Members of KISS say goodbye at final concert – but their digital avatars will keep touring
Members of KISS played the final show of their farewell tour on Saturday night – but the band isn’t quite done performing yet.
The iconic American rock band ended their “End of the Road” tour with a final concert, the culmination of 50 years of touring, at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Founders Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons as well as guitarist Tommy Thayer and drummer Eric Singer took to the stage, performing classic tracks like “I Love It Loud” and “Beth”.
At the end of the show, the musicians left the stage – and their digital avatars took their places to perform “God Gave Rock And Roll To You.”
The band also released a video on their official YouTube channel that shows the musicians in motion-capture suits used to create the digital avatars, as well as the avatars themselves performing and breathing fire.
“The band deserves to live on because the band is bigger than we are,” frontman Paul Stanley says in the video.
The avatars were created through a partnership with Pophouse Entertainment Group, according to a news release from the company. The Swedish company says that KISS is the first US band to adopt the digital models.
“The band’s transformation into avatars will ensure their immortalization, while pushing the boundaries of rock and roll performances, as KISS have done throughout their career to date,” says the news release. Pophouse also said that KISS would continue to perform digitally for “decades to come.”
The avatars were created by the George Lucas-founded visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic, according to the news release.
“We can be forever young and forever iconic by taking us to places we’ve never dreamed of before,” said Gene Simmons, according to the release. “The technology is going to make Paul jump higher than he’s ever done before.”
KISS follows Swedish band ABBA, which has staged its own concerts featuring digital avatars. Pophouse says it has worked with ABBA as well as Avicii and Swedish House Mafia.