Who Is On Tour With Kiss?
Kiss Tickets is currently performing on the End of the Road World Tour, which the band promised would be its final tour. It is composed of only two members out of four: Gene Simmons, who plays bass and is the vocalist, and Paul Stanley, who plays the guitar and also sings. With them are other seasoned Kiss performers, Eric Singer on the drums and Tommy Thayer on the guitar. This has been the current lineup since early 2002.
Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons are the primary creative minds and managers of the band Kiss. They have continued to keep the band alive for over half a century despite shifting members while maintaining the trademark elements associated with Kiss, such as the black and white face paint artistry, the use of fire, and the outrageous costumes. Simmons is famous for performing such stunts as breathing fire and spitting fake blood on stage.
When Kiss first began in 1973, the original members were Simmons, Stanley, Criss, and Frehley, the lead guitarist. This is regarded as the original formation that recorded most of Kiss’ best-selling albums in the 1970s, including Alive and Destroyer. Criss left the band in 1980, and Frehley stepped out in 1982 because of conflicts and disagreements on the way the band should be run.
Eric Singer initially became a KISS member as the drummer on the Revenge album and tour in the early 1990s, when Carr sadly died due to cancer. Singer left for some years, while Criss returned for a while. He then became the drummer on a permanent basis in 2002 and has been there to date, which is a consistent formation for the past 20 years along with Simmons, Stanley, and Thayer.
Tommy Thayer had been in a Kiss tribute band before he got the chance to join the actual Kiss in 2002 as the lead guitarist. He adopted the Spaceman character and paint of Ace Frehley, who declined to rejoin the group after the initial discussions. Simmons and Stanley agreed to continue with ¾ of the familiar Kiss look Spaceman, Demon, and Starchild.
The fact that Simmons and Stanley are the only original members left from the band’s formation in 1973 has prompted fans and critics to argue that KISS should have retired the makeup and costumes with Frehley and Criss. But Stanley and Simmons believe that they have the right to continue the kiss spectacle they developed as long as there are two original members of the band, including makeup and outfits that generations of fans knew.
Although Frehley and Criss are not part of Kiss’s current farewell tour, they have given their blessings to the group. I doubt they will be touring as special guests because there are normally some hard feelings between them and the band due to business or personal matters. However, Simmons and Stanley have claimed that they are on good personal terms with Frehley and Criss now.
While two of the band’s founding members who were active in the band’s heyday in the 1970s are absent, the two other original members are determined to give fans the same energetic Kiss concerts of their final tour as fans have gotten used to for the last forty years. They continue the Kiss tradition in the presence of indispensable members Singer and Thayer, who have been there for the last two decades.
This End of the Road World Tour began as expected in early 2019 when the band convened a press conference at the Whisky a Go Go nightclub on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles to formally declare their so-called last tour for Kiss.
Although Simmons and Stanley knew they could not go on physically, did not want to continue on tour, and would not be able to pull off a show if KISS was to decline to a pathetic level one day, they knew it was time. They are now in their seventies and have mentioned that, with all the make-up, hair, and enormous platform boots, sustaining the entire theatrical Kiss concert experience as a band is quite exhausting.
Thus, on NYE 2021, Kiss performed what they vowed to be their last homecoming show in New York City’s Times Square. Tens of thousands of fans turned up to witness what many consider the final Kiss Goodbye Bash. But the final official stop of the End of the Road Tour is planned for sometime in late 2023 and will embrace dates across Europe, North America, and Australia before embracing their mission to give virtually all their paint-faced faithful followers the ultimate Kiss show spectacle.
It’s not even easy to determine whether it is perhaps the finality of the ending. With so much memory and newcomers to the music and legend of Kiss, it's quite possible for a one-time kiss reunion in 10 years. But there is a certain determination in Stanley and Simmons at the moment where they are sure that this will be the last hoorah. It has been noted that, according to the magazine Forbes, the group has earned more than 500 million dollars touring since 1973, so they do deserve a break from life on the road after clocking what will be nearly a three-year goodbye world tour by the time they are done.
Although some music critics still wonder if Stanley and Simmons should continue the specific Kiss persona and presentation with two other musicians, Frehley and Criss, the fact is that Eric Carr before his early death and later Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer would probably never have built such strong personal fan bases without the benefit of performing in the familiar KISS costumes.
And Kiss put on a larger performance than most bands, so it needs additional experienced musicians. Paul and Gene have placed their stamp of approval on Eric and Tommy to carry on the traditions of Kiss, which have allowed those two musicians to be actively involved in such an iconic band in some way. The shows still provide enough sing-a-long material from Stanley and Simmons-fronted songs like Rock and Roll All Nite and Beth that the fans can happily belt out “I want to rock and roll all night and party every day” to their heart's content.
For the fan base that conceived the idea of going to watch the original band in makeup for one last time, the End of the Road Tour may lack many members from the Kiss camp. But two originals, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, are still breathing fire and spitting blood to do what they created Kiss to represent: flash, spectacle, and fist-pounding rock anthems live on stage. It’s up to them to surround themselves with bandmates like Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer, who experienced the Kiss frenzy like the fans for years. And now they assist Simmons & Stanley in telling the Kiss saga for the closing international arena spectacle.
