Kiss have unveiled their ‘new era’ as a digital band on the final present of their farewell tour.
The band have seemingly bowed out of stay acting at their enormous Madison Square Garden present final evening (December 2). They will reportedly be the primary US band to turn into digital.
In the encore, the band’s remaining members – founders Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, together with guitarist Tommy Thayer and drummer Eric Singer – left the stage, revealing their new digital avatars. After strolling off stage, the digital avatars carried out “God Gave Rock and Roll to You”.
“Today, A New Era Begins. #KISSARMY, the end is only the beginning!,” the band wrote on social media. “KISS have been immortalized and reborn as avatars to rock forever.”
AP studies that the avatars had been made by George Lucas’ SFX firm, Industrial Light & Magic. They had been additionally made in collaboration with Pophouse Entertainment Group, which was co-founded by ABBA‘s Björn Ulvaeus.
The two firms beforehand teamed as much as create the ABBA Voyage present in London, which additionally options the Swedish band performing as digital avatars. Our five-star assessment of the present praised the avatars, remarking that “you can’t tell the difference between man and machine.”
In a roundtable interview, Stanley stated: “What we’ve accomplished has been amazing, but it’s not enough. The band deserves to live on because the band is bigger than we are. It’s exciting for us to go the next step and see Kiss immortalized.”
“We can be forever young and forever iconic by taking us to places we’ve never dreamed of before,” Simmons added. “The technology is going to make Paul jump higher than he’s ever done before.”
CEO of Pophouse Entertainment, Per Sundin, stated that the brand new avatars will permit Kiss to proceed for “enternity”. He revealed that in contrast to ABBA, the band wouldn’t carry out on stage alongside the digital band, as “that’s the key thing.”
“Kiss could have a concert in three cities in the same night across three different continents,” he stated. “That’s what you could do with this.”
Simmons has beforehand hinted on the band’s digital transformation in interviews. Speaking to 519 Magazine this November, he stated that “this tour is the end of the road for the band, not the brand.”
“KISS is a universe of its own – movies, merchandise, maybe even Broadway,” he continued. “The band will end, but the KISS experience… it’s immortal.”
He additionally spoke in regards to the bodily challenges of touring, and why the band had been retiring from the stage: “We are the hardest-working band on stage. I’ve got 40 pounds of armour and all the rest of it and seven-inch platform heels. Each of the dragon boots weighs as much as a bowling ball. Physically, it’s tough to do that.”
There has been hypothesis that the band would possibly take up residency at Las Vegas mega venue The Sphere. However, Stanley was fast to close down rumours, commenting: “I can’t speak to it in any other way except to be honest with you about how I feel now, and the way I feel today is … I can’t really see that happening,” he informed the outlet.
“As far as I’m concerned, we’re done.”