Oh boy. If you grew up in the ’70s, you just got a massive boner with this news:
The legendary cheeseball rock group, Kiss, is coming to Richmond on Friday, Sept. 9 at the big brown squatty potty known as the Richmond Coliseum.
The show is a stop on their “Freedom to Rock” tour (which is many tours after their final farewell tour). Tickets range from $39.50 to $125 and go on sale on April 15 at 10 am. Purchase at the Coliseum box office or online at richmondcoliseum.net. or by phone at 800-745-3000.
Kiss fans are famously hardcore — I can remember kids in the southside of Richmond debating whether the name stood for Knights in Satan’s Service way back in the mid-70s.
Here is what Gene Simmons had to say about the real origins:
One day Paul [Stanley] and Peter [Criss] and I were driving around, brainstorming for new names. I had thought of a few, like Albatross, but I wasn’t happy with any of them. At one point — we were stopped at a red light — Paul said, “How about KISS?” Peter and I nodded, and that was it. It made sense. Hindsight is 20/20, of course, and since then people have talked about all the benefits of the name: how it seemed to sum up certain things about glam rock at the time; how it was perfect for international marketing because it was a simple word that people understood all over the world. But we just liked the name, and that was that.
The band had a huge influence on Richmond legends, Gwar.
This upcoming fall tour is focusing on markets where the current incarnation of the make-up caked band hasn’t played in 10 years or more.
The only thing better would be if my favorite ’90s Harrisonburg Kiss cover band — Stool — could play the after-party. But I think those guys now live in Vietnam.
Stay tuned: I’m sure Chris Bopst will have more to say about this in a future issue.
