It was not a goodbye Kiss after all!: The avatar tour

Kiss played their last live gig early in December. It was a momentous night and was to be the completion of the band’s final End Of The Road tour. But was that really a goodbye to Kiss?

Yes, and then no, seems the answer to that question. Fans watching the band complete the final night of the tour at Madison Square Gardens New York, on December 2nd, did get a hint of things still to come. After the members of Kiss had left the stage after that final gig, the screens at the venue filled with digital holograms. These showed huge images of the band playing their big hit “God Gave Rock And Roll To Me”.

Now the band has announced that the digital images will be used to create an avatar tour in 2027. The news was revealed via the band's official social media just before Christmas. This will follow the style of the sensational and highly successful ABBA Voyager approach.

Kiss might look a lot different in 2027

In fact while it’s a George Lucas led Industrial Light And Magic creating the avatars and digital images, that’s all being financed by Pophouse Entertainment. A Swedish business co-owned by none other than ABBA great, Bjorn Ulvaeus. With further learning and technology advances since the ABBA show was created, and of course the larger than life characters in Kiss, we can expect even more magic and drama from this tour.

As RadioX reported Kiss legend Paul Simmons talked of the new avatars taking a step up from the ABBA benchmark. 

"There’s so much being planned, even beyond my comprehension. But they’re spending, oh, about 200 million [dollars] to take it to the next level. We can be forever young and forever iconic by taking us to places we’ve never dreamt of before. The technology is going to make Paul [Stanley] jump higher than he’s ever done before ... If you think you are going to get rid of us then that's not going to happen."

- Paul Stanley

Ex band member Ace Frehley though was less excited. Perhaps that’s to do with the ex band member status more than the project itself. Frehely has of course already had his Kiss goodbye.

"I don’t get this avatar thing that they’re gonna do. I saw some of it on a video on YouTube last night. It kind of looked like it was geared towards children. And it’s not rock and roll. I get up on stage without backing tracks, plug my guitar into a Marshall and go. That’s it. It’s always been that way and always will be."

- Ace Frehley

After ABBA took the initial step to the future with their avatar led creation it was inevitable more would follow. If you want larger than life characters and all round excitement backed by rock classics, then Kiss are surely an obvious band to follow in those footsteps, real or otherwise. 

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