​DECEMBER 31ST 1973

MIKE MIRANDA

On New Year’s Eve 1973 my friend Paul and I went to the Academy of Music on 14th St. to see Blue Oyster Cult. As we approached the theatre we saw other bands listed on the marquee that we had never heard of but we were already pretty wacked-out on whatever we had decided to do to “prepare” for the show and we just figured “cool, we’re gonna get more than we thought out of this”. When you’re young and ready to hang all night this sounds like a great deal. Nowadays if I find I have to sit through three additional bands that I never heard of to see the one that I’m interested in I would likely pass! From what I recall we had pretty close seats on the right side of the Orchestra section (Stage-left if you are on stage). Before Kiss opened the show I was already pretty spaced-out but I remember when they started their set I thought that Paul had passed me some acid or something because I had never seen anything like this up to this point in my young life. These guys looked like giants and with the monster heels they were wearing and with the huge KISS logo above their heads I woke up pretty quickly! I was totally awestruck with their short show. From what I know now they were only on for about a half-hour but that was enough. I remember Gene throwing something that was on fire into the crowd which I heard later was flash paper which flares up then goes out and that he had accidentally hit some kid with it! I also remember him breathing fire (which was completely unbelievable to me!) and setting his hair aflame. I remember someone rushing onstage to put it out and the band continued. By the time they finished I was pretty speechless. My memories past this point of the show are a bit intermittent. I remember Teenage Lust as being a an impressionable young man the Lustettes definitely kept my attention! I remember Harold Black running around with his white suit. Iggy & the Stooges hit the stage and that was another WTF moment. The bass player was wearing a Nazi SS outfit, Iggy was wearing nothing but white shorts and I’m pretty sure that the keyboard player was playing with his feet at one point. Iggy was having a real hard time staying up on his feet and he fell in the orchestra pit a couple of times. One of those times he came flying back onstage and I was told by a friend who used to record one of my old bands, Eddie Solon, that he was in the pit and him and a friend had thrown Iggy back onstage! James Williamson I remember was pummeling his guitar while wearing a crazy rock ‘n’ roll Dracula kind of outfit. At some point in the night (as I said, the sequence of these events is pretty hazy at this point…) the oom-pah band from Luchows, the German restaurant next door, came onstage and played which was hysterical! I recall going to the men’s room and being fascinated by the New York glitter crowd that had come out for this extravaganza. Coming from the Bronx this was like going to the circus for me. I unfortunately have no recollection at all of Blue Oyster Cult’s set, and this is not a knock on BOC as they were the band we had originally intended to see that night. I have heard that Eric Bloom shaved his beard onstage that night but I cannot recall any of this. I may have just gone down for the count by that time and missed the show. BOC used to play extremely loud back then so I am surprised that that alone didn’t make me sit up and take notice! All in all, this show made a huge impression on me at this time of my life. I went to school the next week telling people about this crazy band named Kiss that I had seen and that they were going to be huge but none of my friends had heard of them yet and thought that I had taken too many drugs! I later became a huge Kiss fan for years just like many other guys of my generation. I am happy to see that this page has been created for this show as it was not just another passing show for me and I imagine not for the others that were there as well. Please continue to post whatever can be found from this show and thanks for taking the time to bring that night back to life.