Cleveland, Ohio February 1, 1976
Photo by Fin Costello
With the success of Alive! and a string of sold-out shows our masked heroes seem to have gotten into Gibson's good graces. No longer were they presented with the budget models, now they got personalized high-end instruments. Case in point, in December 1975 both Paul and Ace got matching black Les Paul Customs. (Well, almost, Ace opted to have the pickguard on his removed.) This guitar had chrome hardware which wasn't available on the catalogue version of the Custom, the bridge pickup was replaced by a DiMarzio Super Distorsion, and the truss rod cover was inscribed with "Paul". It first showed up on Providence on December 30 and you can identify it by the binding on the back of the body. This guitar was featured on the cover of the first tour book.
This Les Paul Custom never really made it into the rotation. It showed up quite a bit in February 1976 but at the end of that month Paul picked up the Ibanez Destroyer—which Ace quickly claimed for himself—and Gibson provided him with the replacement Firebird I. From March on Paul was much more likely to reach for one of those guitars rather than the Les Paul Custom even though it remained part of the backups. (At one point Paul even grabbed Ace's Les Paul Deluxe rather than go for the Les Paul Custom.)
We should note, however, that this was the fate of a lot of the majority of the backups throughout the years, to be out of sight. All the members had favorite guitars that they played incessantly and the backups rarely saw any action. For the most part they were just along for the ride and unless we have instrument lineup photos we would never even know they had been part of KISStory. (The best example is probably the Les Paul Triumph that Gene had for about eight months in 1976.) Paul's 1975 Les Paul Custom was still a backup during the band's first tour of Europe in May and June but after that it disappeared.
