KISS’s final curtain call: Gene Simmons shares his thoughts

KISS bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons recently recapped the band’s last concert, which happened on December 2, 2023, at Madison Square Garden in New York City, on producer Rick Rubin’s “Tetragrammaton” podcast.

We took a look at this idea of we were born in New York City, 10 East 23rd Street, 10 blocks down — 10 — from 33rd Street, Madison Square Garden. So we decided, ‘Let’s finish off Christmas’ or Kissmass, ’50 years after the birth of the band 10 blocks down. Let’s do it at New York and only do one show and film it and all that stuff, and invite our friends. It’ll be like a celebration.’ And then the film crew and everybody convinced us to do two shows. We could have been there for a week or 10 days… So we did December 1, December 2 in New York. But by the way, like all things KISS, the Empire State Building lit up with our faces on it. There were 800 New York City cabs wrapped around with KISS imagery. If you went into the subway and you got a subway ticket, you had our faces on the subways. You went to get a pizza, the outside of the pizza boxes, [there] were our faces in your face. There were KISS pop-up shops. Basically, if you started a new religion and called it Kisstianity, that’s what was going on. It was like a total takeover… We just couldn’t believe it. There were people walking around the streets of New York during the daytime, because fans flew in from around the world — Japanese fans and all that stuff — during the daytime in full makeup. We’d be going to the Empire State Building, ’cause we went up to the top where King Kong fell off and all that stuff, ’cause in 76 we were on top taking photos when there were no guardrails hanging off the sides. It’s one of those photos that became a thing. And on the way there we were seeing KISS people on the streets dressing early to go to the show.

He spoke also about his feelings on that night.

Very emotional. Pride, but also a little sad because… People who have been married, I’m guessing, a few times, but remember when it was real love and that magic of the thing, if it doesn’t last, there’s a sadness there. Sometimes it’s drugs and alcohol, sometimes they just go apart. But when it was great, it’s sad because not everybody survives life. And I’m still sad about Ace and Peter, who even today can’t enjoy the fruits of their labor. They were equally as important as Paul and myself in the formation of the band and those first few years — there’s no question about it. It was a four-wheel-drive vehicle. And then the air started coming out of two of the wheels to the point where — as a matter of fact, when it was time for Peter to go, Ace voted, ‘No, he’s gotta go. He can’t play the drums anymore.’ And then Ace, using his words, walked out of KISS. Even though we said, ‘You can stay in KISS. Have a solo career. We don’t want a penny of it. Have your cake and eat it too.’ And he said to my face, ‘No, I can’t stay in the band. He said it in print, ‘If I do another tour, I’m gonna kill myself.’ That’s verbatim. And I didn’t understand what that meant. I didn’t wanna get into it. And then he said, ‘You watch. I’m gonna sell 10 million records.’ I can’t respond to that. I don’t know what that meant. Logically — stay in the band, have your cake and eat it too.

And as well as on the Kiss Avatar shows.

The very end of both of those shows — we had made a deal with a company called Pophouse who bought ABBA rights and put on this avatar ABBA show in London, which has got millions of people going. And whatever technology you saw there is now primitive. They are investing untold amounts. I don’t wanna say anything more than — you know what virtual reality is when you put those glasses on, and you would swear your life that the ground just opened up and you have a chasm and you’re falling and free fall, and you have this sense that what you’re seeing is real. And by the way, all around you, no matter where you look — up, down — your sense of reality. Now imagine that without glasses. And I’ve seen it… So in a lot of ways entertainment itself and life itself is changing dramatically with A.I. and technology and all this stuff. There will still be room for live bands playing live with the blues and all that — there’s no substitute for that — but in other areas, the sky’s the limit. No limit.