The actual final Kiss show took place on April 13, 2001. That’s the last time the band’s four founding members — Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley, and Peter Criss — all performed together. But technically, the band will be on July 17, 2021, in New York City (likely at Madison Square Garden). That’s when the band’s current line-up — Simmons, Stanley, and guitarist Tommy Thayer and drummer Eric Singer dressed up to look like Frehley and Criss — will perform together, Kiss will be, for all intents and purposes, retired as a performing entity. The fact that Kiss have been able to continue another twenty years with a pair of cosplayers in place of actual members suggests that Kiss fans don’t really care all that much who is in the band. Still, it would be nice if the real Kiss could play together, officially, one last time.

Which might actually happen, according to a new Pollstar interview with the band’s manager, Doc McGhee:

Two things worth chewing on while we wait to see if this actually happens or not:

It’s not clear if when McGhee says “all the former members,” he means all the former members. Drummer Eric Carr and guitarist Mark St. John have both passed away, unfortunately (and St. John was barely ever even in the band to begin with), but guitarists Vinnie Vincent and Bruce Kulick are alive. Will they, too, be invited back? Or are we just talking Frehley and Criss here?
Will the former members be asked to wear make-up, or nah? Because we could wind up in a situation where there are ostensibly two Spacemen and two Catmen on stage (Vincent’s Egyptian Warrior has never been remade with a new musician). Also, Kulick joined the band during the time they’d retired the make-up, so he’d be the only dude there without a character. These things are the biggest deal, obviously, but some aesthetic consistency would still be nice.
ANYWAY, I guess we’ll see if this really happens or not. It would be swell if it did — one of the biggest bummers about the Sabbath and Slayer farewell shows were the absence of alive-but-not-invited former drummers Bill Ward and Dave Lombardo (that Jeff Hanneman wasn’t available to appear goes without saying). Kiss have never been known for being the classiest band, but Frehley, Criss, Vincent, and Kulick are all a fairly big part of their history, and inviting them to the final show would definitely be a classy move.