KISS Announces Final Concerts

Blabbermouth

KISS will play its last-ever shows on December 1 and December 2 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The dates for the concerts were announced earlier today (Wednesday, March 1) during an in-studio interview with “The Howard Stern Show”.

Produced by Live Nation, KISS‘s final show dates will kick off this October and culminate in a massive show in the city where it all began for the band. New York City has been a part of the group’s ethos and storyline for more than four decades, so they felt it fitting to culminate an iconic Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame-worthy career on stage at New York’s famed MADISON SQUARE GARDEN.

“KISS was born in New York City. On 23rd Street. Half a century ago. It will be a privilege and honor to finish touring at Madison Square Garden, 10 blocks and 50 years from where we first started,” said the band.

Tickets will be available starting Monday, March 6, with a KISS Army presale at 10 a.m. local time. Additional presales will be available throughout the week before the general on sale starting on Friday, March 10 at 10 a.m. local time at livenation.com.

Fall 2023 tour dates:

October 29 – Austin, TX – Moody Center
November 01 – Palm Springs, CA – Acrisure Arena
November 03 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Bowl
November 06 – Seattle, WA – Climate Pledge Arena
November 08 – Vancouver, BC – Rogers Arena
November 10 – Edmonton, AB – Rogers Place
November 12 – Calgary, AB – Scotiabank Saddledome
November 13 – Saskatoon, SK – SaskTel Centre
November 15 – Winnipeg, MB – Canada Life Centre
November 18 – Montreal, QC – Centre Bell
November 19 – Quebec, QC – Videotron Centre
November 21 – Ottawa, ON – Canadian Tire Centre
November 22 – Toronto, ON – Scotiabank Arena
November 24 – Knoxville, TN – Thompson-Boling Arena
November 25 – Indianapolis. IN – Gainbridge Fieldhouse
November 27 – Rosemont, IL – Allstate Arena
November 29 – Baltimore, MD – CFG Bank Arena
December 01 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden
December 02 – New York, NY -Madison Square Garden

KISS launched its farewell trek in January 2019 but was forced to put it on hold in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“End Of The Road” was originally scheduled to conclude on July 17, 2021 in New York City but has since been extended to late 2023. The trek was announced in September 2018 following a KISS performance of the band’s classic song “Detroit Rock City” on “America’s Got Talent”.

Last month, KISS‘s longtime manager Doc McGhee told “Podcast Rock City” that the band’s final show will definitely take place “this year.”

Asked about the possibility of KISS continuing without co-founders Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, Doc said: “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 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.”

KISS‘s current lineup consists of original members Stanley and Simmons, alongside later band additions, guitarist Tommy Thayer (since 2002) and drummer Eric Singer (on and off since 1991).

Formed in 1973 by Stanley, Simmons, Peter Criss and Ace Frehley, KISS staged its first “farewell” tour in 2000, the last to feature the group’s original lineup.

In a recent interview with Yahoo! entertainment music editor Lyndsey Parker, Stanley touched upon the fact that the “End Of The Road” tour was originally scheduled to conclude in July 2021. He said: “This tour, interestingly, seems to go on forever. That’s because we lost two years to COVID. People go, ‘Oh my God. This tour…’ Well, yeah, there’s two years that didn’t count. And it’s a big world. So, there’ve been some countries that I thought we were finished with, and the fans and the promoters wanted us to come back. So we have shows to do.

“The end is in sight — more so than some people know,” Stanley confirmed. “But we’ll have an announcement about that in the not-too-distant future.”

Asked if the KISS farewell tour will end with the band’s July 15 performance in Norway, which is the last listed tour date on the official KISS web site, Paul said, “It would only make sense for us to play the States, and I think it would make sense that we would end where we started,” strongly hinting that the final concert will take place in New York City.

As for whether he thinks it will be emotional for him to play the final KISS show, Paul said: “More so than I know. There’s gonna be some tears shed, for sure.

“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.”

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 a 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.”

In early 2019, Stanley told Australia’s “Sunday Night” that “Rock And Roll All Nite” “has to be” the song that KISS performs as the last encore at the final concert of the “End Of The Road” tour. “That is the rock anthem that connects the world,” he explained. “It was the start of other people coming up with anthems. They really didn’t exist, per se. So, ‘Rock And Roll All Nite And Party Every Day’, that’s a song that just connects with people on all different levels.”

Simmons concurred, telling BUILD Series: “How do you not end with ‘Rock And Roll All Nite’? We will have played that song, probably without exception, more than any other song we’ve ever been involved with. You might say, ‘Aren’t you sick and tired of hearing that?’ But I will tell you the roar of the crowd, the smell of the grease paint, there ain’t nothing like it. When you hear everybody getting jazzed about that and you get off the stage… [it’s] like the fire in the belly. You’re dog-tired; you’ve just done a big show; and you get up on that stage, when you see the joy in everybody’s face… We’ve seen it all. We’ve been around for generations, but when you see a little 5-year-old kid in KISS makeup on his dad’s shoulders who’s wearing KISS makeup, next to his father… we’re badass kind of guys — nothing affects us much — but that stuff will put a lump in your throat. You have to turn around for a second. It gets me. Yes, it’s music, but it’s generational, and it brings families together instead of separates [sic] them.”

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KISS Announces Final Concerts