1988.08.06 - Performing Arts Center, Saratoga Springs, USA

In Saratoga Springs, New York, a local paper reported, "police and security guards are calling it a night they won't soon forget." "There was nearly a riot," Izzy says. "I get off on that kind of vibe, where everything's just about ready to crack. When there's 25,000 people and they have, like, three security guys. God, it was intense, man. It was just on that fucking edge of 25,000 people coming down to the stage." When fans began sprinting onstage, the band bailed out [1988.11.17, Interview with the band].

[...]

The SPAC shed has hosted some monster concerts in its 20-plus years of existence: The Who, Bruce Springsteen, the Grateful Dead. But it was unprepared for Guns N’ Roses’ first appearance in the summer of 1988, opening for Aerosmith.

Some 25,000 fans jammed the amphitheater and hillside, and not all just to see Aerosmith’s lead singer, Steve Tyler, spin his microphone for the billionth time.

"When the lights went down, the place went nuts. Fans rushed towards the stage and packed any open space they could find,” said Post-Star copy editor Troy Burns, who from his seat in the eighth row of the SPAC amphitheater watched a near-riot evolve.

“People threw themselves onstage and were thrown back in the seats by the security personnel. They climbed onto the amplifiers and sound system. The band finally just dropped their instruments and stalked offstage.”

[...]

Aerosmith pounds through entertaining night of metal

By Steve Barnes
Staff Intern

SARATOGA SPRINGS - Aerosmith and opening act Guns N Roses at SPAC Saturday night howled and pounded their way through two-and-a-half hours of hysteria.

And the whole time, the sky flashed its useless, mute protests at being one-upped by mere mortals. Playing everything from old standards of "Walk This Way" and "Dream On" to much more recent material, Aerosmith served up a dynamite visual spectacle — and enough audio chaos to damage more than a few ears.

[...]

Ending with "Dream On" and "Sweet Emotion," the group was hampered slightly by the rowdy metal crowd. Stage security played goalie and fielded the numerous incoming clothes, soda and beer cans, popcorn, chairs and even people who were hurled at the performers.

Blistering opener Guns N Roses, though far cruder sounding, actually had a far more damaging effect on the mob’s sanity.

It took an awful lot of confidence on Aerosmith’s part to allow such a hot band — Guns N Roses’s "Appetite for Destruction" album is a recent number one — to open for them. The phrase "Dynamic Duo" was never intended for these two bands but it fits.

Continually pushing their sex, drugs and chainsaw rock 'n' roll image. Guns N Roses played a 45-minute set that included high-intensity favorites like "Sweet Child o’ Mine," "Paranoia" and "Welcome to the Jungle" as well as a (relatively) subdued, musically appealing ballad, "Patience."

Lead singer W. Axl Rose is not as good — certainly not as refined — as Aerosmith’s Tyler. But he carried off his group’s cocky, raunchy, gut-churning brand of cacophony perfectly.

Playing the crowd masterfully, Rose directed attention to the muddled madness of sound erupting from Slash’s lead guitar.

Guns N Roses is a bit of a misnomer; an axe is the appropriate piece of hardware to describe the band, but there is no flower that fits. So Axes and Thorns, maybe.

Because you are forced to listen to the band’s brawling result — it demands attention. And they are get ting it, rightfully, because for the type of music they make, they do it well.

Soulmonster wrote:"Paranoia"? What song could that have been?

ON-TRACK AEROSMITH LEAVES DRUGS BEHIND

Martin Moynihan
Staff writer

"Our music is our recklessness," said Brad Whitford, guitar player for the hard-rocking band Aerosmith. But it wasn't always so.

A few years ago, Aerosmith lived up to the reckless reputation of a band that played hard with music and played hard with drugs.

The band crashed and nearly burned in the early 1980s, with lead singer Joe Perry forming the Joe Perry Project and Whitford teaming up with Derek St. Holmes, the ex-Ted Nugent guitarist/vocalist, for an album and tour.

But, in one of rock's more remarkable comebacks, Perry and Whitford rejoined their former bandmates to start a tour without having an album to go with it. It was called the "Back in the Saddle Tour," and that is just what happened.

Aerosmith, mounted up, says it got rid of the chemicals - not even a beer backstage - and resumed making music, including the big revival of its earlier hit "Walk This Way" with rappers Run-D.M.C.
Some critics are saying the band, which plays this weekend at Saratoga Performing Arts Center, is performing better than ever.

"It's going better than I ever imagined it would," said Whitford in a telephone interview from Chicago. "We set a lot of goals for ourselves and things have been going well. ... Our 'Permanent Vacation' album came out the way we wanted it to. It came fairly easily to us and it felt good being back at what we used to be, without all the bull."

"Permanent Vacation," which the band is supporting on its current tour, seemed to seal the comeback after a slow start with 1985's "Done with Mirrors."

Aerosmith started in the summer of 1970 when members of the Jam Band - bassist Tom Hamilton, guitarist Perry and vocalist Steven Tyler - got together in Sunapee, N.H., with drummer Joey Kramer and guitarist Whitford. The next stop was Boston.

After a time of sharing a small apartment and playing as many dates as possible, the band mades the single "Dream On," still a radio staple, and began a climb that continued through 1978 and such hits as "Sweet Emotion," the original "Walk This Way" and a version of Lennon and McCartney's "Come Together."

But the rise has been fueled partly by drugs, as members now readily admit. Aerosmith remained an entity, but its force was considerably diminished, its efforts splintered, its members pursuing other endeavors.

The 1984 reunion was made possible, said Whitford, 36, because "basically a lot of hatchets had been buried, and we all felt the common need to give it another try. We knew what kind of power there was in the music all along. I think we all missed it a lot, and wanted to see if we could still do it."

That led to the '84 "Back In the Saddle Tour," which marked the band's most recent appearance at SPAC.
Four years after the reunion, "I think the musicianship has evolved more than the sound," said Whitford, a classically trained musician. "The spirit of Aerosmith is the strong blues base - a blues, funk and rock base" to which the band adds "a raw, unpolished sound."

Whitford had praise for Guns and Roses, the band that will be opening the SPAC show.

"They remind me of Aerosmith in the early years a whole lot. A real rock band. They're not trendy at all. They do what they want to do. They have the attitude. The kids really eat that up. It's a rock 'n' roll attitude. It's a Rolling Stones attitude.

"I think we still have that attitude. We're just a little older. We are not as reckless."

Aerosmith will perform at 8:15 p.m. Saturday at Saratoga Performing Arts Center. Ampitheater tickets are sold out. Lawn tickets priced $12 are available at Ticketron outlets, through Teletron or at the gate.

AEROSMITH IS A THING OF THE PAST

William M. Dowd
Staff writer

They held a changing of the guard Saturday night at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

Aerosmith - whose members have been doing interviews across the country touting a "new" sound and a drug-free era as reasons to buy tickets - was the headliner. But the new sound was provided by Guns and Roses, the opening act.

An intense, pounding, 45 minutes - laced with crowd favorites "Appetite for Destruction" and "Sweet Child O' Mine" - from Guns and Roses had churned up the crowd for Aerosmith.

The veteran headliners hit the stage about the same time an intermittent rain began hitting the crowd on the lawn. It's difficult to say which put more of a damper on the evening. If crowd decibel-level and T-shirt sales are any indicators, it was Guns and Roses' night.

If the SPAC performance is any indicator, the drug-free Aerosmith's collective belief that it's playing better than ever must be because it's finally hearing itself while in a fully conscious state for a change.
Little has changed. It's still a basic metal band - with Chuck Berry riffs lending an occasional change of pace - that periodically dips into the sort of sounds that appeal to the bubble gum- and-illegal beer kiddie crowd.

It peppered Saturday night's set with its old hits - "Walk This Way" and "Sweet Emotion" among them - but made a point of tossing in its current single "Rag Doll" as the third number of the program. A charitable critic might say the sound was a little cleaner, a little more defined than in recent years during which the band's popularity dipped, but it remains basically the same old story.

Aerosmith's latest single "Rag Doll" makes very few respected Top 10 lists, but has hung in at No. 2 on the top video list for several weeks, thanks no doubt to the sexist, sleazy video that surrounds the mediocre recording.

Guns and Roses, on the other hand, has songs on both the top-single and top-video lists - respectively, "Appetite for Destruction" and "Sweet Child O' Mine."

The rowdy band appeals to a wide range of audiences, including the young ones like those who came here to hear Aerosmith and went away talking about Guns and Roses. Give them another two years, and they'll be the headliners.