Aerosmith keeps pumping it out
Montreal Gazette, Cananda
December 6, 2006
Aerosmith's Steven Tyler performs at the Bell Centre.
(Photograph by : Allen McInnis, The Gazette)
Age-defying rockers. Lead singer Tyler's charisma on full display
The boys have it down. Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Joe Perry have been rockin' hard for three and-a-half decades. They showed no rust last night, as they brought their road show back to the Bell Centre.
More than 11,000 fans came to see them and openers Motley Crue who, in comparison, were awkward and uninspired - more on that later. Tyler and Perry worked like a well-oiled machine. Especially Tyler. Like his boomer Brit counterpart Mick Jagger, he's an icon, a showboat and a quintessential rock star.
And from last night's opener Toys In the Attic, he had the crowd in the palm of his hand. Strutting about the stage like a man possessed, he inhabited every song, however trite or potentially dated - and defying his age, and the changing musical eras, he brought each one to life.
"If you don't know how to do it, I'll show you how to rock 'n' roll," he sang on Walkin' the Dog, the second number of the night. And he did. With poise, sass, and blind conviction.
Even a throwaway ditty like Love In An Elevator sounded respectable, with help from Perry's wailing guitar. Sauntering about the stage with a sassy strut, Tyler seemed to defy the song to date him.
For the 1990 power-ballad What It Takes, he ventured to the end of the catwalk. "There goes my old girlfriend," he sang, setting up a prototypical rock tragedy. "Do you know what I'm talkin' about?" he asked, reeling in the crowd like a wily preacher man.
A cover of Big Joe Williams's blues classic Baby Please Don't Go allowed the band to get down to business, pounding out the barroom stomper, while Tyler twirled about the open stage like a boy in a playground.
Back on the catwalk, he dropped to his knees, lit from below, and jammed out an esoteric harmonica solo.
Aerosmith keeps it simple. There is no pretense here, just good, down-home fun, and a front man with more charisma than legions of good-tryers half his age.
For the flip side of that, see Motley Crue, who alternated between boring and embarrassing in the opening slot.
Lead singer Vince Neil struggled to hold the audience's attention, getting overshadowed by loudmouth, bad-boy drummer Tommy Lee, who knows not of subtlety.
The cringe factor was on high as Lee goaded the crowd, working the F-word into every sentence and passing liquor into the crowd.
He chanted platitudes such as, "I say Motley, you say Crue. Motley! (Crue!) Motley! (Crue!)," as if trying to distract from his band's irrelevant, listless performance.
And the crowd ate it up. A few key hits helped, including Dr. Feelgood, Shout at the Devil, Same Ol' Situation and the mandatory monster hit Girls, Girls, Girls.
It was nostalgia gone terribly wrong, and cheap rock show tricks falling oh-so-flat. But again, it made the headliners look even better, so mission accomplished.
December 6, 2006
Aerosmith's Steven Tyler performs at the Bell Centre.
(Photograph by : Allen McInnis, The Gazette)
Age-defying rockers. Lead singer Tyler's charisma on full display
The boys have it down. Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Joe Perry have been rockin' hard for three and-a-half decades. They showed no rust last night, as they brought their road show back to the Bell Centre.
More than 11,000 fans came to see them and openers Motley Crue who, in comparison, were awkward and uninspired - more on that later. Tyler and Perry worked like a well-oiled machine. Especially Tyler. Like his boomer Brit counterpart Mick Jagger, he's an icon, a showboat and a quintessential rock star.
And from last night's opener Toys In the Attic, he had the crowd in the palm of his hand. Strutting about the stage like a man possessed, he inhabited every song, however trite or potentially dated - and defying his age, and the changing musical eras, he brought each one to life.
"If you don't know how to do it, I'll show you how to rock 'n' roll," he sang on Walkin' the Dog, the second number of the night. And he did. With poise, sass, and blind conviction.
Even a throwaway ditty like Love In An Elevator sounded respectable, with help from Perry's wailing guitar. Sauntering about the stage with a sassy strut, Tyler seemed to defy the song to date him.
For the 1990 power-ballad What It Takes, he ventured to the end of the catwalk. "There goes my old girlfriend," he sang, setting up a prototypical rock tragedy. "Do you know what I'm talkin' about?" he asked, reeling in the crowd like a wily preacher man.
A cover of Big Joe Williams's blues classic Baby Please Don't Go allowed the band to get down to business, pounding out the barroom stomper, while Tyler twirled about the open stage like a boy in a playground.
Back on the catwalk, he dropped to his knees, lit from below, and jammed out an esoteric harmonica solo.
Aerosmith keeps it simple. There is no pretense here, just good, down-home fun, and a front man with more charisma than legions of good-tryers half his age.
For the flip side of that, see Motley Crue, who alternated between boring and embarrassing in the opening slot.
Lead singer Vince Neil struggled to hold the audience's attention, getting overshadowed by loudmouth, bad-boy drummer Tommy Lee, who knows not of subtlety.
The cringe factor was on high as Lee goaded the crowd, working the F-word into every sentence and passing liquor into the crowd.
He chanted platitudes such as, "I say Motley, you say Crue. Motley! (Crue!) Motley! (Crue!)," as if trying to distract from his band's irrelevant, listless performance.
And the crowd ate it up. A few key hits helped, including Dr. Feelgood, Shout at the Devil, Same Ol' Situation and the mandatory monster hit Girls, Girls, Girls.
It was nostalgia gone terribly wrong, and cheap rock show tricks falling oh-so-flat. But again, it made the headliners look even better, so mission accomplished.
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