It was recorded at Kelvin Hall in Glasgow, Scotland, in early 1967 and released in August 1967 in the US (as The Live Kinks), and January 1968 in the UK.

The Kinks played two sets in the Scene '67 Theatre inside Kelvin Hall on 1 April 1967; one at 6:30 and the other at 9:30 pm, with the bands Sounds Incorporated and the Fortunes opening.

The Kinks' set was the finale of a ten-day teen music-festival, sponsored by a local discotheque club and The Daily Record, a Glasgow newspaper.

[10] Jim Green of Trouser Press wrote of the band's "mercurial" gigs in which they "seemingly pull songs out of thin air" and perform unexpected material, describing this as a characteristic that dates back to the group's early days and which is represented on Live at Kelvin Hall.

"[12] Charles Shaar Murray wrote the band sound "curiously tinny and underpowered" underneath "the up-front, full-bodied quality of the screaming."

[13] The album fared no better in the UK; upon release in January 1968 as Live at Kelvin Hall, it received only moderate advertising and mixed reviews.

"[14] Detroit Free Press reviewer Loraine Alterman wrote that: "Except for the annoying screaming meant to prove this was recorded live, the collection of Kinks' member Ray Davies' songs makes this a top notch album", and drew attention to "A Well Respected Man" and "Sunny Afternoon" for making "perceptive social comments.

[10] In 1972, Rolling Stone writer Metal Mike Saunders described the album as "an evocation of everything the Kinks have ever meant at their best: effeteness (what vocals!)

Reviewing the reissue for Uncut, Ian MacDonald described Kelvin Hall as "a frenzied audio-document of Sixties beat-hysteria, taped live in a sea of ceaseless screaming".

He wrote that while the album is valuable as a live document of the Kinks, the "damn noisy" crowd make it "hard to hear anything besides screaming."