Kiss to play one final Detroit show in the city that embraced the band first
When Kiss recently announced the final concert dates of the band’s career, one market was conspicuously missing from the list: Detroit Rock City.
Now, justice is served. Kiss will play Little Caesars Arena on Oct. 20, six weeks before the band calls it a wrap with a pair of hometown shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
The veteran hard-rock-glam band, which broke big in Michigan in the 1970s well before its success elsewhere, announced the LCA show Thursday morning.
The Detroit show is one of four dates added to the homestretch of Kiss’s End of the Road Tour, which will wrap up Dec. 1-2 at MSG, capping a 50-year concert career.
Tickets for the Oct. 20 Kiss show at Little Caesars Arena will go on sale April 7, following presales for Kiss Army members (starting 10 a.m. April 3).
Concerts in Nashville (Oct. 23), St. Louis (Oct. 25) and Fort Worth, Texas (Oct. 27) were also announced Thursday, joining the run of shows unveiled in early March as Kiss marches toward its December finale.
Related: Bruce Springsteen at LCA in Detroit: Timeless energy, hours of hits, reflective moments
More: Detroit's Drey Skonie wins 'Amplify' singing competition as Motown music takes center stage
The End of the Road Tour kicked off in early 2019, hitting Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena that March and returning for shows at Pine Knob in 2020 and 2021.
Detroit and Michigan loom large in Kiss lore. Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss found a devoted audience here on the way to wider fame, later lionizing the region’s concert cred in the 1976 hit “Detroit Rock City.”
Stanley reflected on the Kiss-Detroit connection ahead of the 2019 LCA show:
“It’s incredible, from the first time we played at the Michigan Palace (in 1974). That connection with Detroit and the audiences has been what I had hoped for, but certainly could never have foreseen.
“Detroit and Michigan have been the spawning ground for so much great music — whether it's Bob Seger, Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels. Stooges. MC5. Out of Flint, you had Grand Funk Railroad. And let's not forget Motown, the Temptations, Smokey (Robinson). For us to be embraced the way we were, from the very beginning, was a badge of honor because it’s a blue-collar nation that embraced us. Detroit made us headliners when we were still a support band in many parts of the country.”
Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Kiss to play final Detroit show at Little Caesars Arena
