KISS – Rocks Islington
By: Vance Kent
Published September 2011, 138 pages (250 copies)

The “I WAS THERE” book

As all die hard Kiss fans know Kiss played an one off concert at O2 Academy in Islington, London last year. A small club with just room for a couple of hundred people. A concert that most Kiss fans could just dream about getting tickets to because of the demand. Even people that work at Classic Rock who arranged the concert had problems getting tickets for the event. But a lucky few got tickets by phone. And this book is their story (well mostly pictures) from the concert most fans just dreamed of seeing. Both the bootleg DVD’s and CD’s that have come from the show has been great so I was quite excited when I was told the book was coming out, even in a very limited edition. As I have said before I really love these ‘fan made’ books.

So first of all the book contains mostly pictures. So It isn’t very difficult to make up one opinion about the book. And the pictures are over all really good, and captures the same feeling I had when I was watching the bootleg DVD. The pictures are divided into ‘chapters’ from what song they are taken from. A really cool idea. The layout is also quite well done. After all the pictures we get some short stories from people who attended the concert. Not many, but the ones who are featured are a good read. I would really have liked to see lot’s more, because that is really a reason one would pull the book off the shelf more often.

OK. That was mostly positive stuff. Now the only thing that I really don’t like at all. The format of the book. When one releases a photo book, A5 pages are more or less useless and really don’t do the pictures justice at all. It’s difficult to read the book and see all the cool pictures, because of the size and that the binding is quite tight. But as I said It is more or less the only thing I don’t like about the book. Otherwise the book is a great memorabilia for those who were there and for those of us who were not. And for the ones who were there the book is a must to have.

Verdict: 7/10