KISS will be making an appearance on SiriusXM’s “The Howard Stern Show” this Wednesday, March 1 and are expected to reveal details about their final concert on the band’s current “End Of The Road” farewell tour
The make-up clad rockers initially launched their farewell tour in January of 2019, however due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, had to shelve the expected run in 2020.
KISS‘s “End Of The Road” tour was originally supposed to wrap up on July 17, 2021 in New York City, however the massive worldwide run is now set to extend well into 2023.
Last month, KISS‘s longtime manager Doc McGhee spoke with “Podcast Rock City” and said that the band’s final concert will definitely take place in 2023.
When asked about the possibility of KISS continuing without co-founding members Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, Doc said (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “There’s a lot of talk about everything. And nobody knows what’s gonna happen in the future. So what we’ve kind of put in our minds is let’s go through this like this is the end of KISS as we know it. And whatever comes our way, with technology and everything else, we’ll look at it. Will it be Gene and Paul out there in makeup. No. I can tell you that. They’re hanging their hats up after the [final] show, which is gonna be very, very difficult and very emotional for them after 50 years of doing this. And they love it.
“A lot of my bands — most of my bands — [say], ‘I hate this. I don’t wanna be out there anymore. I don’t wanna do this. This is bullshit.’ That’s not [Paul and Gene],” Doc continued. “They love it. They thrive on it. We have a great time on the road, or an extremely good time on the road. So, it’s, like, ‘Why are we ending this?’ And we’re ending this because this is the time to end it. This is it, 50 years of KISS. And let them move on to their next phase of whatever they wanna do, whether it’s Gene in business or having a country named after him, the Gene Simmons World; we don’t know, however that works. And Paul’s got a family. He’s got three kids — he actually has four kids, but he’s got three kids in the house.
“For us, we’re just kind of open,” McGhee explained. “People are throwing ideas around to us, and then we’ll look at it. But, really, it has to be amazing. We don’t fall for gimmicks, as much as some people would think we’re a gimmick. But we don’t fall for ’em. We didn’t do NFTs, we didn’t do all that stuff, because we didn’t believe in it. We didn’t believe that people were gonna get anything out of it. And it wasn’t gonna be long-lasting.
“I like to think years and years ahead; I don’t like to think days ahead. So with that, we’re gonna go and finish this up and see what happens in the realm of the metaverse and the world of that type of things that can come back and people can experience things in different ways for KISS.
“To me, KISS is more like Marvel. There’s all kinds of things that can happen with KISS, and probably will. So it’s a whole new frontier out there starting in ’24.”
In an interview with Yahoo! entertainment music editor Lyndsey Parker, Paul Stanley spoke about the band’s eventual final show, saying: “You’ve gotta remember that Gene and I started this together when I was 17 and he was 20, 21. It’s 50 years later. We’ve lived pretty interesting lives, and we have families and children and huge sales in terms of albums and concerts. So it’s a big part of who we are; it’s a big part of our lives. So, that final show, yeah, that’s momentous. And it’s gonna hit harder than I think we know. And we know it’s gonna hit hard.”
When asked whether the last concert of KISS‘s “End Of The Road” tour will truly mark the band’s final performance or if there is a chance of one-off shows or perhaps another Las Vegas residency in the future, Stanley said: “I really can’t say. But it is the last of any kind of regular shows or touring.
“It’s just time,” he explained. “And in the same way, it’s time consuming. And physically, it’s grueling to do what we do. Hell, if I could go out on stage in my jeans and a t-shirt, give us another 10, 15 years easily. But what we do is a whole different sport. I mean, we’re athletes; we’re running around on stage with 30, 40, pounds of gear, and it’s not possible to do it that much longer. So we’re not like other bands.
“So, will we do more shows or one-offs? I really have no idea,” Paul admitted. “But this is a real clear mindset that the touring days and doing those kind of shows, that’s over.”
The current lineup of KISS features founding members Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, along with guitarist Tommy Thayer and drummer Eric Singer.
