MY FIRST TIME: I first heard Aerosmith on one of the compilation albums you used to have to cut out tokens for and send them off with your 50p postage. The song on that compilation that sat with others by bands like REO Speedwagon and The Boyz was Draw the Line. I was hooked. I played it to death until a few weeks later we went to a bigger town a few miles away called Peterborough, I strode into Andy’s Records and rifled through the bargain bins until I had Toys, Rocks and Draw the Line (I bought Get your Wings a few weeks later but didn’t find the first album until later that year).

 

REBIRTH: Aerosmith have been a constant companion ever since. Through my early teens one of my greatest frustrations in life was that they never came to Europe. I had been too late and too young for their first visit and it over a decade later that they made it out of the States to England. I had closely followed the news of their break-up through Sounds and then Kerrang and for a while thought that they would never get back together. I actually really loved their Perry-less album Rock in a Hard Place and was slightly less enamoured by the back together again Done With Mirrors (Where was the logo?)

 

I was 16 when Permanent Vacation hit and by that time I’d discovered girls, beer and all those other bad things, though my musical tastes had stayed the same. Sure Crue were cool, the Hanoi Rocks even cooler, bands like Ratt and Poison were OK but none were a patch on Aerosmith. Unfortunately for me the success of Permanent Vacation and the largely unappreciative UK audience (sometimes I thought I was the only kid in England who had heard of them) kept them away and safely touring the US again.    

 

It wasn’t until Pump in 1989 that they finally made it.

 

THE PUMP TOUR: It’s hard for me to describe what my first Aerosmith concert was like. I was a bit of a veteran by then. I’d seen Kiss (twice); UFO; Maiden (twice); Bon Jovi (twice); Hanoi Rocks; Saxon; Motorhead; The Cult; The Dogs D’Amour (a number of times); a couple of Donington festivals and quite a few others like the Gunners first tour with  Faster Pussycat. Two weeks before I’d seen Skid Row and Vain. Nothing had me on edge like this though.

 

Pump was a great album, still is, but it was the older songs I was itching to hear. I listened to my crackly old bootlegs (in those days you paid for bootlegs) the week before. I had sleepless nights where I dreamt of losing my tickets. In those days you queued for tickets in the rain and got what the outlet gave you. We got ten rows back on the floor at the Birmingham NEC. I was in heaven. Ten rows from Aerosmith.

 

The day was a blur and the opening band Thunder were a revelation (I bought the album the next day). Aerosmith opened with Train Kept a Rollin’ that day and whilst the set was heavily centred around 12 songs from Permanent Vacation and Pump they hit the back catalogue for the aforementioned Train; Same Old Song and Dance; Mama Kin; Lightning Strikes; Dream On; Sweet Emotion and yes there it was Draw The Line two-thirds of the way in; before closing with Walk this Way!

 

I just couldn’t believe the intensity of Steven Tyler on that stage. These were his back-flip days, his snaking across the stage, his scarfed microphone stand twirling days; and his voice was so much better then I imagined, so much more intense. And there was Joe Perry, coolness personified, and Joey and Tom laying down the groove and Brad, shit was he good. Then it was over just twenty songs later! I talked about it for weeks. I think that was the concert that they played Voodoo Medicine Man for the first time ever, so I got a little piece of Aero-history into the bargain. And if I’d been a foot taller I might have caught that drumstick!

 

I saw the boys again the next year at Donington best band of the day I say with a little bias. But it was a great show though they played nothing I hadn’t seen the year before and this time I wasn’t ten rows back. Jimmy Page joined them for Train and Toys though which made up for it.

 

By 1992 I was living downunder so missed the Get a Grip Tour in its entirety.

 

NEWCASTLE AND THE LONG WAIT: I was luckier in 1997 when one of my sisters got married and I drove up to Newcastle alone to see them again.  I think that date saw the first ever plays of ‘Falling Off’ and ‘Something’s Gotta Give’ ‘Pink’ and ‘Taste of India’.

 

I missed them again in 1998 and 1999 when they played Europe; I was beginning to think the move to Australia was a mistake. If only I’d known then it would be another 11 years before I next saw them!

 

The Girls of Summer Tour in 2002 never made it out of the US except for a brief stop in Japan; the Rocksimus Maximus tour of 2003 didn’t even make it to Japan. This was getting frustrating.  

 

2004 saw the Honkin’ On Bobo Tour which was US and Japan only. I considered learning Japanese and saving for a flight…

 

Rockin the Joint in 2005 played the US. The Route of All Evil tour a year later the same.

 

When the World Tour was announced in 2007 I was over the moon. A World Tour – finally Australia get to see Aerosmith again (I think the last Tour had been 1990 two years before I moved there). The dates were announced and I read through them, then again, then a third time. Then I went to three other sites to get the ‘real’ dates. But there it was a World Tour and no Australia…

 

2009 TOUR: I travelled to the US in 2009 in July to see Aerosmith. I had tickets to Dallas and Vegas. The early July dates were all postponed. But they made it to both of the concerts I had tickets for. Eleven years later there they were- and it was magical. When Steven fell off the stage a few weeks later and the rest of the tour was cancelled I knew I’d done it by the skin of my teeth.

 

When I met Joey Kramer he said they will play Australia again.  He didn’t know when. I will take him at his word.

 

Mark