Did KISS Steal Motley Crue's Stage Set?

Both Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue seem to think KISS is ripping off their farewell tour set.

Thing is, KISS fans are defensive and arguing that Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley have been performing on lifts since the 1970s. That is true, they have. I think the issue that Nikki and Tommy are raising here is that the sets looks exactly the same, which I'll admit is a little odd.

There's an entire industry out there, designing sets for concert tours and musical productions. KISS and Motley Crue share a lot of fans and you would have to think a designer for their tour sets would know this, right? Anyway, this has been your social media outrage post of the day. Happy Monday.

Wow. Our body wasn’t even cold before they took this exact grande finale from our tour.Might not matter to Kiss fans but it does to Crue fans.I dug their music when I was a little kid and it was cool to Co-Headline together a few years but this disappoints me.Anyway. 🏴‍☠️ pic.twitter.com/ZgUGbE7IyB

— ⚡️ xxıS ıʞʞıN ⚡️ (@NikkiSixx) February 18, 2019

Dayum @KISSOnline this sure looks identical to @MotleyCrue ‘s final tour 🤦🏻‍♂️ https://t.co/vRkmzUvF2t

— T❍mmy L33 (@MrTommyLand) February 7, 2019

Comments

[Shawn]

Yes Gene's cheap ass bought/rented Motley's old set - probably got a deal - IMO I don't care - nothing to squabble about I am sure Nikki doesn't own the patent and Gene has already applied for it - Rich bastards throwing mud always fun to watch

[Bkallday]

Ok, y'all know I'm a diehard Crüehead but this is ridiculous. Nikki really needs to stfu and go kiss on James Michael some more. Maybe he needs to focus elsewhere, maybe something like write a book titled, "How to screw my own band outta millions"! Lol

[GNR]

Man... that's really PETTY ! I saw Kiss a few years ago and they were using arms/cranes also. Not quite the same as these arms/cranes from the side spanning the whole audience, but more of an up and out and then back together from the stage.

But for Nikki Sixx and Tommy to chime in ? Unless Fake Peter Criss is spinning around to Wild Side or up in the rafters playing some techno bongos or riding a roller coaster out into the audience and back... I would think they should lay off a little. I'm not defending Kiss, but c'mon. This coming from someone that loves both bands.

[Gary]

Just in time for a Netflix movie release, we give you, Nikki Sixx trying to out $immon$ The of the king of “any publicity is good publicity” theory himself. I know who my money is on, and it isn’t one Mr Ferrano. (proven by the fact that the rants of The Sixxter and Techno Tommy have have now already brought free publicity to Jazz Hands & Gino and the 2 hired guns. 😁

[Gary]

Sorry about grammatical errors. That was typed on my phone while at work. Lmao

[Chris]

KISS used a similar crane set up on the their last "Monster" tour. So to call them on it now is ridiculous. This and the calling KISS out for lip-synching now is to just drum up publicity for The Dirt. Motley is guilty of the same thing as all almost all instruments were on tape their farewell show. So what is worse? Canned vocals or canned music? Both cheapen the show for me.

[Badland]

Um i saw Tina Turner do this years ago and im pretty sure she wasnt the first. Btw nikki, Blackie is still waiting for his check on everything you stole from him. Js

[Bkallday]

Breaking news... Sixx & Simmons have kissed and made up now. But they've decided to copyright oxygen & plan on starting charging humans for their use of it, asap!

[Rita]

"Fake Peter Criss". Ha ha. Love it.

[steverox]

The very best twitter post about this is Ricki Rachtman's where he says "y'all ripped off the fire department" ... had me laughing.

Sure, that part of the set is similar to Crue's from last tour and likely copied. None of the rest is though. That said, whatever happened to the "sincerest from of flattery???"

[Him]

Had me laughing, Badland. Great post.

Unless you turn the set over and it says "Motley Crue The End" in spray-painted stencil lettering, you are just pitching a fit to make a stink to raise a bit of publicity to get a few eyeballs to watch your movie and buy your (repackaged greatest hits as a) soundtrack.

That was a long-winded (intentionally) way of saying they got a few of us to pay attention. But that ain't exactly an amazing magic trick. Metal fans opine about metal bands?!?! No! Can't be! The real trick will be getting more casual listeners and viewers and listeners to take the bait, even if they already have the film cash and are pining for the music cash.

Notice, though, that Mars and Neil are mum on all of this. The former probably doesn't care; the latter probably doesn't know. So Capt. Dub Step and Lt. Hot Topic have to get the troops riled up. Battle won. War undecided. Results of negligible impact all things considered.