Aerosmith
Verizon Wireless Music Center
Friday, Oct. 13

The chill in the air was evident last Friday night with temperatures hovering just above freezing. A sea of hoodies shrouded the crowd; many of its members had a few quarts of alcoholic antifreeze in them. But when Aerosmith came out and just rocked the place silly, the chill was quickly forgotten.

Except for a killer version of “Eat The Rich” and a couple of tunes off the band’s last “blues” album, Honkin’ on Bobo, the show was a (short) set of classic era Aerosmith tunes, like the opener, “Toys in the Attic,” and classics such as “Mama Kin” and “Draw The Line.” These are tunes that could be sung by a Christian Bible camp girl’s choir and still sound as dirty and raunchy as the day they were conceived. In the hands of Aerosmith, they still have the power to inspire and awe.

Nowhere was this more evident than on “Seasons of Wither,” with Joe Perry and Steven Tyler kneeling down at the end of the runway stage that extended almost to the back of the lower pavilion. It was kinda touching to see the Toxic Twins hanging tough and doing the song that without which Soundgarden would have never happened.

The big surprise of the set was a nice run-through of “One Way Street,” a minor cut off of their debut album, but the bigger surprise was how this band of 60-year-old men could take songs like “Sweet Emotion,” “Walk This Way” and “Dream On” and still play them with all of the power and conviction that they ever did.