STURGIS — It’s hard to accept that “The Demon” in KISS is not immortal.
The towering, vampire-like performer prowled the stage for nearly a half-century, managing to beguile crowds with his 7-inch tongue, his raspy scream and blood boiling out of his mouth as if he was dying right in front of fans.
He looked like a nightmare and performed like a dream, but “open your eyes, baby,” Gene Simmons says, having shaken off a decades-long hangover and a kink in his neck from the 30-pound dragon armor he donned.
While the monster sleeps, Simmons arises nice and easy now. He’s witty, affectionate with a side of raunch, thoughtful and funny and looked like he just wanted to hang out when he performed the night of Aug. 3 for thousands of bikers at the 85th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
“This is much easier now,” he says of his one-man show as The Gene Simmons band. “It makes me feel good.”