There's an unexpected dividend to hanging in as long as Aerosmith.

 

 Once you've got enough hits under your belt, you can't help but put together a live show that provides the thrilling jolt of the familiar every few minutes. Witness last night's Corel Centre performance by Boston's bad boys, before about 9,000 of the faithful.

 

 Led by tireless, Mad Hatter begarbed frontman Steven Tyler, who popped around the multi-tiered stage like a heavy metal James Brown, the group powered without pause through an opening surge that included evergreen standards like Love In An Elevator and Same Old Song And Dance alongside the recent hits, Falling In Love Is Hard On The Knees and Hole In My Soul (with a guitar intro cannibalized from their own earlier hit, Dream On). How can they miss?

 

 So give the quintet credit. Rather than simply shooting fish in a barrel and playing it safe, they bit into these songs with a fire that bands half Aerosmith's age would be hard-pressed to match.

 

 It was a noticeably smaller crowd than Aerosmith has attracted on previous visits, a fact that can likely be traced back to the crowded Ottawa concert calendar, and the fact that the group's newest album, Nine Lives, is, by the group's own standard, soft on great songs.

 

 But Tyler goaded the audience anyway, "C'mon, baby, gimme the groove,"and he quickly had the crowd matching him scream for scream. Monkey On My Back was prefixed with a snarling slide intro from Joe Perry, who later sawed away on a steel guitar for Rag Doll. Livin' On The Edge started with an unorthodox world-music vibe before erupting into the tune's more familiar White Album weirdness.

 

 Taste Of India was a bad idea on record and wasn't improved in concert. But all was forgiven with a riotously received swing through their strongest post-comeback hit, the anti-child abuse revenge fantasy, Janie's Got A Gun -- still a more sensitive and brave song than we have any right to expect from a veteran rock outfit.

 

 "Our new album is called Nine Lives," Tyler said while introducing the lazily psychadelic new song Pink, "and believe that we lived every one of them rich and full." But a full life isn't necessarily a happy one, and the making of Nine Lives was fraught with the kind of peril (rumors of druggy relapse, songs rejected by the label, management squabbles) that had experts guessing Aerosmith would never emerge from the experience intact.

 

 That cackling sound you may have heard last night was Aerosmith, having the last laugh on all the naysayers. Despite all the complications this life brings, they remain the gold standard for heavy rock.

 

 Had any of the veteran blues acts on the upcoming Bluesfest bill shown up to catch teenage blues prodigy Jonny Lang in action last night, they would have been pleasantly surprised and slightly bummed.

 

 After all, here was a kid who, to all appearences, has eschewed the unambitious thrash of his generation and taken to heart the lessons of his blues elders in his own bombastic soloing style and sweetly agonized croak of a voice.

 

 But they'd also have to wonder about fickle fate, which has blessed the Minneapolis-based kid (a modestly engaging blues player who needs some heavy seasoning before he climbs back on the mainstage griddle) with the kind of hype and buzz that helps launch careers into the mainstream imagination. Meanwhile at any blues club in any city, there are very likely mature blues players of comparable talent toiling in obscurity.

 

 And ain't that a good reason to sing the blues?

 

SUN RATING: 3.5 OUT OF 5