Yes, I was there for the end. The final Kiss show. I have been a fan for around 46 years or since ever since I discovered these albums in my brothers collection. I was around 7-8 years old. The make-up, the larger than life characters, the pictures on those albums and most of all, the songs all captured this little kid’s mind and never let go. Through the good years and the bad (and there have been some), Kiss has always been a part of my life.

My very first Kiss show was December 26, 1983 for the Lick It Up Tour. My brother, Gary, gave me a ticket for the show on my birthday, which was the day before the show. Imagine my surprise. Here we are 40 years later and this time I bought the tickets. My brother took me to My First Kiss Show and I am taking him to the Last!! We arrived in New York City early morning on Friday, December 1st, 2023. Gary from Atlanta and I from Charlotte. Once we arrived, we did a couple touristy things, but one of the cool things was going to where Kiss were photographed in the suits for the Dressed to Kill album cover. That was at the southeast corner of W23rd Street and 8th Avenue looking North. I didn’t recreate it, just took a picture there.

Cheesy, yeah…but it was fun standing there where the guys made that iconic Kiss picture. The other Kiss place we went was down to Electric Lady Studios. The place where Kiss recorded their demos with Eddie Kramer, prior to the debut album. You know this studio because it was Jimi Hendrix’s Studio. If you open the door, you will see the original door and brick that was there when Kiss was. The funny thing about these two locations is that we knew we found the right locations as there were already other Kiss fans doing the same thing we planned on doing. And speaking of fans, everyone we met was so friendly and so excited about the weekend. Kiss fans, when not being overly critical, are actually great people.

Okay, that is enough of those type of stops. The city of New York was doing so much for Kiss (or Kiss was paying them too is probably more like it) and all around town you could find different things like Special Newspapers from the New York Post wrapped with Kiss, Metro cards with Kiss on the back, they were selling cookies, taxis were wrapped with Kiss (I never saw one), there was a Pop-Up Store that had lines of over two hours (thus we didn’t go in), they lit up the Empire State Building (the night before we got there) and so much more. Here are a few things we got and saw…

Okay, now to completely change the subject for a minute, we saw the strangest thing while we were there. It looks like Nike has changed their marketing strategy and now have Pigeons as their star endorsers. Yes, Nike is sponsoring Pigeons now. We saw this little fella roaming the streets advertising for Nike. What will they think of next…

Sorry about that. Back to the show. Now, something Kiss is fantastic at is Merchandising. And aside from the Pop-Up Store, there were some Merchandise booths in Madison Square Garden would open for several hours prior to show time. They had a ton of stuff. What seem to be most popular were these two posters…one for Dec. 1st and one for the 2nd. I didn’t buy those as I would mess them up getting them home.

We went on December 1st and I found a shirt that was exclusive to the event and I bought two (one for me and one for a friend). When I got back outside, I noticed the damn date on it was December 1st. Crap, I don’t want that one. My brother saw that I was pissed so he talked me in to going back in side and seeing if I could exchange it for the shirt that had both dates December 1st and 2nd. I wanted something with the final show date. And they agreed.

Oh, and what was even better, when I went to return it, I went to a different booth with a shorter line and they had the Tour Books. Now, I have a Tour book from the End of the Road tour back from 2019, but this one had an exclusive cover for the final two shows…Uh…Sold!!!

The next, my brother was asked to pick up a shirt for someone and when we got there, they had a new exclusive shirt that was only for the December 2nd show and it looked awesome. So guess what, I bought that one too…why not. I actually ended up with 2 of them so I am going to have one framed for my wall. I figured, why not.

The final two shows were at Madison Square Garden in New York City on December 1st and 2nd of 2023. We had tickets for the very last show on the 2nd. And let me tell you the place was packed. There had to be around 20,000 people there, it was nuts. The energy was electric. Seeing a show at Madison Square Garden for me was a Bucket List place for me of where I want to see shows. Having it be the final show of my favorite band was icing on the cake.

When we got to our seats, on each seat they had these wrist bands that would light up during the show. They were cool and the band Kiss branded with the date of the show. A really cool surprise. The thing lit up throughout the show and would even flash to the beat of Eric’s drumming as well as when Paul had each side of the arena scream out separately. How it works I have no idea. When we left the arena, the band stayed lit up, but it was out by morning.

The show was to start at 7:30, per the ticket, but it started about 5-10 minutes early as they needed to be done by 8pm for the Pay Per View special that started at 8. The opening act was a band called Amber Wild who happens to have Paul Stanley’s son Evan as the main lead singer. They were pretty good. He seemed a little in awe of the whole thing which I can imagine was surreal.

Then at 8pm sharp, the PPV special started and they did some guest interviews as well as broadcast interviews with the band members. The guest interviews were with Criss Angel (why I have no idea how he fits in to everything) and then two guests that made a ton more sense. First was the great songwriter who wrote one of Kiss’ biggest hits, “I Was Made For Loving You”. Desmond Child. He was awesome. But the most fun interview was with Gene and Paul’s kids. They had Nick & Sophie Simmons as well as Evan Stanley. They were hilarious and seem like good kids. Then there was a surprise kid to join them when Tommy’s newfound daughter came on stage. She found out Tommy was her dad a few years back and they have become very close. It was a cool story with a happy ending. No kids for Eric (at least none we know about.

Okay, okay. I’ll get to the show. Everyone was hoping, or maybe even expecting, Kiss to do something special. To change up the songs, to bring back original and prior members…but this is Kiss. That ain’t going to happen. I hoped it would, but I did not expect it to happen so I was not disappointed in the night. It was awesome. I mentioned earlier the crowd was electric and they were. Everyone was super in to it and the band was as well. Everyone sounded great (and yes even Paul with his help of backing tracks…which I don’t care about because he was still singing his heart out). Gene has always been my favorite and I think he still sounded awesome as well. Eric was in fine form as he pounded the crap out of the skins and Tommy shredded as well on the guitar. I have no complaints about the sound or anything really.

The setlist was typical…

1. Rock and Roll(Led Zeppelin song – Intro)
2. Detroit Rock City
3. Shout It Out Loud
4. Deuce
5. War Machine
6. Heaven’s On Fire
7. I Love It Loud (Gene breathes fire)
8. Say Yeah
9. Cold Gin
10. Guitar Solo (Tommy)
11. Lick It Up (with The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again”)
12. Calling Dr. Love
13. Makin’ Love (with Paul & Tommy dueling guitars)
14. Psycho Circus (partial)
15. Eric Drum Solo
16. 100,000 Year (partial)
17. Gene’s Bass Solo (Gene spits blood)
18. God of Thunder
19. Love Gun (Paul zip-lines to B-Stage)
20. I Was Made For Lovin’ You (Paul still on B-Stage)
21. Black Diamond (Paul zip-lines back to main stage)

Encore:

1. Beth (Eric Singer solo on piano)
2. Do You Love Me
3. Rock & Roll All Nite
4. God Gave Rock and Roll to You II(with the KISS holograms/avatars on screen)

The setlist was no different then the night before and only two songs different from when I last saw them in 2019. Kiss don’t change much…but again…who cares. You know what you signed up for, if you are going to bitch about, you shouldn’t have bought a ticket. I have reviewed this tour before from my 2019 show I saw, so there is really not much new to add. I always love Tommy’s solo, especially when he blows up the spaceship like pods. I got a good picture of the rocket trail from his guitar (but the picture quality sucks like my phone).

Gene splitting blood and fire is always so much fun and Gene did them one last time for us tonight. And when he does “War Machine” and “God of Thunder”, the man is in his element and there is no one better. Damn, so cool even at 54 as it was at 8.

Paul flying out to the B-Stage is another cool thing that hasn’t changed in years. I like when Paul does it because I am usually so far back it is nice to finally get close to at least one of the band members. I do miss his old filthy “Love Gun” intros he used to give. And when the disco ball lights up for “I Was Made for Loving You”, the crowd went nuts as apparently everyone still loves that song…even me.

Eric’s drum solo is also a fun time as he is a great, powerful drummer. His double kick drum work is fantastic and he has a lot fun. When the cats with the green eyes rise up and then the drums rise up, you can’t help but get entranced by it all. Eric is great drummer and a workhorse. They couldn’t have found a better replacement for Eric Carr (and even for Peter).

The encore was great as well. So many balloons, so much confetti and so many flames. Eric does do a great job playing the piano and singing “Beth”. Don’t get mad it him, he is doing his job and he does it well. I have always loved “Do You Love Me” and they did that one next. Then came the finale with “Rock & Roll All Nite” and yes, it was great as usual. They did a bang up job…but…

…but…I will admit, it was a ll a little anti-climatic as the show just ended. I did expect them to at least come back out for one last hurrah and just soak it all in and they didn’t. I can’t say I wasn’t surprised they didn’t, because that is not who they are now. But it was surprising being their last show and at Madison Square Garden. Did it impact how I feel about the show…Hell to the No!! I still think they put on a great show (as usual) and did not disappoint in that aspects.

It was worth flying to New York and being apart of that. Plus, I had a great time with my brother. And for proof we were there, I do have this shot (and I suck at taking selfies by the way)…notice you can see the top of the 2 Loud 2 Old Music T-Shirt he was wearing. You can’t see that I’m wearing my hoodie sweatshirt with the 2 Loud 2 Old Music Logo which you can get here… http://tee.pub/lic/SPTa8EkCY9Q (sorry for the shameless plug – I need to somehow pay for this trip).

One cool thing happened to me after the show. My brother and I got on to the elevator at our hotel and in walked Jason Herndon with his family. Jason runs Kiss My Wax and Kiss My Kollectibles podcast and if you are a Kiss fan, I hope you’ve seen his shows as they are fantastic. If not, click on the link. I think he was surprised I recognized him and I might have freaked him out as he leaned back on the wall lighting up every floor on the elevator so we had to stop on each floor. It was pretty funny. I think he was just leaning back and getting comfortable. He is a really nice and cool guy and I hope I didn’t scare the hell out of him as I fanboyed a little. I don’t think a restraining will be necessary.

I know this wasn’t a detailed review of the show, but you can read those everywhere. This was my little adventure story for the Final Kiss Show and for me, it was a great and memorable weekend. I’m not one of those people who get bent out of shape because Ace and Peter (and Bruce) weren’t there. I never expected them to be and if you did, you were a little delusional in thinking so. I hoped they would be, I just didn’t expect it so I wasn’t disappointed. It was the end of Kiss as I know it…and after seeing what they have in store with these Avatar thingamajigs, good luck with that but I’m out. Unless Gene and Paul give us new music…but don’t expect me to shell out money to see a Virtual Avatar in concert…no thank you!! The real thing or nothing at all for me.

Thanks for hanging around and I hope you enjoyed my little weekend adventure in Kisstory. It was a weekend I will remember for a long, long time (which at my age, won’t be that much longer).