Kiss News

By Allison Stewart / Chicago Tribune

It’s a fact of modern rock ’n’ roll life that almost no one truly goes away forever. Long-feuding bands reunite for seven-figure Coachella deals; rappers return from the dead as holograms.

Legendary rock band KISS is in the early dates of a farewell tour (the group’s second) that will hit United Center on Saturday and continue on for two years. No one seems sure what will happen after that, though it seems unthinkable that the quartet, one of history’s most successful bands and rock’s most successful brands, will cease to exist.

An affable Paul Stanley, 67, the group’s lead singer, co-founder, and, with Gene Simmons, its joint CEO, got on the phone to address the particulars: Is KISS really going away forever? Will ex-members Ace Frehley and Peter Criss, whose controversial excommunication from the band bordered on biblical, return for the end? If it even is the end?

The following is an edited transcript of that conversation:

Q: How are you approaching every night? Are you going out there like, “This is the last time Kiss will ever play Dallas,” or, “This is the last time Kiss will ever play Chicago”?

A: It really feels more like a celebration than a funeral. I guess it’s how you look at it. ... We’ve all been in a position where something ends — a relationship, a life — and you have all these regrets about what you didn’t say, and if you’d only known. We’re in this amazing position where we get to do a tour and connect all the dots, and celebrate our relationships. It’s celebratory.

by BRANDY MCDONNELL / NewsOK

Concert review: KISS makes 'End of the Road' OKC tour stop an explosive thrill ride

The illustrious showmen of KISS made sure the “End of the Road” was a nonstop thrill ride Tuesday night during the Oklahoma City stop on their final tour.

The multigenerational KISS Army – boasting followers ranging from graybeards to grade-schoolers and everyone in between, including more than few face-painted fanatics – packed Chesapeake Energy Arena for a two-hour farewell that put the “extra” in extravaganza.

As the black curtain draping the massive stage dramatically fell away, the quartet was revealed in all its rock god glory, from the signature stage makeup down to the flashy platform boots, and began blasting through “Detroit Rock City.”

The familiar booming introduction of "You wanted the best, you got the best — the hottest band in the world: KISS!” immediately proved a literal truth, as the first of countless plumes of pyrotechnics blazed forth from the silvery pyramid behind the drum riser.

By KOCO Staff

OKLAHOMA CITY — It’s a reunion 40 years in the making. Four teenagers were living in the Panama Canal while their fathers were stationed there for the military. During that time, they bonded over their love of KISS’ music.

CLICK HERE to view the interview video.

By Bob Mehr /  Memphis Commercial Appeal

Roughly four miles and 45 years separated rock band KISS’s first appearance in Memphis from its last. In April of 1974, the group – fresh off the release of their self-titled debut – played Lafayette’s Music Room in Overton Square; on Saturday night the group brought its “End of the Road” farewell tour downtown for a stop at the FedExForum.

Other than distance and time (and some 100 million in record sales), little separated the two Bluff City performances. Both were spectacles – monuments even – to deliciously over-the-top theatrics, swaggeringly silly rock songs, and the strange power of four guys in makeup and platforms playing power chords.  

The FedExForum – like most of the venues on KISS’s final victory lap – was sold out, packed with partisans young and old (though more of the latter), eager for an evening of mindless rock bliss. They were not disappointed.  

By Doug MacCash, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

KISS, the world’s most immediately recognizable rock band, is calling it quits after more than four decades atop spangled six-inch platforms. But not before a fabulous farewell tour.

On Friday night (Feb. 22) at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans, the kabuki-faced quartet proved why it is worthy of the Mount Rushmore of hard rock, pounding through 20 classics with the verve of performers half its members' ages.

Frontman Paul Stanley - he of the high notes, the shag, the signature black star and alluring red lipstick - said he remembered when the band first played the legendary Warehouse in New Orleans in 1976. Kiss has rocked the Crescent City area several times since (most recently at the 2017 Gretna Heritage Festival), but it’s doubtful the band has ever produced a more spectacular psycho circus than Friday’s show, with its heart-fluttering explosions, skyscraping stage elevators, bazooka guitars, trapeze, confetti cumuli and fire geysers. Time and again, the audience was swept with waves of heat as if someone had opened the oven to check whether the brownies were done.