Kiss will 'defy gravity' in tech-heavy, tour-launching spectacle here

The last time we saw Kiss on a Tucson stage was 2000, the second date of the glam rockers’ so-called “farewell” tour.

Sixteen years and several post-farewell tours later, the quartet is finally returning for its encore.

On Monday, July 4, founding members Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley will join longtime members Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer at the AVA at Casino del Sol.

The show is part of the casino’s 22nd anniversary celebration and it also happens to fall on the Fourth of July. Fireworks are on the menu, and not just from the resort.

Expect some boom and bang to originate from the stage, as well.

“We have more fire power than most Third World countries. We’re bringing the full bang,” said bass player Simmons, reached at home in Los Angeles.

“Huge monster screens with brand-new technology that people haven’t seen before. Everything happens on that stage. We defy gravity, fly through the air from platforms. I fly up to the top of the light tress at eight feet a second. Paul flies off the stage to the back of the hall where he sings a few songs. Rockets red glare, bombs bursting in air.”

OK, so the part about Stanley taking flight at the back of the AVA hall won’t happen; the amphitheater has no back end. But we’re pretty sure once Simmons and Co. arrive at Casino del Sol, they will figure some other way to shoot Stanley out into the crowd.

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The Tucson show kicks off Kiss’ 2016 Freedom to Rock summer tour, which is expected to hit nearly 40 cities before wrapping up in early September. Kiss will play several cities on the tour for the first time in its 42-year history and 25 cities, including Tucson, for the first time in 10 or more years.

Opening the tour in Tucson was more a matter of routing than design, Simmons said.

“This idea that London and Paris and New York are supposed to be where you kick off things is not really right,” he said.

“Tucson has every reason to crow about being a special city as any other city.“

And we also get to be the testing ground for the tour, which Simmons said is a big undertaking that will involve:

• 14 to 22 45-foot-long tractor trailers hauling the stage, sound equipment and lighting rigs.
• Three buses for the crew.
• A jet for the band.
• Five miles of electric cable.

“It’s a traveling city,” he said. “It’s just enormous.”