Ok, KISS ARMY ...the countdown has begun. Only seven days until the long-awaited new KISS ALBUM, SONIC BOOM is released on Tuesday, October 6th. To get you pumped up for the album's release, we are proud to launch the new KISSONLINE SONIC BOOM page that will feature a new exclusive recording studio video clip each day, beginning today through next Tuesday.

Click here to visit the SONIC BOOM page and view today's clip...ENJOY!

Here's a page of the new Walmart circular promoting KISS' SONIC BOOM. The circular will be released this weekend in newspapers and Walmart stores everywhere! KISS' SONIC BOOM album will be released exclusively at Walmart and Sam's Club Stores on Tuesday, October 6th!

Check out these photos of KISS from their Cleveland show.

Kiss, Cleveland, 09.28.09 from John Soeder on Vimeo.

KISS is featured on the cover of the new BILLBOARD (ISSUE V 121 N 39) Masters of Merch featuring KISS.

CONCERT: The veteran rockers, who first played London way back in 1974, were back and in fine form again last night

By JAMES REANEY
Photo by Chris Schwegler

Sweet 35 and still being KISSED like the first time.

Downtown London time-warped back to the 1970s last night when KISS headlined at a sold-out John Labatt Centre.

With 8,682 fans, many of them wearing the facepaint of their heroes jamming the downtown London arena, there was a whole lot of rock and roll all night.

KISS veterans Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley are still around from the band that rocked London again and again -- 1974 being the first time when the band was young and visited twice.

The band and the fans knew what to do when it was time for Rock and Roll All Nite, as the spectacular finale to the main set. Spectacular as in Simmons and lead guitarist Tommy Thayer being lofted on huge platforms with stage smoke billowing from them like jet exhaust.

Spectacular as in the fans singing and shouting along because they love the band, the song and what KISS means to them after all these years.

Hey KISSonline,

Just writing to tell you I had an awesome time in Detroit watching KISS blow the roof off of Cobo Hall. Absolutely amazing, especially hearing Modern Day Delilah live for the first time!!!!

The only disappointing part of the trip is that I have to wait until October 6th to get all of the cool items that are supposed to be in the KISS corners at WalMart.

I drove around the Detroit area all day on Sunday looking for the new M&Ms, Mr. Potato Heads, T-shirts, blankets and trading cards and they were all gone!

I even talked to many of the customer services employees to find out why none of the items were in stock and they said they went VERY quickly and that fans bought the stuff in droves. They said KISS fans had been coming in all weekend!

I guess I can be patient just a little longer to get my KISS fix, but I can tell you with the demand so large, I hope I can find it, because I plan on buying it ALL!

Best,
Vincent Castellano

LETTERS

By Hali McGrath / LiveDaily Contributing Writer

Shout it, shout it, shout it out loud--KISS has been nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This time around the institution is celebrating its 25th anniversary, and it's hard to imagine a group better suited to enter during the milestone year. But the jury is out until January, when 2010's five inductees will be revealed.

In the meantime, Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley and Co. are busy getting on with the business at hand, anticipating the Oct. 6 release of "Sonic Boom," a new studio album produced by Stanley. In a press release, Simmons described the set as perhaps "the best new record we've done since 'Destroyer'! It is 'Rock And Roll Over' meets 'Love Gun.'"

Fans can catch the group during its "Alive 35 Tour 2009" through its Dec. 6 conclusion in Dallas. LiveDaily photographer Gene Schilling caught up with KISS in Detroit last weekend (9/25) and here are some of his shots.

Kiss Army Worldwide: The Ultimate Fanzine Phenomenon

The KISS army is everywhere! For 35 years and counting, KISS has been one of the world's top touring bands. Here for the first time is a visual history of KISS through never-before-seen concert photos and unique fanzine tributes and memorablia, starting from this iconic band's very beginnings in the 1970s to today. Featuring new interviews with Gene Simmons and fans from all around the world, it is the ultimate tribute to the world's ultimate rock 'n' roll band.

ORDER NOW

By D.X. Ferris
Photograph by Matt Mitchell

Halloween arrived early last night, when the Kiss Army invaded downtown Cleveland, Ohio, for a concert at Quicken Loans Arena. The show was the second stop of the Kiss Alive 35 tour, following a sold-out two-night stand in Detroit Rock City. The trek celebrates the 35th anniversary of Alive!, the band's first landmark live album - one of RS' Greatest Albums of All Time - which helped elevate the group from a New York makeup act to international rock icons.

With some luck, Kiss will return to the city in a few months: Last week, after a decade of eligibility, the popular favorite received a nomination to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which is headquartered blocks away from Q.

The arena was dotted with convention-worthy costumes and fans in pedestrian fatigues and face-paint. Couples wore black-and-white Gene-and-Paul designs, dads and sons sported matching makeup, and an elementary schoolgirl looked so comfortable painted as Starchild you'd think she was at a Dora the Explorer Live! show.


As frontman Paul Stanley proclaimed early in the set, "Tonight is all about celebrating the history of the band and the relationship with the Kiss Army."

Our pal and photographer John Davisson is a huge Kiss fan. So much so that he flew from his home in Florida to Detroit last week, joining fellow Pollstar photog Scott Legato to witness the band launch their Alive 35 tour. Since none of us could get the time off from our six jobs to be there, we asked him to give us (and you) a fan's-eye view of things.

I grew up with Kiss in the late '70s. I got my cerebral rock from Rush, my bluesy roots rock from Aerosmith, my operatic rock from Queen and my aggression from Ted Nugent. But it was Kiss when I wanted to "rock and roll all night and party every day." Like a lot of teenagers, I had posters of my favorite bands plastered all over my walls. Kiss dominated them all. Partly because they had the best posters (and the most). Their Alive II tour was one of my first concerts.

I used to read the magazines about Kiss to learn my Kisstory and today I still know their real names, their vices and motivators. On the Dynasty tour, I was able to sneak in a camera (anybody remember 110 Instamatic cameras, the camera-phone of the day?). That lead to a passion for photographing concerts which grew from that Instamatic to 35mm and eventually to digital photography. Now I'm a respected senior music photographer with photos published in many outlets. Thanks guys!

Check out these great photos taken by Joe Gall for SPIN Magazine at COBO Arena!

KISS kicked off their latest, but certainly not last, U.S. tour at Detroit's soon-to-be-demolished Cobo Hall, where they recorded their landmark live album Alive 34 years ago.

By JAMES REANEY

For KISS, it has been London, Rock City for more than 35 years.

The U.S. rock legends' KISS Alive 35 tour reaches the John Labatt Centre on Tuesday night, as they return to the city where they have action-painted dressing rooms with mayo and mustard, fished in Fanshawe Lake ... and had fans ready to sign up with the KISS Army since 1974.

When KISS first rocked London in the summer of 1974, the New York band was one of many glam rock pretenders. Even then, KISS had figured out how to shout it out loud in a colourful array, which included David Bowie and the New York Dolls.

"It was this big secretive thing about not seeing them without their makeup," says Ingersoll-area music promoter and media relations businessperson Nick Panaseiko. "They were the first one to incorporate dry ice in huge barrels ... they had Peter Criss's drum kit raised up by a fork lift."

By Sarah Rodman

They've been extolling the virtues of all-night rocking and daily partying for 35 years, and they're not done yet. Next Tuesday, the day after filling the TD Garden with its spectacle, Kiss releases its first album in 11 years, "Sonic Boom." Last week, the makeup-loving quartet learned that, 10 years after their initial eligibility, they made the nomination ballot for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We chatted with amiable Kiss guitarist-vocalist Paul Stanley last week as the band prepared to rock Cobo Center in Detroit, the scene of their first "Alive" album.

Q. Congratulations on the nomination. How are you feeling about it?

A. There's a long way between a nomination and induction. That being said, this is really something that I think is exciting. There is a very vocal segment of Kiss fans and rock fans who have wanted us in. And so for them I'm very, very pleased.

Q. What was the impetus for the new album, since you probably could've carried on successfully as you have until you retired?

A. I think this lineup [with drummer Eric Singer and lead guitarist Tommy Thayer] is so terrific and being in the midst of our most successful, biggest tour ever . . . it was so obvious, not only to me, but to the fans, how great the band is and how quintessentially we are Kiss. For me it was just a matter of one stumbling block, and that would be me producing the album. It really was about, at this point, making sure that I didn't have to make apologies for something that came out.

Photo by Gene Schilling

Story by Gary Graff

Kiss opened the U.S. portion of its Kiss Alive 35 tour by recreating its breakthrough "Alive!" album in the place it was made -- Cobo Arena in Detroit Rock City.

As its done throughout the year, the group dedicated its main set on Friday to 1975's gold "Alive!," playing all but two of the set's 16 songs ("Firehouse" and "Rock Bottom" were excerpted) and altering the running order slightly to close with "Rock and Roll All Nite." "Deuce" started the two-hour and 20-minute show amidst booming pyrotechnics, and the set list treated members of the Kiss Army, who packed Cobo to the roof for opening night, to deep cuts such as "Got to Choose," "Nothin' to Lose," "Parasite" and "Watchin' You," as well as drum and guitar solos by Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer, respectively, and an extended version of "100,000 Years" that culminated in a call-and-response between Paul Stanley and the crowd.

By Dan Caffrey and Andy Keil

Detroit's legendary Cobo Center (formerly Cobo Hall) may be closing its doors for a much lamented expansion in just a few days, but KISS couldn't resist stopping by for a two night set to remind the Motor City that they truly don't make concert venues like this anymore.

"The hottest band in the land" recorded their breakthrough album Alive! behind the Cobo Center's walls 35 years ago, and not much has changed since then. It still has the feel of an oversized high school gym from the '70s and that's part of its charm; its manila stucco, cinder block walls, and fold out chairs keep things scrappy, locking the smaller than average arena in a perpetual junky time capsule (complete with water damage, too), the perfect setting for the band, who played Alive! in its (almost) entirety last night.

Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, the group's only two original members--still perform with a ferocity and penchant for spectacle unseen from many of their peers. Stanley's whimsical rock 'n' roll preacher stage banter was still a hoot, whether it was promoting their upcoming album or reminding Detroit that we were all "one big family."