Kiss said goodbye to the Argentine public with its classic show of artifice and rock & roll

Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, from Kiss, at the farewell to the Argentine public (Photos: Gustavo Gavotti)

“It’s been a long time since I rock and rolled…”, howls Robert Plant over the overwhelming swing of Jimmy Page, Bonzo and John Paul Jones. The audience is delirious because the lights went out and the unfolded curtain warns that Kiss is about to arrive. And Led Zeppelin’s classic is a prelude but also a summary of the four and a half decades that are about to end with this End Of The Road World Tourthe farewell tour that passed through Buenos Aires on Saturday night.

“I don’t speak Spanish very well, but I understand your feelings and my heart is yours,” shouted Paul Stanley with his treble and repeated some from the public. “He always says the same thing”, a girl in the VIP field thought aloud and laughed. And she clapped her hands. It is the eleventh time that they play on this side of the world with their as legendary as routine show of artifice and rock & roll.

Gene Simmons

And these guys want to rock: Stanley, Gene Simmons, Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer broke into their usual beastly rock mode in front of 50,000 people (plus some 160,000 who followed him on Flow). There they are once again these kids from before who created a brand, shaped their imagination and wasted fantasy and glamor to give new arguments to the music industry.

Makeup, fire, pyrotechnics, blood, air, lasers, balloons, pieces of paper. Vignettes with a comic imprint that spilled over both the Power Rangers like in Jem or the Galactic Falcons. In addition, of course, to pierce the ears of all the generations that have been born since they exist with their hits: between the field and the stalls there were dozens of families, many with painted faces. big and chic Kiss-style, enjoying an evening that was presumed unrepeatable even though it was scripted in detail.

Gene Simmons junto a Tommy Thayer

They know which camera to look at to wink at the crowd at exactly the right moment and where to stand so they don’t get roasted on stage. The solos, the thanks, the harangues. Everything is written and crystallized in scenes that are no less memorable because they are repeated: the aerial platforms that deposited them on stage in “Detroit Rock City”, the first on the list, crowned with fireworks bouncing off the ceiling. Gene’s sword that he spat flames with at the end of “I Love it Loud”. Singer playing the pre-chorus of “Deuce” with his right hand, while he twirled the left drumstick with the skill of a juggler.

“I don’t speak Spanish very well, but I understand your feelings and my heart is yours,” Paul Stanley told the Argentine public.Gene Simmons Between Fires

“Ooohhh, I’m a kisser, it’s a feeling, I can’t stop”, the local Kiss Army thanked and Paul gave them an imaginary hug and held his head as if he couldn’t believe it. Later, he wanted to cut off so sweetly: worried that so much breath between topic and topic disturbed his storyline scheduled, he asked for silence. “Thank you, thank you, shhhh, shhhh,” he whispered jealously after a chorus of his fellow bassist’s last name. Although later he changed his mind when the public began to sing to him.

The heat was rising, the sky was still on fire. The double bass drum saturated if you were close to the stage and the vibration of it made the heart come out through the mouth. Simmons’ reptilian tongue was bleeding. Stanley traveled in a harness to the mangrullo and his image is so iconic that the melody of “Love Gun” fits perfectly as well as the Latin dubbing of The Hangover (“This is beautiful / I believe I can fly…”) which is viral on tiktok.

Eric Singer

Paul was still in the audience, high up; he now he sings “I Was Made for Lovin’ you”. He then returns to the stage and starts the encores. Kiss is leaving. A woman cries, her tears deform the black star that had been drawn on her face and that was retouched several times during the show. But not anymore. Balloons and triumphant papers fly for the last of all. “Rock and Roll all Nite” and now yes, Kiss is leaving.

“We will leave the same way we entered: unapologetic and unstoppable,” they had said prior to this tour. And although they don’t come back anymore, they still stay forever. In the heart of yours.

Kiss fans enjoying the showThe Kiss Army of Argentina fully enjoyed the show at the Campo Argentino de PoloFather and son, lookeados to see Kiss (Photos: Gustavo Gavotti)

Arde La Sangre had opened the night with its scorching power rock with chiaroscuro texts. Corvata and Tery Langer, ex Carajo, joined Luciano Farelli and Nacho Benavides for this project that already has a debut album (The cure), from which songs like “Everything is vanity” (the first) and “Industria assassin” sounded. “The best rock & roll band in the world is coming,” Corvex agitated before “Fire from Heaven”, the last one and with which they opened the way for the Americans.

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