Related: How do I disable the boot splash screen, and only show kernel and boot text instead?
Okay, so this was marked as a duplicate, apparently, but I only noticed this now. Is the marked duplicate the same as what I was asking? I was asking at the time how to disable the boot splash screen in order to see kernel output during boot. I did not ask how to disable X loading automatically, because I want to see the kernel output during boot then continue to load X and GNOME/Unity.
I'm thinking this is wrongly marked as a duplicate because the "duplicate" is asking how to disable GUI boot altogether, which is not what my question was asking.
I'd like that reopened rather than left marked as a dupe. Besides, it already has a good answer that answers the question and that answer has a +20 vote on it.