Diamond before the band breaks in, Paul yells "hit it!" and the bulbs would go off creating a very light flash of light that was blinding. According toan interview Jeff Suhs and Curt Gooch conducted for Kiss Alive Forever, the ball(s) were built by lighting designed Rick Munroe for a show in Chicago where they weren't allowed to use Pyro. The prototype impressed manager Bill Aucoin enough that he ordered 6 of them be made. Two hung over the stage, two over the audience and two at the back of the house. It's unclear how many were used on the Destroyer tour. Although you can see the residual flash of them on stage in videos taken in 1975/76 there has not been video of the ball(s) going off until a wide angle of the 1976 Anaheim concert was unearthed. You can clearly see 1 of the mirror flash balls going off in the below video at the 1:06:21 mark:
Crystals and Ramp
As seen in the model above the floor was covered in a design that looked like a lunar surface on Ace Frehley's side of the stage, and parched, cracked earth on Gene Simmons' side. Frontman Paul Stanley had initially been designed a multi-colored jewel and mirror encrusted area at the front center of the stage that can be seen in the photos of the model. However, according to Ravitz, the band was unhappy with it and upon first seeing it at dress rehearsals, destroyed most of it while the tech crew looked on in shock. The front center area also featured a ramp that descended slightly towards the audience but that was removed after the first several shows. Thanks to a recently leaked video of rehearsals for the tour, we can see that the ramp was outlined by lights that could do a chase sequence and flash on and off.
Here are some rare photos of the ramp and the crystals:
You can get a good view of the crystals after the ramp had been ditched in this photo:
In this rehearsal video taken in June of 1976 at the Stewart International Airport where the band was testing the new stage you can clearly see the ramp and at the 15:14 mark you can see the chase and flash patterns that outlined the ramp.
Clouds and Lighting Bolts Hanging above the set were several large clouds and lighting bolts that hid confetti machines behind them and occasionally acted as a video screen, one of the first uses of the then-brand new technology that is now commonplace at all arena sized shows. Ravitz designed the lighting bolts to mimic the S's in the KISS logo and had them painted red, white, and blue in honor of America's 1976 bicentennial that summer. A blueprint of the clouds and thunderbolts can be seen here.
The Twisted Tree
One of my favorite touches to the set was a decrepit tree that looked like it came straight out of a horror movie cemetery. It stood on Gene Simmons side of the stage, and rumor has it that it was originally designed to spin around on a revolving turntable but no photos of video can be found of that effect. In photos the tree looked to be about 15 feet tall and was supposedly made of rubber. Unlike the Electrical towers it stayed on when the Destroyer Tour became the Rock N Roll Over tour in the Winter of 76/77.
The God of Thunder/Frankenstein/Tesla Machine
Ingo Floren shared with me this lighting list (Page 1, Page 2) which detailed all the channels for the lighting board. Mysteriously the "God of Thunder Machine" is listed and I have heard various rumors about what this actually was because closeup videos or photos exist of it. Mark Ravitz claimed to have not remembered anything about it while Curt Gooch and Jef Suhs in Kiss Alive Forever say that it was originally designed in 1931 by Ken Strickfadden for Frankenstein. It was supposedly a giant Tesla coil that would emit colored beams of electricity but reportedly got dropped from the tour early on due to its weight and unreliability. Here is Jeff Suh's on the tesla coil that Kiss used: "Ken Anderson, when we interviewed him in 2001 for KISS Alive Forever, had made the observation that this giant Tesla coil was "really impressive sitting in the production meeting room, but when you moved it to a 15,000-seat arena you could barely see it". The crew detested it. One, it weighed a freaking ton and took four or five guys to move it into place and set it up. More importantly, it was unbelievably finicky and dangerous. Basically it relies upon static electricity to jump from a large sphere to a thin circle of metal a couple of radial feet away. Problem was that the electricity would jump to anything metal, not just the circle of metal. The entire stage had metal all over it and it created an obvious hazard. The device was used at most (possibly all, it is very difficult to confirm) of the shows between July 3, 1976 and September 12, 1976, but was ditched prior to the Rock and Roll Over tour's debut on November 24, 1976 although they did rehearse with it for the tour. According to Fritz Postlethwaite and Moose Oreckinto, the God of Thunder Machine as it was used on the Summer Tour '76 took anywhere from five to eight stagehands to lift into place. It weighed a ton. So imagine having an even larger device; you'd need a crane to move it around. Fritz said the generator sat on a remote controlled crawler like a scissor lift with four wheels. The front two steered like a remote control race car only the control console was wired to the device. It was slow because the thing was so heavy. At each venue the 8 foot metal ring was put together and mounted. The electricity came from the center of a canister-like metal can and arced to the ring. My recollection is that it (the circle/sphere) was two-dimensional. If you stood to the side it was flat. My problem with the device was that the RF [radio frequency] thrown off by it was horrendous. I would turn down all the monitor amps fearing a spike could blow out speakers."
User JKISS on the Kissfaq.com message board made a helpful photo that identifies the various parts from the best known photo:
*Update July 2022 - A recently unearthed angle from the Anaheum 1976 show has given us the most clear video evidence of the God of Thunder Machine in action. In the below video you can see the device being raised up on the scissor lift at the 40:46 mark. It goes about 30 feet in the air and we then can clearly hear and see the electricity at the 43:28 mark in the video as the band goes back into the song God of Thunder.
To wrap things up, I found this small news piece in Rolling Stone Issue 222 from 1976 where Jules Fischer gives a brief synopsis on the stage:
Unfortunately, there are few pro shot videos that show the stage in its full glory. However, Serpent3D on Youtube created a fantastic 3D render of the stage so one can get a feel of how it would have looked like in person.
Here is one of the few pro shot videos that exist featuring the closing song Black Diamond, filmed at Anaheim Stadium in Anaheim, CA in 1976.
In closing I want to give a big thank you to Mark Ravitz for taking the time to talk with me and share his blueprints and photos. I also want to thank Inglo Floren of the Flaming Youth Kiss website for sharing info about the stage on their site, to Richard Galbraith for kindly sharing his photos and also to Curt Gooch and Jeff Suhs authors of KISS ALIVE FOREVER, an amazing book detailing all of KISS's tours and shows. Check back for the next feature which is a detailed look into Pink Floyd's Animals tour.
