Will Kiss’ Farewell Tour Take Them to Antarctica?
Gene Simmons said Kiss still had 150 shows to perform on their postponed farewell tour and that the road trip included a visit to “the coldest place on Earth” with a giant pyro show – raising the suggestion they’ll perform in Antarctica.
The band’s End of the Road tour, like every other event of its kind, was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic. With the possibility of a global vaccination in sight, the live music industry will aim to return to action as soon as possible. Simmons previously said Kiss wouldn’t return to the road until a vaccine was generally available.
“We've already booked Europe outdoors,” he told 95.5 KLOS in a recent interview. “Most of the shows have already sold out. We start in summer. The vaccines are gonna be out there for everybody, oh, by January, February, March at the latest, but we're gonna be out there a few months after that. And we've literally got 150 cities booked.”
Simmons – who recently said Kiss were pursuing a world record for the scale of a pyro show on New Year’s Eve – predicted “some of the later [concerts] are gonna be jaw-dropping. ... There's one place that's the coldest place on Earth, and if you can imagine us playing there with even larger pyro than you've ever seen, 'cause there's nothing around there.”
He noted that “political people” have given permission for the event to go ahead. “I said, 'No. We can really do that?' They said, 'Yup. Yup.' … And so there's gonna be stuff that's just gonna make you go, 'That's the coolest’.” The Antarctica Plateau usually records the lowest temperatures on Earth, reaching -148ºF in the winter season during the nights of July and August.
At an elevation of 3,000 feet and with constant high winds, the area is so inhospitable to life that only microbes and some tiny insects are found there. Antarctica’s ecosystem is protected by international law against potential pollution risks. When Metallica performed on the continent in 2013, they played in an eco dome without amplification to a small group of contest-winning fans.
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