On 28. January 1982, Kiss lip synched as a three-piece to the song “I” for the Sanremo Festival in Italy, and received the Golden Cat Award for “International Stars of the Year”. The live telecast was done at Studio 54 in New York. Ace Frehley didn’t show up for the event so Kiss had to perform without him.
Ida Langsam – Band Publicist:
“It was done early in the day so it would synch with whatever time it was being shown overseas. They got some kids in to create an audience. and as if everyone wasn’t nervous enough, Ace Frehley didn’t show up, so they did it without him. The word was, he had woken up late and then his limo got stuck in traffic. I honestly don’t know if he even got out of bed. It was bizarre and everyone was at the edge of his or her nerves. It was very tense.”
– “KISS Alive Forever” by Curt Gooch and Jeff Suhs.
Dale Sherman:
“More important was the band’s appearance on a live telecast from Studio 54 in February 1982 to accept an award from the San Remo Festival in Italy for being voted as the “International Stars of the Year”. The band was to accept the award and then lip-synch a performance of “I.” When their time came, Gene, Paul and Eric leapt out of a limo in front of the main entrance to Studio 54, ran inside and did the program — all without the aid or appearance of Ace Frehley. While most of the media took little notice of this strange event, Dante Bonutto of KERRANG did ask of it when interviewing the band for the CREATURES OF THE NIGHT album (No. 21, July 29-August 11, 1982, page 6): “Literally, up until half an hour before we went on, we were sitting there waiting for him,” recalls Paul. “There was a limo outside his house, but we knew he was very, very ill. He had some kind of stomach disorder. Anyway, it finally became clear that he wasn’t gonna make it, and if the broadcast hadn’t been live, more than likely we would have canceled it, but with all the cameras there we said: ‘Screw it, let’s go for it.”
This was the official story of the event. As time passed, it became clear that Ace simply did not want to go from his home in Connecticut to New York for a drop-in-a-bucket event. In electing to stay home, the others decided they did not need him anymore to make appearances as KISS. Gene and Paul had felt that Ace had been on the verge of leaving them for quite some time, and this event was no different from other times. They were used to having to function as KISS without Ace, only now it was out in public instead of the confines of a recording studio. To Ace, it proved that it made little difference to Gene and Paul if he was there or not. It was the final incident that sealed Ace’s decision to leave the band, and the band’s decision to look for someone to replace Ace. Though many reports from the time of CREATURES OF THE NIGHT’s release (and even after its release) had tried to lay most of Ace’s problems to stomach ailments and to his very serious car wreck in April of that year, it had little to do with the reality of the situation. Simply, Ace did not want to be in KISS any longer. By February 1982, the band had already agreed to look for a replacement for Ace. In essence, the band was about to lose another member.
– “Black diamond: The unauthorized biography of Kiss” by Dale Sherman.
