Having wrapped their second farewell tour in 2023, Kiss has announced a one-off unmasked show in November to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Kiss Army fan club.
The show, taking place at a weekend-long event at Virgin Hotels in Las Vegas on November 14-16, will see Bruce Kulick return to the band, having spent the best part of 12 years in the glam rockers, between 1984 and 1996.
An email sent to fans promises “a special live performance from former KISS member Bruce Kulick, along with other special guests, activities, exclusive experiences, and more.”
Kulick and the man he replaced, Mark St. John, are famously the only two Kiss members to have never donned make-up during their time in the band. The former Meat Loaf and Grand Funk Railroad guitarist is fondly remembered for his multi-album contribution during an experimental time for the band.
Speaking to Guitar World last year, Kulick said he’d “always missed being in Kiss,” despite having been left out of both the band's farewell expeditions, in 2000-01, and 2019-2023 respectively. Tommy Thayer has been Kiss guitarist since 2002.
“I’ve made peace with not being included in Kiss’s End of the Road,” Kulick says. “That said, no, they never called me... but if that meant being the Spaceman like Tommy, I wouldn’t want to do it.”
By his own admission, Kulick has seen a revival of his Kiss era in recent years, believing it’s not just the music that moved them – the guitars I played also matter”. His comments came as he launched a new '80s-style line that tips its hat to his eight years in the band.
Kulick's namesake axes hark back to his employment of an ESP M-1 guitar while in Kiss. It was a move that came after Paul Stanley wanted to create a clear distinction between Kiss' make-up and non-make-up eras.
“Gibson guitars represented vintage makeup-era Kiss guitars,” he told Guitar World. “But in early December 1984, Paul [Stanley] said, 'You're the new guitarist of Kiss,' and wanted me to know the vintage material and be part of the new generation of guitar players. I was keenly aware of the balance between the makeup years and my non-makeup years. ESP would bring me all these options!”
Despite his tenure in the band coming to an unceremonious end, he insists that he wasn't fired.
“I’ve always looked at it as I was never fired from Kiss; I was left behind for a wildly successful commercial venture,” he believes. “You don’t have to be an accountant to understand Paul and Gene.”
Ace Frehley has recently made a similar claim, although under slightly different circumstances: he alleges Kiss lied when they said he was fired in both 1982 and 2002, insisting he quit, and Gene Simmons wanted him to reverse his decision.
Of course, this isn’t the first time Kiss had returned to the stage after their final curtain had supposedly been drawn – Kiss were touring again just two years after their first farewell show wrapped. Tommy Thayer, though, who played across Kiss’ final two decades, has hinted that their long-term future exists in the virtual realm.
The news comes as Gene Simmons has postponed 17 of the solo shows during which fans had the chance to be the Demon’s roadie for the day, for the cool sum of $12,495.
A statement provided by Christina Vitaglano, who handles Simmons' backstage VIP fan experience packages, says the shows have been put back “until early 2026.”
