On their farewell tour at Madison Square Garden, New York (Dec. 2), Kiss announced they would live on as virtual avatars.
During the show, the four Kiss members (founders Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, guitarist Tommy Thayer and drummer Eric Singer) unveiled that from now on, they would continue performing with digitised versions of themselves, thus becoming the first US band that gets virtual. After the four walked off stage, the digital avatars performed "God Gave Rock and Roll to You."
"Kiss Army, your love, your power, has made us immortal!" vocalist/guitarist Stanley announed in a video. "The new Kiss era stars now!"
The new avatars will allow Kiss to continue for "enternity," and the band would not perform on stage alongside the virtual band; rather, the virtual twins will perform instead of the band.
Kiss’ avatars were engineered by George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic, in partnership with Sweden’s Pophouse Entertainment Group, as per the Associated Press.
In a roundtable interview, Stanley said that Kiss "deserves to live on because the band is bigger than we are," and added, "It’s exciting for us to go the next step and see Kiss immortalised."
Simmons pointed out that the virtual band will be able to do things the original members "couldn’t dream of doing."
"We can be forever young and forever iconic by taking us to places we’ve never dreamed of before," Simmons said. "The technology is going to make Paul jump higher than he’s ever done before."
