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- 1 KISS has a long and famed history in the music industry since the 70s.
- 2 Their 1996-1997 reunion tour grossed nearly around $143 Million.
Former American rock band, KISS, has bid farewell to their fans (this time for real). However, their new journey will be carried on by their digital avatars in the metaverse. Their final performance at Madison Square Garden left the fans starstruck when their superhero-like virtual selves made an appearance on the screen.
A Legacy Prevails
The on-screen band performed “God Gave Rock And Roll To You” during the show’s end. Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), a visual effect company founded by George Lucas, helped the band to create the virtual experience. As of now, details regarding the future of virtual KISS are unclear.
“The band’s transformation into avatars will ensure their immortalization while pushing the boundaries of rock and roll performances, as KISS has done throughout their career to date,” said Pophouse Entertainment, who assisted in bringing this experience to life. “This avatar performance will feature KISS as fantasy-based superheroes, and will provide a glimpse of just one of the many and varied ways in which KISS will live on as digital performers through their avatars in the future.”
ILM has also created digital avatars of ABBA, a Swedish pop group, for the ABBA Voyage show. All of the group members were presented as hologram-like avatars on stage but in a more realistic manner. Additionally, the company has contributed to visual effects (VFX) for Star Wars, Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), The Mandalorian, and more.
In Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, several artists associated with the company helped the 80-year-old Harrison Ford’s character in de-aging for particular scenes. Additionally, it took the team three years to create the visual effects. The company’s VFX supervisor explained that they needed to go all in for this project.
The purpose behind the move by KISS appears to have been keeping the legacy of the band alive with technology. A similar attempt was made by the Elvis Presley Legacy Council this year. They released 3,000 non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in the form of digital avatars of “The King” on the metaverse platform The Sandbox.
KISS has a long and famed history in the music industry since the 70s and the band would certainly like to keep the momentum going even after retirement. They have worked with music labels like Casablanca Records, Roadrunner Records, Mercury Records, and more.
Furthermore, the 1996-1997 reunion tour is their highest-grossing tour of all time, bagging around $143 Million. Metaverse concerts have been gaining wide traction for the past few years. Travis Scott, an American singer, garnered 47 Million views in his Fortnite concert.
The metaverse is still in a developing stage where users still lack the proper infrastructure to experience an immersive metaverse. Technologies like virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and more are considered keys to access the metaverse. However, the technology’s adoption has not reached an extent that allows the global population to see virtual worlds as they are supposed to see it.
Anurag is working as a fundamental writer for The Coin Republic since 2021. He likes to exercise his curious muscles and research deep into a topic. Though he covers various aspects of the crypto industry, he is quite passionate about the Web3, NFTs, Gaming, and Metaverse, and envisions them as the future of the (digital) economy. A reader & writer at heart, he calls himself an “average guitar player” and a fun footballer.
