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Aerosmith makes unsurprising, rocking splash
from: winnipegfreepress.com
by Rob Williams
If this is the last Aerosmith tour ever, at least they're going out with their wings intact.
The Boston rock veterans brought their Cocked, Locked and Ready to Rock Tour to the MTS Centre Wednesday night for a crowd of 8,500, about the same amount of people who would have seen the band if they played the Canad Inns Stadium last year. That show was cancelled when vocalist Steven Tyler injured himself after falling off the stage during a concert in Sturgis, S.D.
The injury led to a winter of discontent within the band and left the group's future in doubt. They eventually regrouped, but with Tyler set to join the judging panel of American Idol, the quintet's future remains cloudy.
It's not like they are bursting with creativity anyway. Their last album of originals was 2001's Just Push Play, and so Wednesday's concert followed a similar formula to the last few Aerosmith shows in Winnipeg, a mixture of hits from the 1970s and singles from their comeback in the 1980s and 1990s.
At this point there really aren't any surprises at an Aerosmith concert, unless you count the mid-concert commercial for Guitar Hero: Aerosmith that occurred during lead guitarist Joe Perry's guitar solo.
If there is any animosity between Tyler and Perry -- who has been justifiably critical of Tyler's decision to join the televised karaoke contest without telling his bandmates first and knocked the singer off the stage in Toronto last month after Tyler bumped him -- it wasn't evident last night. The pair didn't spend a lot of the time in the same vicinity on the large stage, but during the third song of the night, 1975's No More No More, Tyler put his arm around Perry and the pair shared the microphone on the chorus.
No More No More was one of the early highlights of the night. The band -- Tyler, Perry, guitarist Brad Whitford, bassist Tom Hamilton, drummer Joey Kramer and a keyboardist -- took to the stage to the classic Same Old Song and Dance before showing off their blues influences with a cover of Train Kept a Rollin'.
What looked like a sparse stage initially revealed itself to be more complex over the course of the first few songs as the four lighting rigs holding some of the nine LED screens moved up and down on what was made to look like giant springs.
Tyler was almost as flashy as the light show, looking like some kind of pimp circa 1969 with his leopard-print fedora, sunglasses, sparkly overcoat and jeans with embroidered flowers running up each leg. Somebody get this guy a Bedazzler!
At 62, he remains a quintessential front man who serves as the focal point as he prowls the stage waving his scarf-adorned mike while hamming it up for his devoted faithful.
He even handled the beginning of the ballad What It Takes a capella to roars of approval. The song came in the middle of a set of post-1986 singles that included power ballads Jaded and Livin' on the Edge.
The slow section, and dreck that is Pink, was obviously too much for some and Tyler gave the crowd a piece of his mind for standing with arms crossed. After picking up a pair of panties tossed on stage, things did get better with the boogie rock of Last Child off 1976's Rocks before slowing back down again for Crying as electronic tears fells down on the video screens behind the band.
At press time 80 minutes into their planned two-hour set, Perry had just finished a Guitar Hero battle with himself on a video screen and was handling vocal duties for the Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac chestnut Stop Messin' Around. The band changes elements of the set nightly but never fail to end with Dream On and Walk This Way.
And you've got to hand it to Aerosmith: they always bring a strong opening act with them.
Last night it was JOAN JETT, who has been thrust back into the spotlight recently thanks to the release of the biopic The RUNAWAYS, a film about her first band.
She and her longtime group the BLACKHEARTS offered up a version of the all-female quintet's most famous song, the glammy sleaze rocker Cherry Bomb, but it was her solo work that served as the highlight of their excellent 50-minute set.
Jett and her band kicked things off with her mission statement, Bad Reputation, before launching into Cherry Bomb. They served up some straight-up rock with Light of Day, showed off her catchy pop side with French Song and A.C.D.C., her flair for bubblegum on Fake Friends and made the Gary Glitter cover, Do You Want to Touch Me (Oh Yeah), her own.
She got fists banging with the anthem I Love Rock 'N' Roll before wrapping things up on a high note with I Hate Myself for Loving You.
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