KISS have paid an emotional tribute to late guitarist Ace Frehley during their first performance since his death.
Lead singer Paul Stanley asked the crowd to mark a moment of silence before kicking off the performance.
“Obviously, before we get going, we just wanted to take a moment to think about somebody who was at the foundation of this band,” Stanley told the Las Vegas crowd.
“We’re talking about Ace,” he continued. “We certainly had differences, but that’s what family is about.”
The band, currently comprised of Stanley, Gene Simmons, Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer, presented their three-day KISS Kruise: Land-Locked in Vegas event a month after Frehley’s death.
The former guitarist died in hospital on 16 October at the age of 74.
“We are devastated by the passing of Ace Frehley,” Stanley and Simmons wrote in a joint statement at the time.
“He was an essential and irreplaceable rock soldier during some of the most formative foundational chapters of the band and its history. He is and will always be a part of KISS’s legacy.”
A few weeks prior to his death, Frehley fell in his studio and suffered a brain bleed.
His death was determined to have been caused by a blunt force head injury sustained in the fall, the local Medical Examiner’s report stated, according to TMZ.
Frehley was a founding member of KISS, which formed in 1973. He left the group in 1982, but reunited with the I Was Made for Lovin’ You rockers for a reunion tour from 1996 to 2002.
