Kiss stops at Hellfest for their farewell tour

It's one of the last opportunities to see Gene Simmons, his demon makeup and his loose tongue: after 50 years of career, the group Kiss and its iconic bassist are on a farewell tour, passing through Hellfest on Thursday. Of course, you always have to be wary of the latest in the music industry: Kiss already went to Hellfest in 2019, bowing out at the time to the public of this French meeting dedicated to metal and its currents, one of the most greats of Europe (240,000 festival-goers expected).

This time, the End of the road tour (End of the road), which ends in December in New York, their city, seems to live up to its name. At 73, Gene Simmons, colossus of the mythical glam-metal band (one of the most melodic branches of the family), victim of a heat stroke on stage in Brazil in April, had to play seated that evening, sequence relayed on social networks. Since then, no incident. The other founding member still present, Paul Stanley, guitarist and singer, is 71 years old.

This duo that runs the Kiss boutique (formed in 1973, first eponymous album in 1974) has already planned for the future. Simmons "has no problem" imagining, on the Let there be talk podcast, that "20-year-old kids are taking up makeup again" to perpetuate the Kiss brand. A group where each musician hides behind a different make-up, between Kabuki theater and comic book superheroes.

No wonder: Simmons and Stanley did not hesitate to continue the adventure without two original members adored by the fans, Ace Frehley, solo guitarist, and Peter Criss, drummer, who left for the first time in the 1980s, then definitively in the early 2000s after a lucrative reformation. The make-up associated with Frehley (Spaceman, the space man) and Criss (Catman, the cat man) have since been worn by Tommy Thayer (62) and Eric Singer (65).

The group's image is Kiss' stroke of genius. Simmons and Stanley took the concept of the New York Dolls a step further, a punk band with musicians dressed like drag queens. No androgynous temptation at Kiss but a cocktail inspired by fantastic B series, between leather, studs and pyrotechnics. Simmons became the face of Kiss, made up as a demon, sticking out what is said to be the longest tongue on the rock circuit, spitting out fake blood or fire. Their reputation was built on stage, stealing the limelight from the bands they opened for. Discographic success will come with their fourth album, a live one (Alive! in 1975), while their label is on the verge of bankruptcy. The mega-hit I was made for lovin' you popped up with the album Dynasty (1979). Kiss is then swept away in a whirlwind from which he will have a hard time recovering.

Their fans became the Kiss Army, merchandising was developed on a large scale: comic strips whose red ink supposedly contained their blood, figurines, make-up boxes, followed by condoms and coffins with their effigy... "For all that is merchandising, nobody does it better than Kiss,” comments Dave Grohl (ex-Nirvana drummer, now Foo Fighters vocalist) in the Kisstory documentary. Simmons admits in this documentary that the ego has sometimes led to bad choices. Once, after the departure of the group at the beginning of the 1980s from Frehley and Criss, sucked by drugs and alcohol, Kiss will thus perform without makeup, before putting it back on.

The explosion of bands like Nirvana or Rage Against The Machine gave them a serious boost of age in the 1990s, before rebounding via the ephemeral reformation of the quartet from the beginnings to the dawn of the 2000s. Result, more than 150 million albums sold in half a century. For the rest, everything seems ready for Kiss to still be talked about, even without its historical members. Their manager assures that a biopic will be released on Netflix in 2024.