American rock legends Kiss will hang it up, at least in the live sense, at the end of a fifty-year career when they play their final two shows on December 1 and 2 at New York City’s Madison Square Garden. Kiss were supposed to play their final show in 2021, but pandemic delays to the lengthy final tour meant rescheduling the conclusion.
Last month, manager Doc McGhee told Podcast Rock City that the band was definitely done when key members Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons call it quits:
“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]. 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.”
But don’t worry, the Kiss merchandising empire isn’t going anywhere:
“To me, Kisss 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.”