Kiss Played Their Final Show… as Humans

In what we’re certain will be some of the weirdest news of 2023, Kiss announced during their “final” show over the weekend that going forward, they will be performing as “avatars.” And no, that doesn’t mean they’ll become huge, blue cat people like the James Cameron movie… I know, I was bummed out too.

Many had speculated that Kiss wouldn’t actually be done, or that there would be some kind of big reveal at their final show, and sure enough, though they are done, this is a very interesting revelation.

At their much-advertised last show at Madison Square Garden, Kiss announced this during their encore with avatars playing “God Gave Rock ‘N’ Roll to You II.” Symbolically having the avatar band take over showed that they will keep carrying the torch now that Kiss are officially done.

The avatars were created with Pophouse Entertainment Group and Industrial Light & Magic, George Lucas’ company. The bands were scanned using motion capture technology to create the avatars and make them as similar to Kiss as possible.

Looking forward to whatever the future looks like for Kiss, Paul Stanley said he believes the band deserves to go on in perpetuity, even if the actual performers can’t.

“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.

Meanwhile, bassist Gene Simmons waxed a little poetic about the whole damn thing.

“We can be forever young and forever iconic by taking us to places we’ve never dreamed of before. The technology is going to make Paul jump higher than he’s ever done before.”

Weird. All of this makes me wonder if this will become the norm for aging bands.