Concert
Review
AEROSMITH
25-July-2009 MGM Grand Arena – Las Vegas, NV
SETLIST
Eat
The Rich / Fallin In Love (Is Hard On The Knees) / Ragdoll / Miss
a Thing / Walkin' The Dog / Last
Child /
Mama Kin (w/ Slash) / Combination
/ Stop Messin' Around / Love
In An Elevator / Cryin'
/ Livin' On The Edge / Sweet
Emotion / Walk This Way
Encore
Guitar
Hero Joe / Train Kept A Rollin'
Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed the Dallas
concert and I am very happy that I am one of the relatively few people who
actually got to see Aerosmith this year, but I love Las Vegas and I treated
myself to the expensive seats this time.
This was the first time since the 1990 Pump
tour I had seen Aerosmith up this close and it makes a massive difference. MGM
is a great venue too, not too big (it holds 12,000) and with good sound and
layout. There was a near sell-out crowd of 11,700 for the show which was pretty
impressive. I sat and chatted with some die-hard fans before the show who were
pretty upset that the band had stopped playing ‘Toys in the Attic’ in its
entirety but a soon as the intro tape started (same tape as Dallas so I knew
exactly how long I had to fuel up on that final beer) all was forgiven.
To me going to an Aerosmith show is a rare
treat and it’s been 20 years since I saw two Aerosmith shows in a year. I’d
been hitting the i-pod hard all day and managed to successfully procure Steven
Tyler’s autograph through a combination of light stalking, talking to the right
people and sheer luck, so I was happy. When I got to my seat and saw it was six
rows back six seats from the ramp I had to sit down this was going to be
amazing.
Musically Aerosmith sound great this tour.
Steven’s voice is strong and the rest of the band just has that groove that
comes with time like the patina on a one cent coin. I had hoped that they
wouldn’t start with ‘Eat the Rich’ this time; I knew they had opened some dates
with ‘Train Kept A Rollin’ and I don’t know what it is about ‘Eat the Rich’ but
it never really struck a chord. Well not until you have Mr Tyler and Mr Perry
dancing along the ramp that runs out into the crowd about three meters away
from you!
Most of the sets this tour with the
exception of the first seven dates where they went out with Toys are built
round a core of the same songs, some new, some old. The hardest thing for any
big fan to take must be the inclusion of songs like ‘Combination’ and ‘Stop
Messing Around’ mid-set when there are so many great songs they don’t play in
their 90 minute sets. And that is the other slight disappointment – they play
for 90 minutes. I won’t harp on about it because what you get is quality it
just leaves you wanting more… Hell I know they are old but where’s the love?
When they played ‘Don’t Want to Miss a
Thing’ at the point where they played ‘Dream on’ in Dallas I knew we are in for an interesting
evening. The lady at the side of me was calling for ‘Dream On’ all night, and
sported a T-Shirt which read ‘Dream On’ she may well have named her kid ‘Dream
On’ but I didn’t ask and he soon fell asleep (I was appalled – kids these
days). I knew she wasn’t gonna get it and moved a little closer to the stage
unless she did anything rash.
‘Walking the Dog’ and ‘Last Child’ did the
trick then came one of the highlights of the night – birthday boy Slash (Spending
his 44th in Vegas) came out to play on ‘Mama Kin’ very cool indeed.
Old Mr Tyler took a breather whilst the
crowd got a bit bored during the Joe Perry duo of ‘Combination’ and ‘Stop
Messing Around’ even in the expensive seats people were ducking out for a beer.
I can’t believe that the ‘negative reaction’ that allegedly made them stop
playing ‘Toys’ could have been worse than the crowds indifference to those two
songs. Personally I’m a fan but I couldn’t even tell if Joe was enjoying
himself or not.
The rest of the show seemed to fly by. I
had been worried that they wouldn’t play ‘Sweet Emotion’ without Tom (as they
hadn’t played it in Dallas)
but they came through. I didn’t get my ‘Draw the Line’ though so I have a
reason to come back next time.
Steven got his daughter involved,
disappearing into the wings to get his daughter Mia help him out during ‘Walk
This Way’.
Train closed the set again and I went home
smiling, I had a rendezvous with Joey Kramer planned for the next day in Henderson and I wanted to
get back, rest up and pick out a nice shirt.
Aerosmith
hopefully get back on the road again before the end of the year
