I first saw Kiss in 1980.

On October 4th, in the Ernst-Merck-Halle in Hamburg.

I was 16 and the opening act was Iron Maiden.

We were four boys from Lüneburg Heath.

We came to the city by train, put on our make-up at McDonalds on Gänsemarkt and then stood in front of the hall at the exhibition center in the afternoon.

When it started, the crowd in front of the stage was so big that we had to move to the back.

We didn't see much, there were no video screens for a long time.

But the concert was like a revelation for us, our first foray into the big world of rock 'n' roll.

Peter Badenhop

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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Now I'm standing in the Frankfurt Festhalle, I'll be 60 in two years, and I'll probably see Kiss for the last time.

The tour is called "End of the Road", it's our farewell evening.

Singer Paul Stanley is 70, bassist Gene Simmons a few years older, it's time to retire.

The New Roses from Wiesbaden, where I live for more than 20 years, play as the opening act.

Who would have thought that back then?

But we're not here for sentimentality, we're here to say goodbye to the best band in the world.

That's bad enough.

Star cut from the "Bravo"

We, that's my brother and me.

My little brother, now in his mid-50s. At the time, he had a Kiss star cut from Bravo.

That was in 1981. 37 parts.

The boy was twelve and the biggest Kiss fan around.

And now he's standing next to me in the crowd, vibrating.

We've seen Kiss half a dozen times over the years, in Hamburg, Hannover (unmasked and with Bon Jovi as the opening act), in Mannheim, Leipzig, at Rock am Ring and a few years ago here at the Festhalle.

Today is the last time.

It doesn't leave us unscathed, and apparently many people in the hall feel the same way.

Most here have gotten old with the band, many have put on their old tour shirts, some have brought their children with them, few have made-up on.

Some of my colleagues, neighbors and friends rolled their eyes.

Kiss?

Isn't that a little silly?

Out of time, ridiculous?

Above all, they have the spectacle in mind.

The make-up, the teased hair, the costumes, the platform boots.

You can't take this seriously.

For them, the concert consists primarily of explosions, fire breathing, film blood and confetti rain.

And of course it does and will be offered again tonight in great detail.

Already on the opener "Detroit Rock City" Kiss burn more pyro than other bands on a whole tour.

Album milestones like “Alive”

But we really care about the music.

No Nobel Prize songwriting, but real rock 'n' roll.

This loud, rhythmic hard rock, dominated by bass and guitars, of the first, the classic phase, to which Kiss after digressions with disco overtones ("I was made for loving you"), with concept album ambitions ("The Elder") and have returned again and again with pop-commercial trivialities ("Crazy Nights"), dominates the musical character of the band - and also this evening in the Festhalle.

Album milestones like "Alive!", "Love Gun" and "Destroyer" are not only burned into us and the others in the hall, countless musicians count Kiss among their role models, from the doctors to Metallica, Mötley Crüe, Nirvana and Green Day to Lenny Kravitz.

And not because of the extravagant stage show, but because of the large number of good, sometimes groundbreaking songs that filled two albums a year in the classic phase.

After the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, Kiss is said to have received the most gold records in the world.

In total, they have sold more than 100 million albums.

So it can't all be just for show.

Fire fountains, laser lights and flying insert

Of course they also play "I was made for loving you" that evening, the hall sings along with every line.

We tend to endure this commercial rock tearjerker and look forward to classics from the seventies like "Deuce", "Black Diamond", "Cold Gin", "God of Thunder" or "100,000 Years".

The two front men Simmons and Stanley, guitarist Tommy Thayer and drummer Eric Singer also play younger pieces like "Tears are falling" and "Psycho Circus" - and at the very end "Rock and Roll All Nite".

All accompanied by the usual "Hello people" announcements, fire fountains, laser lights and flying interludes.

Yes, this is a commercial rock theater that is staged down to the last detail and is also a bit outdated.

We're aware of that, after all we're no longer twelve and sixteen.

But it was still a great evening.

A grandiose, loud and intoxicating farewell.

I'm going to play my old Kiss records today and tomorrow, one after the other.

And my little brother wants to look for the star cut in the basement again in the next few days.

It has to be somewhere.