Kiss reach the 'end of the road,' again, with latest farewell tour

Kiss performs at the the Riverbend Music Center in Cincinnati

San Diego Union-Tribune

Sept. 24, 2021 1 PM PT

Do Las Vegas oddsmakers have a betting line on Kiss? Perhaps they should.

In February 2019, the current edition of the still eye-popping, 48-year-old band performed its San Diego “End of the Road World Tour” farewell date at Viejas Arena. Then came the announcement of Kiss’ September 2020 farewell concert here at North Island Credit Union Amphitheater, which was scheduled for 20 years after Kiss’ first farewell tour.

The 2020 show here was pushed back to this week, as were many other Kiss dates, because of the coronavirus pandemic. Within the past month, the band postponed a number of concerts after co-founders Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley were diagnosed with COVID-19 (despite being vaccinated).

But never mind that. With Kiss’ 50th anniversary just 16 months away, and its farewell tour running through next July in Amsterdam, does anyone really believe this is the end of the road for the band? If so, there are some Vegas oddsmakers who would like to hear from you.

7:30 p.m. Saturday. North Island Credit Union Amphitheater, 2050 Entertainment Circle, Chula Vista. $39.50-$275.50, plus service charges. livenation.com. Mask-wearing is recommended for attendees who are not fully vaccinated.

Music Events

George Varga

San Diego Union-Tribune music critic George Varga began drumming in rock bands at 12 and writing professionally about music at 15. A Louisiana native who grew up mostly in Germany, Varga has earned three Pulitzer Prize nominations for his writing at the U-T and is a voting member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In addition to providing live coverage of the Grammy Awards and festivals from Coachella and KAABOO to the 1994 edition of Woodstock, he has interviewed everyone from Miles Davis, Britney Spears and (over a game of chess) Ray Charles to Willie Nelson, Kanye West and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis. A triple first prize-winner for criticism and arts writing at the 2022 San Diego Press Club awards and a double first prize-winner at the 2022 San Diego Society of Professional Journalists awards, Varga is also a contributing writer for Jazz Times magazine and has written for Billboard, Spin and other publications. After attending San Diego City College and San Diego State University, he created and taught the 2002 UC San Diego Extension course, “Jazz in a Post-Ken-Burns World.” Varga has written liner notes for more than a dozen albums, including by jazz sax greats James Moody and Michael Brecker, and contributed two chapters to the book, “Dylan: Disc By Disc.”