The Hottest Show on Earth Tour was a concert tour by Kiss in support of their 19th studio album, Sonic Boom. It is essentially the North American leg of the Sonic Boom Over Europe Tour, itself a continuation of the Kiss Alive/35 World Tour that started in 2008. Kiss also played in Mexico for the first time since 2004. The tour featured both arena and amphitheater shows throughout the United States, plus Canada, and was produced by Live Nation. As with previous concert tours, live recordings of every show were sold at the venue by SymfyLive.
Kiss also stated that one dollar from each ticket sold would be donated to the United States Armed Forces to benefit the Wounded Warriors Project. Kiss also added more shows to the tour in Puerto Rico, Houston, and Hollywood, Florida. Kiss announced seven shows to be added to the tour as a small Japanese tour however these shows have now been postponed to later in the year.
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The opening bands for the concert were The Academy Is...,[2]Bad City, The Envy and a local act for every city, winner of a contest held by Guitar Center.[3]
In the tour program for the band's final tour, Stanley reflected on the tour:
The idea is that I'm out there and I'm able to do this and that there's an audience that wants to see it makes it incredibly satisfying for me. I'll never disappoint them. But I'm only part of the equation, the other part of the equation is the audience. My philosophy is when people pay for a ticket, if you agree to do a show the last thing you should be doing is making excuses for not doing your job. If you can't do your job go home, but if you're gonna go up onstage you better give a hundred percent and make sure it's what people expect.[4]
Set list
According to kissonline.com, the official website of the band, Kiss will perform such classics as "Detroit Rock City" and "Rock and Roll All Nite" as well as hits that they haven't played in the US in many years.[5] The set list is almost identical to the previous European tour, including three songs from Sonic Boom and the song "Crazy Crazy Nights", which hasn't been played live (except during their last European tour) since 1990. The setlist below started the tour in Cheyenne, Wyoming.