Kiss fans who want to shake hands with the band will have to wait. The group has decided to cancel all upcoming meet-and-greets over concerns about the spread of the coronavirus COVID-19.
“Our meet-and-greets have always offered us and you, our fans, a unique opportunity to literally stand shoulder to shoulder together,” manager Doc McGhee said in a statement, according to Blabbermouth. “After many discussions with experts in the field, we have been advised to temporarily cancel these events given the reality that we do this nightly for a hundred or more fans. Shows will continue as scheduled and we look forward to resuming our time with you backstage.”
Kiss are currently in the midst of their multiyear final tour, dubbed End of the Road. The group currently has gigs booked through October and intends to play its final concert in New York at an as-yet-unannounced venue on July 17th, 2021.
“We can’t be running around for that much longer in 40 pounds of gear,” vocalist-guitarist Paul Stanley told Rolling Stone of the decision to call it quits. “There’s nothing maudlin about it. It’s a celebration with our fans around the world. We wanted to raise the bar again as to what a band can do live. That’s really what we’ve always done: We’ve always wanted to be the band we never saw. There are a lot of shows out there that have Kiss DNA in them because there really weren’t shows of any magnitude before us.”
Worries about the coronavirus have been wreaking havoc on the music industry. In the past week, Madonna canceled some Madame X performances, the organizers of Ultra Music Festival announced it would be postponing its Miami event because of the virus, Nashville’s Tin Pan South Songwriters Festival followed suit, and the city of Austin declared a state of emergency, prompting the cancellation of South by Southwest.
