Kiss has given the world sing-and-shout-along hits like “Detroit Rock City,” “Crazy Crazy Nights,” and “Beth,” as well as live performances replete with blood-spattering, fire-breathing, pyrotechnics, and gobs of cartoonish stage makeup, in the 50 years since the band first kicked and thrashed its way onto the New York rock scene.

“Their schtick lifted them up to the absolute top,” said music journalist Joel Selvin, author of books about rock singers such as Linda Ronstadt, the Grateful Dead, and Sly and the Family Stone.

On Saturday, the memorable stagecraft that helped Kiss become one of the world’s best-selling hard rock bands will come to an end, as its members perform the final show of their four-year-long “End of the Road World Tour” at Madison Square Garden in New York. The concert will be broadcast live on Pay-Per-View.

“It has nothing to do with band personalities, tensions, differences of opinion, or musicality.” “It’s purely practical,” stated Kiss co-founder, rhythm guitarist, and vocalist Paul Stanley of the band’s reasons for calling it quits after five decades in an interview with the music newspaper Ultimate Classic Rock. “You can play beat the clock, but ultimately the clock wins.”

In the days leading up to the event, the city seemed to have gone Kiss-crazy, with the arrival of Kiss-themed taxis, Metro cards, and pizza boxes. The New York Rangers sponsored KISS Game Night on Wednesday, complete with Kiss-themed games and “limited-edition KISS x Rangers merchandise.” On Thursday, band members also attended an Empire State Building lighting ceremony. Empire State emitted the colors associated with the band — silver, red, purple, green, and blue — in celebration of Kiss’ last song.

Despite the hype, this might not be Kiss’ last kiss. The band previously embarked on a “farewell tour” more than 20 years ago. Following a brief break, it resumed touring on and off in 2003. From there, live events and record releases followed.

In interviews, band members have shown interest in continuing in some capacity following Saturday’s Madison Square Garden concert. Both Stanley and co-frontman Gene Simmons have their own bands and claim they intend to continue appearing in those forms at the very least.

“Nobody ever really says goodbye,” remarked rock critic Selvin, noting comebacks by Cher, Steve Miller, and the Grateful Dead throughout the years. “It’s a showbiz strategy.” You take your bow. But there’s always the possibility of an encore.”

According to Selvin, musicians frequently reemerge after retirement because they may make a lot of money due to fans’ pent-up need. According to Far Out magazine, the pop-punk band Blink-182 is earning four times as much on their current reunion tour as they did when they previously re-united in 2009. (The band announced in 2005 that it was going on “indefinite hiatus,” only to resurface four years later.)

“Personal life interferes, you want to disappear into the woodwork for a while and then demand builds and you go back to it,” Selvin went on to say. “In 1999, Steve Miller disbanded his band. He was simply exhausted. And he had been out for six years. Then, in 2005, he reformed his band, and his price went up, and there was increased interest in seeing him.”

Meanwhile, some musical performers just never stop performing. The Rolling Stones, for example, are planning another North American tour in 2024. The band has just revealed new tour dates.

Selvin believes we haven’t heard the last of Kiss.

“The rule of the farewell tour is that you have to say goodbye to every hall, and sometimes you have to say goodbye twice,” he remarked. “I do not expect this to be the last time that Kiss performs, any more than ‘Fare Thee Well’ was the last time The Grateful Dead performed.”