October 26, 1998
Aerosmith goes Vegas

To take a line from the advertising world, that wasn't your father's Aerosmith on stage Saturday night at Hamilton's Copps Coliseum.

 

 In your dad's day, the Boston rock group was a rough-and-tumble hard rock act. They were the undisputed American heavyweight champions of riff-rock, but prone to shambolic on-stage behaviour.

 

 These days, the group competes head-to-head in the power ballad category with Michael Bolton. And when they decide to rock out, it's done in a sleek, refined and precision-tooled manner. Straight pop, no slop.

 

 Just short of a full house attended the two-hour-long concert and there was a sizable contingent of original Aero-heads present. They had tons of stories to tell, even if the specifics were a tad hazy.

 

 "I named my dog after Steve Tyler," said Brian Kozel, one of the many patrons present in the Copps' beer garden prior to the show. "He's a black Lab and he looks like him, you know."

 

 By his own count, Kozel had seen the band nine times, in various North American venues.

 

 Steelworker union representative Rick Preston was on hand for his fourth time around with the group.

 

 "I remember seeing them in Detroit in the mid-'70s," recalls Preston. "At the end of the concert, I can remember the group coming out for the encore. They started playing one song and (Steve) Tyler started singing another one. (Guitarist) Joe Perry got mad and punched Tyler in the mouth."

 

 That was then, though, and this is now. While Perry looked visibly peeved at Tyler during the show, (possibly a result of his chin being whapped by one of the wide-yapped singer's many foot swings), he kept his cool on stage.

 

 You can tell Perry and Tyler are the leaders of the group because they're the ones wearing tail-coats on stage. And a word of advice to concert goers: rock fashion wear, when worn by the same individuals 15 to 20 years down the road, does not look so hot.

 

 Tyler was pretty nimble, considering he was wearing an orthopedic knee brace. And both Perry and second guitarist Brad Whitford were in good form, taking well turned solos in the spotlight during the show.

 

 The majority of the shows' horns, whistles and support structures came from the direction of the hired-hand keyboardist. Which is not surprising given the fact that most of the group's latter-day hits are power-ballads, drawn from the pens and pianos of Tin Pan Alley hands such as Desmond Child and Glen Ballard.

 

 Croon-fare like Cryin', Livin' On the Edge and I Don't Want To Miss A Thing was the main attraction for both the younger set and the wives of said Aero-heads. Alesha (no last name given), for example, came all the way from Sudbury to see the show.

 

 "I think that song, Cry, was the first thing I ever heard from them,"said the 19-year-old.

 

 The set list was packed with similar sounding material such as Janie's Got A Gun, alongside of sleek rock numbers including Love In An Elevator and Dude (Like A Lady).

 

 When the band referred to material from its original incarnation, it had the feel of a Rock History 201: The Middle Years lecture.

 

 To whit: when Perry did his one vocal number at the microphone, it was a blues number, blues being the roots of rock, you know (and, no kidding, his voice could pass for a younger Clapton).

 

 That led into a James Brown funk number, because funk comes from the blues, see? Which led into Walk This Way, because funk is the basis for rap, see, and back in the '80s there was this group called Run DMC, and, well, it all fits together, doesn't it?

 

 Well, the tone wasn't that dry.

 

 Anybody who has four matching sets of oversize snake and cat statues for a stage setup isn't bucking for entrance to the academy just yet.

 

 That's one snake per cat, huh, huh, huh, huh, get it Beavis?

 

 When Tyler wasn't toying with those props (especially the snake tongues) there were plenty of lights, explosions and sundry stage effects to keep the audience's attention.

 

 At the end of the show, three enormous inflatable serpents, complete with lit-up eyes, popped out of the stage. Like, cool.

 

 The point is, while Toledo is nominally the band's next tour stop tonight, ultimately the next stop is Vegas. That's not a judgment, that's just the way it looks from here.

 

 Opening act Fuel had a shiny-shirted, square-jawed lead singer who looked a bit like Billy Idol and sounded like a post-grunge aggregation.

 

 About five years too late, I'd say, although it got a polite response from that portion of the crowd not attending the beer garden.

JAM! Rating: 3 out of 5