Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley of Kiss perform during the final show of End of the Road World Tour at Madison Square Garden on December 02, 2023 in New York City. Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Live Nation
Kiss fans will have to wait a little longer to see the band’s first avatar performance.
On Friday (Dec. 22), the legendary rockers — who played their final concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden earlier in the month — shared a teaser clip through social media revealing the date of their digitized characters.
“50 years is a long time, and what the future holds is in the making,” Kiss captioned the clip on X (formerly Twitter).
The 25-second teaser includes previously seen footage of Kiss’ digital avatars and concludes with the message, “2027 A Show Is Coming.”
During their the last concert of their End of the Road farewell tour on Dec. 2, Kiss made a surprise announcement that they will continue on as digitized versions of themselves going forward.
After the concert, the quartet — comprising co-founders founders Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons as well as guitarist Tommy Thayer and drummer Eric Singer — shared a two-minute video on YouTube teasing their next chapter.
“The future is so exciting,” Simmons says amid behind-the-scenes snippets of the band wearing motion capture suits to develop their high-tech avatars. Stanley adds, “We can live on eternally.”
Kiss’ avatars were created by George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic, in partnership with Sweden’s Pophouse Entertainment Group, according to the Associated Press. The companies recently collaborated on the ABBA Voyage show in London, a virtual concert performed by the Swedish pop group.
“Kiss could have a concert in three cities in the same night across three different continents. That’s what you could do with this,” Pophouse CEO told the AP.
In a roundtable interview, Stanley noted that Kiss “deserves to live on because the band is bigger than we are,” adding, “It’s exciting for us to go the next step and see Kiss immortalized.”
Simmons pointed out that the forthcoming digital band will be able accomplish things the original members couldn’t dream of doing.
“We can be forever young and forever iconic by taking us to places we’ve never dreamed of before,” the bassist said. “The technology is going to make Paul jump higher than he’s ever done before.”
See Kiss’ announcement on X below.
50 years is a long time, and what the future holds is in the making. pic.twitter.com/3vvo5JNExf
— KISS (@kiss) December 22, 2023
