Kiss, the famous band closed out their final performance of their “The End of the Road” farewell tour at New York City’s famous Madison Square Garden. The fans know they will never let them down as they will now set the virtual world on fire and will become the first Digital Avatars.
“Kiss” during their recent show, left the stage to reveal digital avatars of themselves. The band’s current lineups are – founders Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons as well as guitarist Tommy Thayer and drummer Eric Singer. After the transformation into Digital Avatars, the virtual Kiss launched into a performance of “God Gave Rock and Roll to You.”
The cutting-edge technology used by this band is mainly to tease a new chapter of the rock band: after 50 years of Kiss, the band is now interested in a kind of digital immortality.
The Digital avatars were created by George Lucas’ special-effects company, Industrial Light & Magic, in partnership with Pophouse Entertainment Group, the latter of which was co-founded by ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus. The two companies recently teamed up for the “ABBA Voyage” show in London, in which fans could attend a full concert by the Swedish band — as performed by their digital avatars.
KISS and their legacy
According to Per Sundin, CEO of Pophouse Entertainment, this new technology allows the band to continue their legacy for “eternity.” He also says that the band wasn’t on stage during virtual performance because “that’s the key thing,” of the future-seeking technology. “Kiss could have a concert in three cities on the same night across three different continents. That’s what you could do with this advanced technology.”
To create their digital avatars, who are the superhero version of the band, Kiss performed in motion capture suits.
This kind of technology is becoming quite common in the music industry and we can also see K-pop star Mark Tuan partnered with Soul Machines to create an autonomously automated “digital twin” called “Digital Mark.” Therefore, Tuan became the first celebrity to attach their likeness to OpenAI’s GPT integration, the AI technology that allows fans to engage in one-on-one conversations with Tuan’s avatar.
The band member Paul Stanley said in a happy note, “The band deserves to live on because the band is bigger than we are. It’s exciting for us to go the next step and see Kiss immortalized.”
This recent technology has made the band KISS forever iconic by taking them to places they have never dreamed of before. And for those who couldn’t attend the Madison Square Garden show — stay tuned, because a Kiss Avatar concert may very well be on the way.