The KISS Goodbye: Rockers Announce (Another) Farewell Tour

MusicScreen – KISS Rocks

After a performance of “Detroit Rock City” on the season finale of “America’s Got Talent” Sept. 19, KISS announced it is going on one more world tour to close out its lengthy career.

There are still no dates, venues or any real specifics about the “End Of the Road World Tour,” but KISS’s loyal legions are no doubt celebrating and lamenting the news.

“All that we have built and all that we have conquered over the past four decades could never have happened without the millions of people worldwide who’ve filled clubs, arenas and stadiums over those years,” KISS said in a statement following the announcement. “This will be the ultimate celebration for those who’ve seen us and a last chance for those who haven’t. KISS Army, we’re saying goodbye on our final tour with our biggest show yet and we’ll go out the same way we came in… Unapologetic and Unstoppable.”

This is not the first time KISS has said goodbye, as the group did a farewell tour with its original lineup in the early 2000s, but Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons decided to keep the moniker and act alive afterwards. In 2000, when the farewell tour was in full swing, the group reported 1,292,121 tickets and a total gross of more than $61.6 million, seriously huge business at a time when ticket prices were nowhere near where they can get now. We have record of 127 shows that year, and for most of that run KISS kept prices between $35 and $85.

The latest announcement of a farewell tour presumably means that Stanley and Simmons are done, meaning the KISS Army will no longer be marching into arenas around the world.

KISS has been a touring powerhouse over the years, and came in at No. 79 on the 2016 Year End Top 200North American Tours chart, with a $15.4 million gross and 233,262 tickets on the year.

The Hottest Band In The Land still does plenty of live performances, as KISS reported 10,770 tickets sold to a show at WiZink Center in Madrid July 8, with Megadeth supporting, for a gross of $2.37 million. Domestically, KISS grossed $377,407 off 5,677 last year for a show at Toyota Music Factory in Irving, Texas.

For a change of pace, KISS are scheduled to play The KISS Kruise next month, departing from Miami Oct. 31 and running until Nov. 5.

Longtime KISS manager Doc McGhee recently ended his businesspartnership with his brother Scott McGhee, who said professional and personal objectives made the creation of Scott’s own company the next logical step.

Elaborating on the decision to split up he and his brother’s artist management interests, Doc McGhee added, “Scott loves to break new artists and work with new artists, and the whole thing is, I think in order to do a really great job for somebody, you need to have the time to do it,” said McGhee, whose company has operated for 40 years and with current clients being KISS, Ted Nugent, Vintage Trouble, Caleb Johnson and Jesse Jane McParland. “He’s my brother, and I hope nothing but success for him, and I know he will be successful,” Doc McGhee emphasized.

Doc McGhee said today’s business climate requires an extra level of focus and commitment to artists.

“In this day and age when there’s so many new opportunities that Scott faces and I face, with all the streaming, the different new revenue streams, the fact is that in the last 10 years, most of the work has been put on the managers because there hasn’t been any funding from labels like they used to, to where they had product managers, PR firms and PR people and video people. They’ve consolidated down to where it’s all on us.

“So when you start to put together, you really have to focus. And if you have to focus you can’t do everything. You have to pick the people you can service and service them, it’s not fair to have clients and not be able to service them.”