On April 13, 2001, Kiss played the final date of their 13-month Farewell Tour, which featured the final performances from the group’s reunited original lineup.
A better title would perhaps have been the See You Soon Tour, as Kiss went on to perform more than 1,000 additional concerts between 2002 and 2023, when their second farewell tour – the five-year, 250-date End of the Road tour – wrapped with two dates at New York City’s iconic Madison Square Garden.
While it might be unrealistic to expect the band to play another thousand shows, it was only a matter of time until Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons got the itch to return to the stage.
Simmons scratched his almost immediately via shows with his solo band, but it wasn’t until mid-2025 that Stanley gave in, when the group announced that they’d perform two “unmasked” shows – one acoustic, one electric – during an event called Kiss Kruise: Land-Locked In Vegas, a “three-day, everything-Kiss weekend” designed to serve as a dry-dock version of the branded cruises the band has hosted over the past 14 years.
Here’s what we learned during our 72 hours in Sin City.
The Kiss Army’s ranks are international
Kiss might not have been gone long enough for some fans to miss them, but it’s clear from the moment we arrive at Sin City’s Virgin Hotels resort and casino complex – where the band recorded its 2016 live album Kiss Rocks Vegas, when it operated as the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino – that we’re not surrounded here by “some fans.”
These are hardiest of diehards, most of whom seem to have at least one Kiss-inspired tattoo. We lose count of how many different languages we hear being spoken while standing in line to check in, where we see pockets of fans wearing custom shirts celebrating the Kiss Army Germany and the Kiss Army Spain. (Later, we’re told that fans from 32 countries and all 50 states made the pilgrimage to attend.)
If it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing
According to longtime manager Doc McGhee, that sentiment is the driving principle behind Kiss, and looking around the resort, it’s clear what he means. Kiss are everywhere. There are giant, floor-to-ceiling murals showcasing the band in all their greasepainted glory. Their music plays loudly over the house speakers in the casino, where the mirrored piano used by drummer Eric Singer as he sang Beth during the End of the Road tour sits conspicuously in one corner.
Their logo adorns everything from cocktail napkins to room keys. The group’s likenesses are even plastered onto the hotel’s elevator doors. (Kudos to the Kruise’s design team for creating such a richly immersive environment.) Meanwhile, everyone in attendance is a walking advertisement for the band, as there are Kiss t-shirts for as far as the eye can see – and naturally, there are long lines to buy even more Kiss swag at the resort’s merchandise stand.
For big spenders, meanwhile, the hotel’s art gallery just around the corner features dozens of paintings by Stanley – some of himself, others of the likes of Marilyn Monroe and Jimi Hendrix – as well as vivid hand-painted Ibanez Iceman guitars for sale. For those who think more with their stomachs, there are also some fancy new Kiss steak knives on display – a set of four will set you back $250 – as well as a limited-edition, $1100 “meat axe” modelled after Simmons’ iconic Axe bass.
The band’s music stands on its own
The main draw of the Kruise was not only the chance to experience Kiss live for the first time in nearly two years, but it also gave fans the rare opportunity to see the group perform without their famed kabuki makeup or any of their usual bells and whistles. To the band’s credit, neither set felt like it was missing something. If anything, seeing the members on stage in comparatively civilian attire with nothing besides Simmons’ sunglasses hiding their expressions brought a more human element to their two performances.
The first – an hour-long acoustic set that took place on the resort’s outdoor lawn – featured a loose, relaxed vibe, with Simmons and Stanley teasing one another and quipping that certain songs (Christine Sixty, Goin’ Deaf) should be retitled to better reflect the band members’ advanced ages.
The second show was a more traditional concert held in the resort’s 4,000-capacity theatre. While it didn’t feature pyrotechnics, levitating drum risers, fire-breathing or blood-spitting, the production values were still second to none, with an impressive light show and a top-tier stage design that saw the band’s logo flanked by four giant inflatables of their iconic personas.
Still, it would have fallen flat without the proper soundtrack – and even though it was their first proper show since the End of the Road tour finale, Kiss showed no signs of rust during an 85-minute set that was heavy on “klassics” (Deuce, Detroit Rock City, Shout It Out Loud), but also featured a handful of crowd-pleasing deep cuts (Take Me, Watchin’ You, Love Her All I Can).
As cannons launched a blizzard of confetti during the butler-did-it finale of Rock And Roll All Nite, it felt like the beginning of a new chapter in Kisstory. (At other points during the weekend, Stanley told fans that the band hoped to host another Kruise next year, although whether it’s a traditional chartered ship or another destination event like this one remains to be seen.)
The Spaceman casts a long shadow
Four weeks before the Vegas Kruise, original Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley died after sustaining accidental blunt force injuries to his head following a fall at his New Jersey home. Accordingly, there were numerous times throughout the weekend when the Kruise felt like a rock’n’roll wake.
A live recording of the Kiss-themed Three Sides Of The Coin podcast – whose name is inspired by a Frehley-sung song from the band’s 1980 album Unmasked – turned into a shared grief session, with fans sharing their favourite memories of meeting Frehley. Before playing a single note during their acoustic show, Stanley asked the crowd for a moment of silence to honour Ace’s memory.
During their electric set, meanwhile, the band dedicates the Frehley-written Cold Gin to the late guitarist; its performance ends with his Spaceman successor Tommy Thayer tapping his heart and pointing to the sky before playing the finale of Ace’s guitar solo as it appeared on Alive!
Another former Kiss guitarist is having a moment
From 1984 until the band reunited with Frehley and original drummer Peter Criss in 1996, guitarist Bruce Kulick served as Stanley’s and Simmons’ six-string wingman. As such, he was the first Kiss guitarist for many fans who came on board during the band’s non-makeup years, and that generation was well-represented in Vegas – both on and offstage.
During the covid lockdown of 2020, professional wrestler and Fozzy vocalist Chris Jericho started a virtual cover band called Kuarantine that focused on Kiss’s Kulick era. In Las Vegas, they play an exuberant set of forgotten gems such as Silver Spoon and Good Girl Gone Bad, with Jericho – dressed like a combination of Liberace and Paul Stanley circa the Heaven’s On Fire music video – telling the crowd that ‘80s Kiss is his favourite decade of the band’s catalogue.
Kulick himself appears three times over the course of the weekend. First, during the final two songs of Kiss’ electric set, when he joins the band to play Lick It Up and Rock And Roll All Nite; next, the following morning during a Q&A with Jericho and producer Bob Ezrin, when he describes the previous night as “magical” and humbly shares how much it means to him that his years with the band haven’t been forgotten; and third, during a crowd-pleasing live performance that sees him joined by Slash’s Conspirators bassist Todd Kerns (on guitar and vocals) and drummer Brent Fitz (who made two records with Kulick in his post-Kiss band Union).
For anyone whose first Kiss live album was Alive III, Kulick’s set list was a trip down memory lane, with note-perfect renditions of songs like Unholy, God Gave Rock ‘N’ Roll To You II and Domino. Even the power ballad Forever is a welcome inclusion, although Kerns – who tells the crowd that he bought every 1980s Kiss album on the day it was released until Hot In The Shade, which came out when he was on tour in a town without a record store – unfortunately doesn’t ask the crowd to make “the place light up like a damn Christmas tree” as Stanley did on Alive III.
Other highlights include a four-song medley of Revenge deep cuts; dedications of Parasite to Frehley and Larger Than Life to his brother Bob (a “ghost guitarist” for Kiss at several points); a performance of the Kiss B-side Sword And Stone, which Kulick says “should have been on (the band’s 1987 album) Crazy Nights”; and a medley of that record’s two irresistible singles, Crazy Crazy Nights and Turn On The Night.
Whether you think Jericho’s onto something – or just on something – will likely depend on when you first saw or heard Kiss, but either way, it’s a blast to hear these songs played live once again.
The End of the Road isn’t really the end
Potential Kruises aside, Stanley tells the crowd during a Q&A session that he’s not sure at this point if Kiss will play more shows in the future, but there’s still plenty for fans to look forward to: a documentary about the End of the Road tour, which McGhee says during a panel discussion is currently being edited from “thousands of hours” of footage; a feature film, Shout It Out Loud, that will be directed by McG (Charlie’s Angels, Terminator Salvation); and the avatar show the band initially teased at the end of their final Madison Square Garden concert, which McGhee hopes will “keep them immortal.”
But the loudest cheers come when Stanley says that there might be new music around the corner. At first, he tells the crowd during an impromptu Q&A following a cooking seminar – yes, really – that “there’s some new stuff” in the works. It isn’t clear at first whether he’s talking about solo material, his Motown-inspired band Soul Station or Kiss, but the following day, he elaborates slightly during a separate Q&A with the full band.
“There may be some music in the works,” he says. “That looks pretty damn… more than possible. Probable. I’m not going to give you any hints, but I only write when there’s a project – and I’ve been writing.”
Adds Simmons, “Despite the fact that some of you think that this is the sunset, I promise you, this is the beginning.”
Indeed, even if the touring portion of the band’s career has truly come to an end, Stanley’s and SImmons’ comments bring to mind Doc Brown’s quote from the end of Back To The Future – “Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”
Buckle up, Kiss fans – we’re not comin’ home yet after all.
