It's been three years since the Kiss show in São Paulo, on the screens at the Rockfest festival , until the band's farewell finally took place last Saturday, the 30th, at Allianz Parque with the End of The Road Tour . The giants delivered an explosive show that, despite being timed, proved how the magic of rock n' roll is still alive – and isn't going away anytime soon.
As is customary, 20 minutes past the scheduled time, Paul Stanley , Gene Simmons , Tommy Thayer , and Eric Singer took the stage to find the stadium packed with fans. The audience included people from different parts of Brazil and of all ages, something that surprised one of the event's security staff. "I expected only old people here, but there are a lot of young people. Kiss is from my era, the 1970s, but there are a lot of children too, I never imagined this," she said in a brief conversation before the show.
Indeed, Kiss's audience continues to renew itself, and the band hasn't lost the loyalty of those who fell in love with them from the very beginning. Near the barrier, it was easy to find someone who had been to their first Kiss concert ever, myself included, and others who had already shared stories of other experiences at live shows. One particularly dedicated fan recounted her journey of following the entire Brazilian tour, being there for her third show this year alone and her fifteenth overall.
The excitement at seeing the band appear on stage to the sound of "Detroit Rock City," the first of many hits of the night, seemed universal at that moment. With a setlist consisting only of classics from their more than 40-year career, Kiss delivered an impeccable production that made the ticket price worthwhile: fireworks, impressive flames, giant screens, and platforms made for the best farewell show in history.
Under Stanley's charismatic leadership and Simmons' iconic presence, the show is meticulously rehearsed. The experience and demands of such an extensive tour require it, but it makes no difference whether the vocalist's intimate speeches praising the audience are the same as in any other city: São Paulo wanted the complete experience, and so it was delivered, with room for spontaneity when a cricket landed on Paul's microphone, and he talked to the insect before "Lick It Up".
A child near the stage was torn between euphoria and fear. The excitement of seeing their idols and receiving waves from Thayer contrasted sharply with the fear of the band's incandescent artillery and explosions on stage, just as the blood spat by The Demon once terrified younger audiences in other decades. The End Of The Road Tour is a meticulously calculated spectacle in which each character has a moment to shine, but that doesn't make it any less real or exciting.
Each band member has their moment in the setlist. While Simmons' persona sometimes seems to have aged poorly with its blatant sexual innuendo, his performance of "God of Thunder" is capable of transporting us back in time. Despite his age, Stanley is the perfect showman, aware of his own magnetism and constantly flirting with the audience, even without a perfect voice after so many years on the road. The vocalist's raspy high notes control the audience, and some choruses are thrown to the crowd with the help of the other band members' backing vocals, including a cappella flourishes before "Cold Gin." If playback is used, as many claim, it's not constant and doesn't detract from the quality of the show.
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Singer and Thayer also demonstrated, for the last time, their worth. The band's "newcomers" embody the characters they inherited from Peter Criss and Ace Frehley , with a fun-loving cat playfully interacting with the drum solos and a very likeable spaceman exploding the stage with his otherworldly guitar.
The theory about the importance of saying goodbye at the top proved more than correct: when Paul Stanley uttered the dreaded words ("Tonight, we say goodbye"), it was impossible to contain the pang in our hearts. Those are faces (or makeup) that have always been there, in the Olympus of rock, and it's hard to imagine what it will be like without waiting for a new tour of the band in Brazil.
The spontaneous comment from that security guard and the eyes of the little boy near the barrier, sometimes frightened, sometimes enchanted, show the power of Kiss's gigantic spectacle. The magic of the band and of rock, regardless of the bassist's comments about the market, remained alive and floated in the air even after "Rock and Roll All Nite," with the audience reluctant to leave that temple of worship where all dreams seemed possible.
See the photo gallery below.
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