Kiss’ Live Cover of the Who’s ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ Unearthed
To celebrate the 35th anniversary of Kiss‘ Asylum tour, guitarist Bruce Kulick has unearthed never-before-seen audio and video of the band performing a rare cover of the Who‘s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” live.
The tour, which kicked off Nov. 29, 1985 at the Barton Coliseum in Little Rock, Arkansas, featured the band taking a rare step outside of their own songbook by performing the Pete Townshend-penned 1971 hit as part of their nightly encore.
As Kulick notes, the Asylum tour was one of the only Kiss stage shows that wasn’t professionally filmed. But Kulick and editor Michael Edwards were able to combine fan-shot footage with audio from one of the soundboard tapes Kulick would request after every performance.
In addition to the live clip, Kulick shared his memories of the tour in a new video on his YouTube page, which can be seen below. He reveals that the distinctive yellow lightning bolt staircases which appear during the “Won’t Get Fooled Again” performance were jettisoned because they were unsafe to climb. “These things were really dangerous, I was so frightened of using them,” he explains. “It looked like I was going to kill myself on them. I do remember [drummer] Eric [Carr] having a stumble on them. That’s not a good idea, so we lost them.”
Although Kiss no longer plays the full version of “Won’t Get Fooled Again” live, for years they have incorporated the dramatic mid-song guitar and drum instrumental section of the song into their live performances of their own “Lick it Up.”
On Dec. 19, Kulick and Todd Kerns will perform an acoustic set of Kiss songs at the Kissmas Masquerade, which will be streamed live from the Kissmas2020 website.
