Paul Stanley has teased an “immersive” KISS avatar show, saying that it will be “beyond anything that anyone else has contemplated.”
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In an interview with Billboard on podcast Behind The Setlist, published last Thursday (September 12), Stanley spoke at length about the show following the acquisition of the band’s catalogue, brand name and IP by Pophouse Entertainment, the company behind ABBA‘s ‘Voyage’ show.
“People just are thrilled with [‘Voyage’]. I took my wife last month, and I had seen it last year,” Stanley says, as transcribed by Blabbermouth.net. “So Pophouse understood what we wanted to do and that what we wanna create is something that’s state of the art today.”
He teases that, since ‘Voyage’ has been played for audiences, the technology behind such concerts has since been improved – and with added help by George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic, fans can expect an even more state-of-the-art show from the KISS avatars.
Stanley also circles back to the terminology used to describe the virtual models of the KISS band members – he bristles at the use of calling the show a “hologram” concert.
“That term seems to get thrown around a lot, but the idea of a simulated concert is not what we wanna do. Frankly, I would find that that boring,” he says. “What we’re creating is an immersive experience that KISS fans will love and people who have never been exposed to KISS or might not like certain aspects of the band will have to see.”
Gene Simmons of KISS performs during KISS: End of the Road World Tour at Madison Square Garden on December 01, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images)
“It’s a must-see go-to experience. So it’s beyond anything that anyone else has contemplated. The whole idea, again, of doing a simulated concert is — that’s the dark ages to us.”
Stanley is also keeping mum on a premiere date for the show. When asked about reports that claim the show will debut in Las Vegas in 2027, Stanley says: “What I can tell you is that the technology that’s being used, which is a furthering of the technology used on the ABBA show, has to be installed and basically a building has to be built around it.”
“So this isn’t something where you’re in Kansas City today, and tomorrow you fly with your projector to do it. It demands an arena, so to speak that’s really solely used for a show like this.”
During the band’s farewell performance last December, they unveiled a “new era” of KISS as a virtual band. “[It was] an early version of what is to come and is still being worked on,” Stanley tells Billboard about the live reveal. “It bears little resemblance to what was there. What we were showing was just the inception of the idea that we can continue on outside of flesh and blood.”
On the Pophouse deal, bandmate Gene Simmons stated that it was a “natural thing” to do. “Life happens while you’re busy making important plans,” he continued in an interview with PEOPLE. “We were planning our respectful, proud walking off into the sunset, because we’ve been touring, we had been touring for half a century.”
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