KISS Make In-Store Appearance In New York, Present BEST BUY With Gold Album

KISS — Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Peter Criss, Tommy Thayer — made an in-store appearance in New York City on Wednesday, July 23 in conjunction with the Grand Opening of Best Buy's new 86th street store.

KISS appeared in full makeup and took photographs with the fans. In addition, they gave a gold record to Best Buy for their new CD, "Kiss Symphony: Alive IV", which shipped more than 500,000 copies to record stores prior to its July 22 release. Check out pictures from Film Magic and Wire Image.

The following report on KISS' appearance at Best Buy was posted by hard rock radio personality Eddie Trunk on his web site, www.eddietrunk.com:

"KISS Wednesday at Best Buy brought out the KISS faithful in droves. No matter how much people bitch and moan to me about what KISS does, it always amazes me how they still show up for EVERYTHING! The line of fans stretched about 1 1/2 city blocks, and inside the store was just crazy. A very frantic vibe, and a bit disorganized to start. The band arrived in full costume around 3:45, and they looked great. It was the 'Alive'-era costumes, and everybody looked in great shape and in great spirits. The band was in a very small space, which added to the insanity. Making matters more crazy was the fact that there were a ton of photographers in a roped off area, adding to the congestion. The band arrived, posed for photos for about 10 minutes, then moved a few feet over to stools where the photo shoot with fans started. KISS also gave a gold record to Best Buy for the new 'Alive 4'. This was NOT an autograph session, just a fan photo shoot. Kind of like meeting Santa Claus when you were a kid! I saw Ozzy use this same approach a couple years ago at in stores. I spoke briefly with Tommy, Paul & Peter, never caught up with Gene. Nothing major, just a quick hello. Talked to Paul about his guest DJ gig on Q104 earlier that day, and Peter about the upcoming tour. Also, it looked like they were showing clips from the 'Alive 4' DVD in the store, and they looked awesome. After I introed the band, I split to make room for all the fans coming through. A typical crazy KISS event, but the store I think was a bit unprepared for the volume of people and should have had a better set up. Maybe it was good that the weather was bad, because if it wasn't, or if the event was on a weekend, there would have been double the people! Also there was a small symphony playing KISS songs in the corner. Very cool, but they were drown out by the fans focused on meeting the band."

KISS and AEROSMITH begin a coheadlining tour in Hartford, Connecticut, on August 2. SALIVA and the PORCH GHOULS are the opening acts for the shows.