Fewer than 10 people witnessed the first live performances by Kiss on Jan. 30, 1973 at the Popcorn Club in Queens, N.Y. According to bassist Gene Simmons, the group was paid $50 for performing two sets that evening.

Simmons and guitarist / co-frontman Paul Stanley had recently left their previous band, Wicked Lester, recruiting drummer Peter Criss and lead guitarist Ace Frehley for their new group. Their goal, as Simmons explained in a series of anniversary posts on the band's official site, was to "put together the band we never saw onstage."

After their first manager quit, declaring the new band's music "the worst crap he ever heard," Simmons took over. He cold-called the Popcorn Club (which was soon to be renamed the Coventry), convincing them to hire the band for a three-night stand for $150.

As you can see in this photograph from that era, the band's trademark facepaint and costumes were still in an embryonic phase, but those first shows featured many of the songs on which the group would build their reputation in the coming years: "Deuce," "Black Diamond," "Watchin' You" and many more.

Watch Kiss Perform 'Deuce' in 1973

Since those humble beginnings, of course, Kiss rose in relatively quick fashion to the top of the music industry. By the end of the decade, they were arguably the biggest rock band in the world, and to date the group has released 20 studio albums and pioneered the merchandising of rock music.

Frehley and Criss would leave the group in the early '80s (returning for a few years in the late '90s), but Stanley and Simmons endured several career ups and downs to earn the group its current place among rock's most enduring and popular bands.