When Kiss takes over Virgin Hotels Las Vegas this November, fans shouldn’t expect pyro, platforms, or the iconic makeup that made the band famous. Instead, the three-day Kiss Army Storms Vegas event, running November 14 to 16, will offer a different kind of celebration — one designed as a “landlocked” version of the band’s beloved Kiss Kruise.
“This will be, for lack of a better description, it’s a Kiss Kruise in Vegas,” frontman Paul Stanley explained during a recent appearance on The 500 With Josh Adam Meyers podcast (via Blabbermouth). “It’s a Kiss Kruise without a boat or a ship. We’ll take over the Virgin Hotel, and all the things that people have come to expect on a Kiss Kruise will happen. It’s a chance for international fans and friends to convene, as they always have.”
The upcoming event marks Kiss’s first public appearance since wrapping their End Of The Road farewell tour at Madison Square Garden in December 2023. And while the Vegas gathering won’t be a traditional concert, Stanley teased an intimate set, sans the famous stage costumes:
“We will play, although looking more like this [without any makeup or special stage outfits] than in classic gear. It’s gonna be really, really cool, and a lot of things are being added to it.”
Though the full schedule is still evolving, Stanley hinted that the spirit of the band’s fan cruises would be alive and well: “There’ll be great people playing, great bands, all kinds of competitions, all the things that we’ve done in the past on the cruise. Just like a tribal gathering with music and entertainment. Like I said, it’s a landlocked Kiss Kruise.”
Speaking about the origins of the fan community that inspired the Vegas event, Stanley recalled the early days of the Kiss Army:
“The Kiss Army, like the best armies, was volunteer. Kiss Army started in Terre Haute, Indiana when Bill Starkey, a resident, and his friends weren’t getting any Kiss music on their radio station and they called the radio station as the Kiss Army and said, ‘If you don’t start playing Kiss music by a certain time, we’ll surround the building.’ And, of course, everybody chuckled until they surrounded the building. So that was the start of the Kiss Army. Kiss Army started as not a calculated fan club, but as an uprising of the army.”
Earlier this month, bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons spoke with Greg Schmitt of Noize In The Attic, offering more clarity on what fans can expect from Kiss Army Storms Vegas:
“People misunderstand what that is. The Virgin event in November is really the fans, the Kiss Army — they’re taking over the hotel. This ain’t a concert. No makeup. Certainly not. We promised we would never do that again. No touring. We’ll get up and jam. In fact, I’m not even sure how many of us are gonna be there. I know Paul and I are gonna be there. I think Tommy‘s gonna come, but Bruce Kulick might pop in. It’s very informal.”
When asked whether original members Ace Frehley and Peter Criss might join in the festivities, Simmons was open: “Of course.”
But when Schmitt remarked on how rare it is for a band of Kiss’s stature to still have all living members and suggested such a reunion would be special, Simmons offered a reality check:
“I like the way you think, but it’s dreamland, my friend. That’s not how life works. You can lead a horse to water, but that’s all you can do. We invited — I personally invited Ace and Peter to jump up on stage with us at Madison Square Garden [for the final Kiss concert]. ‘Hey, why don’t you invite him on the show?’ I did, but they said no. ‘I want this and I want that.’ ‘Well, you can’t have that, but join us to celebrate the beginning.’”
