Who launches 'immortal' digital avatar and plans to go 'completely virtual'

Kiss is on a really long tour. The greatest glam rock band of all time has been playing their End of the Road Tour for the past four years, and completed the final show of their final farewell tour on Friday at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Kiss has done many farewell tours, but this time might be the best one.

At the end of the show, when Kiss finished playing their last song ("Rock and Roll All Night"), they disappeared in a cloud of fire and smoke. After the smoke subsided, the lights dimmed, and on a screen behind the stage, a camera zoomed in on the silhouettes of four figures crossing a spooky lake on some fantastical planet: new digital incarnations of Kiss, I believe. Happen. Their final form is required. Then Paul Stanley yells:

Another shows a really cool aspect of this part of the show: translucent screens with shots of the band, which definitely gives the show a futuristic Blade Runner feel.

The avatars "performed" a song, then the video ended and viewers were left with a photo of the four avatars beneath a stylized KISS logo with the phrase "The Beginning of a New Era".

Of course, the "New Age" is all about making money from avatars. The company behind the show, Pophouse Entertainment, has been doing this for over a year with young, digital versions of ABBA in its ABBA Voyage show. Kiss, a band that has doggedly traded on its image for half a century, seems perfectly suited for such a partnership.

PopHouse said in a press release today that it will host an "immersive, avatar-powered" concert using industrial light and magic-created avatars of Kiss.

It's no surprise to see big acts like Kiss making use of digital recreations of themselves – after all, these are people who have made a lot of money off the image they've created, so why not keep that money tap open?

Do people really want to see a "live" show with no live performers? Yes, I think they absolutely do. Bloomberg reported that ABBA incarnation shows are earning $2 million per week. And Variety wrote last week that the Eraz Tour concert video has surpassed $250 million in worldwide box office sales. Kiss and its incarnations could do well - to learn more about the band's future, check out this 22-minute conversation about the change in their incarnations.