When Kiss performed at Madison Square Garden in New York this month, it brought down the curtain on End of the Road, the group's farewell tour, which began in 2019. “We're going to end on top,” said bassist Gene Simmons, last year, in an interview he gave to Los Angeles radio station KLOS-FM. He has sworn there will be no more Kiss tours.
Sure, maybe.
Kiss fans know very well that in 2000, the group announced a farewell tour.
Music lovers have reason to be wary and even fed up with the industry's lucrative gimmicks. This year marked the 50th anniversary of David Bowie's first retirement — “it's the last concert we'll ever do,” he proclaimed to the crowd at London's Hammersmith Odeon — but he went on tour again less than a year later.
Some artists have had unabashed fun in acknowledging this practice. In 2004, Phil Collins began his First Final Farewell tour, and in 2017, he dubbed his actual farewell tour the Not Dead Yet tour.
Depending on the artist's age, a declared farewell could generate more or less skepticism. Bowie was 26 years old at the time of his first retirement. Simmons is 74.
“I do think that, at last, this is the end of the road for Kiss,” said Doug Brod, author of the book “They Just Seem a Little Weird: How Kiss, Cheap Trick, Aerosmith, and Starz Remade Rock and Roll.” They Seem a Little Weird: How Kiss, Cheap Trick, Aerosmith and Starz Remade Rock), from 2020.
Frank Sinatra retired in 1971, but returned two years later, to much hype and success on the pop charts. Bowie was paying attention. “David was a big Sinatra fan,” his former manager, Tony DeFries, recently told Mojo magazine. Bowie's retirement was a hoax to generate demand for a major US stage tour, he added.
In 1977, on stage at London's Wembley Stadium, Elton John announced that he would no longer tour. Although he returned two years later, he talked again and again about retiring. In September 2018, the singer began his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, which concluded in July 2023. So far, he has not gone back on his word.
Fake removal is common among hard rock groups (Judas Priest, Mötley Crüe, Scorpions, Black Sabbath, etc.), but other offenders include The Who, Cher, Meatloaf, Tina Turner, Barbra Streisand, Phish and LCD Soundsystem.
“I would never want to be Gene Simmons, an old man who puts on makeup to entertain young people, like a clown going to work,” Trent Reznor told The Philippine Daily Inquirer in 2009, when he announced the end of his group Nine Inch. Nails. After four years, he returned to the stage, which gave them something in common.
By: ROB TANNENBAUM
THE NEW YORK TIMES
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/7026254, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-12-12 19:50:06
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