They've been rocking and rolling all night and partying every day for over three decades now. KISSology 3 is the latest volume in the KISSology set, a series of DVDs covering the band's career in concert and interview footage. The third volume focuses on the band's nineties material. ***

Starting things off is a show from the band's 1992 Revenge tour, filmed in Detroit's Palace of Aubern Hills. The band here features drummer Eric Singer, who replaced the late Eric Carr (who had died of cancer the previous year.) The video footage from this show had been released previously on a home video called KISS Konfidential, but had the Alive III audio track slapped on. This package features the show with its proper, original audio track - at long last. Sadly though, this isn't the complete concerts, and a few cuts have been made to the setlist, including the performances of Strutter and Shout It Out Loud. ***

We then move onto the legendary 1995 MTV Unplugged concert. The concert has been unavailable on home video for years, and this is (to my knowledge) the only legit release of it on DVD. But in this set, the band does one better and gives us the COMPLETE concert. Home video versions and the accompanying CD release from 1995 omitted several tracks. This is the concert in its full-length, uncensored glory, complete with infamous “country” version of God of Thunder! ***

Along with the Unplugged concert, the band also includes a “behind the scenes” documentary that goes more in depth at this classic show. This isn't the same doc that appeared on the VHS pressing of the Unplugged show, though. Still, why couldn't they include that one as well? ***

1996 saw the classic KISS line-up of Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Peter Criss, and Ace Frehley reuniting. Next up on the DVD is the classic Detroit Tiger Stadium reunion concert, chronicling this ever-so-important event in KISStory. Unfortunately, it doesn't get the treatment it should have. The show was NOT filmed for home video, and instead the footage here is compiled from “video screen” footage that was projected at the show. The footage focuses too much on individual band member close-ups, and not enough on the stage as a whole, or even shots of the audience. And, as you may have guessed, the moments of the concert that didn't use video footage just feature audio on a blacked-out screen. While this projection footage surely worked great at the actual show, it just doesn't translate well to home video. Like the Revenge tour, a few cuts are missing here as well. Great concert, VERY disappointing outcome on this disc. ***

1996 also saw KISS performing at the MTV awards. For the awards show, the band played five songs. A brief performance, but still a solid one. ***

1998 was the year the reunited KISS released the studio album Psycho Circus. Needless to say, a tour ensued. The next show on the disc is from that tour, at Dodger Stadium. A great, lengthy show of extremely high quality. The only real issue is that the band was unable to locate footage taken with the camera that was recording Peter Criss, so the footage of the legendary drummer at this concert is minimal. ***

In 1999, the film Detroit Rock City was released. The band played four songs at the movie's premier party in Los Angeles. Again, it's a very brief show, but all of the songs performed are terrific. ***

2000 was the year KISS launched their Farewell Tour. This is a New Jersey concert from the tour. It was one of the band's most popular tours of all time, and this show chronicles it perfectly. Great performance from the whole band. ***

Sadly, a few concerts/appearances that would have gone great in the set are MIA. Amongst them are the Arsenio Hall Show, Mad TV, and Dick Clark's Rockin New Years Eve '93. Still, in the long run these are small complaints.

Image And Sound:

The audio and video differ from show to show, as each one is taken from different source material. However, these shows are more recent than those featured in earlier KISSologies, so generally both qualities surpass those of the earlier sets. Regular stereo and 5.1 surround sound mixes are included.

The DVD features three Easter Eggs, one on each disc. These short-but-sweet eggs consist of some behind-the-scenes footage on the making of Carnival of Souls, a sound check from the MTV awards, and a Canadian millennium performance. ***

Early pressings of the set include a rare 1973 club performance - believed to be the earliest-known video footage of the band. Sadly, this suffers from poor video quality (it was shot with a handheld camera from the back of the club.) Entertaining, but it's really only the die-hard fans who will get a kick out of this. It doesn't really belong on a set that's a chronicle of the band's nineties period, but as a big-time fan I'm not complaining. ***

AS with earlier KISSologies, you can get this one with a bonus disc, depending on where you make the purchase. Different retailers have a different bonus disc, and amongst these bonus concert discs available with the set are ones filmed at Sao Paulo, Irvine Meadows, and Madison Square Garden. I'm getting annoyed with the DVDs being marketed this way…. Why can't they just offer all this bonus stuff in one place? Take my advice, though - should you choose to get the set, get it ASAP, so you can get the 1973 first-pressing-only performance, as well as one of the bonus discs available. ***

Commentary:

Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Tommy Thayer, and Bruce Kulick teamed up to record commentary for the set. Strangely, the commentary is not mentioned on the set's packaging, and it can only be found in the set's setup menu. The commentary is set up so it doesn't talk over the entire concert, but mostly just at the beginnings/ends of songs. Because of this, the comments are rather brief, but they tend not to disrupt the actual music at hand. If you ask me, for a concert DVD, this actually works better than feature-length commentary.

Final Words: