Kiss' Full Local Concert Set From 2007, Plus Heavy Lies The Crown & The Northwest Updates!!

After some recent focus on weekend concert previews and The Soo's Got Talent, let's tackle some news and updates on this Sunday afternoon, including recent news coverage of a local band, videos from another, and leading off, a lot of new footage from a huge headlining concert from a decade & a half back. Here's what you should know!

Readers may recall a post from this summer when I covered a belated upload of master footage of the Kiss concert at the Sault Michigan Kewadin Casino in July 2007, featuring three songs from that night and Kiss receiving the key to the city. It was great to see high quality footage of this huge show again, but just eleven days after that video was uploaded, YouTube channel The Kissin' Time uploaded Kiss' entire set for fans to check out! No clue where The Kissin' Time got the footage (the channel isn't local), so this is either a massive coincidence or they saw an opportunity to fill in all of the blanks for Kiss Army members. This is definitely the same master camera footage uploaded by Anthony Alexander, but more, and it runs for a brisk one hour & 53 minutes. After all, you wanted the best, you got the best! This video also starts with the key to the city ceremony with then-City Commisioner (and ex-Rock 101 DJ) Ray Bauer.

As proof that this has everything shot with this camera re: Kiss' set (so no local openers), you do get to see pan shots of attendees at this outdoor concert with music on the P.A. system before Kiss take the stage. In performance order, you can see Paul, Gene, Tommy, and Eric perform "Detroit Rock City", "Deuce", "Makin' Love", the live debut of "All American Man", "Calling Dr. Love", "Lick It Up", "I Love It Loud", "Firehouse", "Do You Love Me?", "C'mon & Love Me", "Hotter Than Hell", "Watchin' You", "Shout It Out Loud", "God Of Thunder", "Got To Choose", "Love Gun", "Black Diamond", and in their encore, "Let Me Go, Rock N' Roll", "God Gave Rock & Roll To You II", and, of course, "Rock & Roll All Nite". If you're curious, eight songs played at this show were replaced by nine other/newer Kiss songs for their Sault Ontario concert three years later, so if you remember X song being played here, that may be why.

This concert took place 15 years ago, so even with this being the master video seen on the monitors that night, it won't look or sound as good as it would even 5 years later (note the 4:3 aspect ratio too), but it's all perfectly serviceable and you get a good sense for Kiss' live show across this whole set, and everyone sounds just as you'd hope they would, with loads of familiar hit songs from start to finish! Give Kiss' entire Sault Michigan concert from 2007 a look below!

Next up, here's the latest from St. Ignace metalcore band Heavy Lies The Crown, who have been working on writing new material in recent weeks, but have still posted on their Facebook page, primarily for crowd engagement purposes apart from official band talk.  They haven't been completely absent of tangible news though, starting with this video on October 8th that they called a "teaser of a teaser of a kinda teaser. Kinda". It features what appears to be 17 seconds of a new original song (no vocals) set to zooming and heavily filtered footage of a photo through a camera viewfinder. Possible album cover or just an aesthetic choice? What we hear sounds heavy and promising, so give it a look above! That same day, H.L.T.C. uploaded a longer video of singer Brandon West demonstrating some of his vocal techniques, featuring a cameo from one of his kids.

No word on why this was uploaded in black & white, but it's an interesting video on its own to hear Brandon's isolated vocals and just talking a little about his technique, something to be expanded on greatly when their teased new album is ready. Give it a watch below, and stay tuned for more from Heavy Lies The Crown!

We'll close today by heading north to Sault Ontario to look at some of the recent press attention that local indie/punk quintet The Northwest have been getting! On September 2nd, they were featured in this article by Record World International, where frontman Wayne Watkins talked about their approach to their new EP "All In" and how the pandemic affected its progress, with an extra focus on their song "Shoreline", which was apparently their first song explicitly sent to radio stations (remember that the two Sault Ontario-based music stations aren't good genre matches, so not necessarily ours). Good article that hypes their successes well, so give it a look above! For local press, SooToday's own Chris Belsito interviewed & featured them for an article on October 3rd, aptly titled "The Northwest is on the brink of something big", where Wayne talked about their recent momentum & their strategy to expand their name beyond the Soo.

For future plans, The Northwest have applied to get on the lineup of multiple concert festivals here and abroad next summer, and will likely next play a local concert near the holidays at LopLops Lounge. Their next show anywhere will actually be in North Bay on Thursday, when they open for past local concert headliner David Dino White at a mystery venue that will only be revealed to advance ticket holders (click here for details on this conceit). Exciting times are ahead for The Northwest, so stay tuned for more from them this week, read above for these new articles, and stay tuned for more news and notes in the coming days! Thanks everyone!