The iconic Boston rock band brought 45 years of stage savvy and classic hits to Van Andel Arena with Living Colour. Local Spins reviewer Troy Reimink waxes poetic — in seven chapters — on Tuesday’s show.
Sweet Emotion: Steven Tyler and Aerosmith returned to Van Andel Arena on Tuesday night. (Photo/Anthony Norkus)
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I went to an Aerosmith concert: an existential journey in seven chapters.
I. Mortality
I think a lot about the passage of time. A great place to do this, it turns out, is an Aerosmith concert. The act of acquiring an Aerosmith ticket in 2015 and watching the band perform on a Tuesday night in the Midwest at the end of summer is itself a concession of sorts to various immutable laws of the universe: Thermodynamics. Entropy. Diminishing returns. The inevitable end.
Back in the Saddle: Though they didn’t play that song. (Photo/Anthony Norkus)
Aerosmith stopped Tuesday night at Van Andel Arena on the second-to-last date of its “Blue Army” tour. The show was mostly sold out. The crowd was of a variety of ages, but most were younger than the band, whose members are all in their sixties.
Now is when I describe how well they appear to hold up, relative to their ages: Pretty well!
True, Steven Tyler did not land every single high note in the Aerosmith catalog. (The touring keyboard player did some of the vocal heavy lifting.) That’s fine: Tyler is older than my father, and I’m 34. I already need to take walks around my office building a few times a day so my bum hip doesn’t get stiff.
If I’m ever 67, which is how old Tyler is, I desperately hope to be as good at something as Tyler is at what he does, which is moving a lot around the stage, often carrying his trademark scarf-bedecked microphone stand, with age-inappropriate amounts of energy, and singing not terribly. And if people wanted to pay me to do that far past my prime, well, that’d be tremendous.
II. Drum solo
The drummer, Joey Kramer, is also good at what he does. About an hour into the show, while the rest of the band — Joe Perry, lead guitar; Brad Whitford, rhythm guitar; Tom Hamilton, bass — left the stage to huff from an oxygen tank or slam Fireball, or whatever it is bands do during drum solos, Kramer demonstrated his proficiency at drums.
III. Inclusion
The hour-and-50-minute set contained some of the following Big Ones: “Cryin’,” “Love in an Elevator,” “Rag Doll,” “Dream On” (which opened the encore, with Tyler rising out of the stage behind a piano), “Dude (Looks Like a Lady),” “Walk This Way” (duh), “Livin’ on the Edge” (one of the greatest dumb rock songs of the last 25 years) and, I’m sorry to report, “I Don’t Want To Miss a Thing” (from the soundtrack to “Armageddon,” the extremely ridiculous Michael Bay movie from 1998).
Arena Worthy: Aerosmith drew a near-capacity crowd on Tuesday. (Photo/Anthony Norkus)
IV. Omission
Songs they didn’t play that I would have rather heard than the “Armageddon” song:
— “Janie’s Got a Gun” – This is a top-shelf comeback-era Aerosmith song whose subject matter (girl shoots her abusive father in the head) has perhaps been rendered politically incorrect by time.
— “Back in the Saddle” – Few songs could have been more metaphorically appropriate for a 2015 Aerosmith show.
— “Amazing” – A solid song that is almost identical to “Cryin'” in structure, tempo, chronology (they both appear on “Get a Grip”) and music video content (both feature peak mid-90s Alicia Silverstone).
— “Angel” – I guess they did more prom songs than I remember.
V. Worthiness
Like Wayne and Garth, I’ve always sort of wanted to tell Tyler I’m not worthy, then have him tell me I am, in fact, worthy. It didn’t happen this time, and I suspect it never will. (See again: Mortality)
VI. The Colour and the Shape
Living Colour, of “Cult of Personality” fame, delivered a well-received, 45-minute opening set. Charismatic frontman Corey Glover, prone to wandering through the crowd, high-fived me. True story!
VII: The Sweetness of Emotion
I’ve heard “Sweet Emotion,” which closed Aerosmith’s encore, so many times I couldn’t even ballpark a number. This is West Michigan, where at least two terrestrial radio stations are always playing Aerosmith. Go ahead, check! Yet no matter how many times I listen to “Sweet Emotion,” it still makes me want to paint a bald eagle on the side of a van and drive it off into the sunset. We’ll all get there eventually.
AEROSMITH, LIVING COLOUR: The Local Spins Photo Gallery by Anthony Norkus
Copyright 2015, Spins on Music LLC
