One last show: KISS to bring End of the Road tour to Boise. (They mean it this time!) - East Idaho News
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One last show: KISS to bring End of the Road tour to Boise. (They mean it this time!)

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BOISE (Idaho Statesman) — Yes, these rock ’n’ roll road dogs have cried wolf before.

But this time, KISS Army? The final countdown appears to be real.

After nearly half a century, KISS will wave goodbye to Idaho with a concert on Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2020, at ExtraMile Arena. The band’s End of the Road World Tour is slated to conclude in New York City in July 2021.

Tickets to the Boise concert go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday, Nov. 22, at Ticketmaster. The majority of seats will range from $39.50 to $129.50.

If you joined the KISS fan club back when you were a kid, let’s hope you’ve been saving your allowance. Diehard fans will pay $250 for golden circle seats, $500 for third row, $750 for second row and $1,000 for front row.

This end chapter is not just Gene Simmons wagging his infamously long tongue. KISS, which brought its Farewell Tour to Boise in 2000, seems poised to exit in a blaze of glory. After all, the 70-year-old bassist can’t prance around in platform boots wearing 40 pounds of gear forever.

“This is a good time to do one last victory lap,” Simmons told the Los Angeles Times. “You want to go out on top.”

Concertgoers will be treated to all the face-melting explosions that made KISS shows legendary in the ’70s and ’80s — now with high-tech thunder. Simmons described the End of the Road tour as “by far the largest and most over-the-top we’ve done,” saying it has “more firepower than most Third World countries.”

When KISS said sayonara two decades ago, the original lineup reunited. That wasn’t the case when the group returned to Boise in 2016, and it won’t be in 2020. Along with founding members Simmons and Paul Stanley (lead vocals, guitar), the current musicians are Tommy Thayer (lead guitar) and Eric Singer (drums). Original guitarist Ace Frehley and drummer Peter Criss haven’t been with the band since 2002 and 2004.

The two-hour setlist on the End of the Road tour has included favorites such as “Detroit Rock City,” “Shout it Out Loud,” “Heaven’s on Fire,” “I Was Made for Lovin’ You,” “Cold Gin” — and a crowd-pleasing blend of “Lick It Up” and The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”

And if KISS does perform more concerts after this tour?

It almost certainly wouldn’t be in Idaho — with original members, at least. And that concept remains a possibility. Because KISS wears makeup and performs as costumed characters, the franchise could live on with entirely different musicians, Stanley told Paste magazine earlier this year.

“I would have an enormous amount of pride in knowing that we can continue the band once I’m not there anymore,” Stanley said. “… There are people out there, I’m sure, who are well-equipped to pick up the flag and run with it.”

Time will tell whether fans might lick that up.

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