1988.08.30 - Pocono Downs, Wilkes-Barre, USA

Aerosmith, Guns N' Roses a good bet as Pocono Downs' rock daily double

Jerry Kishbaugh
Off the Record

It’s funny how things change. For instance, take the case of Aerosmith.

Early in the band’s career, the members were a rowdy bunch to say the least. Drugs and debauchery were a way of life for the Aerosmith boys and it carried over to their music - loud and raucous, but nonetheless highly palatable to their legions of fans.

However, with Permanent Vacation, Aerosmith’s ninth and probably most successful studio album to date, the band has cleaned up its act and ventured into different musical territories. After all, who would ever think that Aerosmith would incorporate a horn section and a calypso steel drum into its music?

Don’t get me wrong, the new touches are interesting and only serve to complement the legendary band’s music. On Permanent Vacation, Aerosmith expands on the legend with a hard-rockin’, blues-based record that rivals such earlier album classics as Toys In The Attic and Rocks, as well as such singles as Sweet Emotion, Dream On and Walk This Way.

Ironically, lead guitarist Joe Perry likens Aerosmith to a garage band. “We sound like a garage band. We’re raw and unpolished — even when we take the mistakes out. There are a lot of records made that are nearly perfect. But, they don’t have tbe feeling we do for the music,” Perry explained.

Still, how many garage bands do you know of that have racked up sales of more than 18 million albums, hordes of some of rock’s most fanatical fans and a career spanning 15-plus years?

Aerosmith invariably is credited with influencing many bands, while others go so far as to mimic the Aerosmith style and bad-boy attitude.

Despite Aerosmith’s success, it hasn’t been an easy road back to the top. In fact, the Aerosmith crew - Perry, lead vocalist Steven Tyler, guitarist Brad Whitford, bassist Tom Hamilton and drummer Joey Kramer - has led the rock ‘n’ roll life. They’ve been to the brink of hellfire.

Paralleling Aerosmith’s rowdy beginnings is the band’s tag-team concert partner, Guns N' Roses.

In fact, Aerosmith and Guns N' Roses will be the featured acts at and end-of-summer outdoor concert blast on Tuesday, Aug. 31, beginning at 7:31 p.m. at Pocono Downs in Plains Township. Advance tickets are $20 and are available at all Joe Nardone Gallery of Sound stores, all Ticket Plus locations, all Tlcketron locations and Lb-Rick Tours, Hazleton.

Getting back to Guns N’ Roses, it’s amazing how much the band seems to be following in the early footsteps of Aerosmith. Circus magazine on Guns N’ Roses: “They’re the next band that everybody tries to copy.” Rip magazine says: “Rowdy, raunchy, gut-level rockers who live on the streets of Hollywood and put their experience to music.”

A staffer from Geffen Records (the label of Aerosmith and Guns N’ Roses) stated: “Guns N’ Roses? Yeah, they’ll make it if they live long enough.”

Needless to say, Guns N’ Roses is one of the most intense, insolent and original new musical arrivals as evidenced on the band’s debut LP Appetite For Destruction.

It appears Guns N’ Roses is a band that restores all the menace, mystery and rebel kicks that Aerosmith dished out prior to kicking the drug habit.

Honing talent from such far-flung locales as Seattle, Indiana, Stock-in-Trent, England, and the heart of Hollywood, Guns N’ Roses took the L.A. Club circuit by storm three years ago with a blistering on-stage assault that utilized blues, R&B and punk as musical weapons.

“We don’t really care if people think we’ve got a bad attitude,” asserted guitarist/backing vocalist Izzy Stradlin. “We’re the only band to come out of L.A. recently that’s real. And the kids know it.” The band’s lead vocalist, a snaky, slithering, dancing frontman, W. Axl Rose, said “We’d rather be unknown and live in Idaho than to have someone tell us what to play and how to ‘make it’." We’re working on getting everything we want, our way ... all the money, all the power and all the control over everything there is.”

Lead guitarist/backing vocalist Slash offers the same type of take-no-prisoner logic as Rose and Stradlin. “Have you ever found a new band and you want to turn everyone onto ’em? You want to spread the disease until you finally have 300 people hearing the same thing you hear. That’s how our music spread and that’s how we keep close to our roots. We’re from the streets and no matter where we go from here, we’ll always have those roots,” Slash emphasized.

Rounding out the high-powered band is the rhythm section — bassist/backing vocalist Duff “Rose” McKagan and drummer Steven Adler.

Apparently, Guns N’ Roses’ hard-core approach to music has caught on as the band already has charted hit singles with Welcome To The Jungle and Sweet Child O Mine . It appears the listening public has accepted (and braced itself) for the musical onslaught of the tatooed boys from Guns N’ Roses.

As for Aerosmith, it is the second coming of the band.

Tyler sums up the continued existence of Aerosmith this way: “Sometimes, you have to lose to know how to win. We did fall out of the limelight. There was my motorcycle accident and a major falling out with drugs, as opposed to falling in. And Joe and I fell out of trust and love — and in our conspicuous absence, some other groups took our place.”

“Ah, the drugs,” Tyler added. “In the beginning, the drugs were the greatest, but then they took their toll. What they did to make me feel great, three years later the drugs made me feel like a zombie.”

Today, sober, straight and healthy and recovering from their excesses, both Tyler and Perry are rediscovering the joy of rock ‘n’ roll.

“We’d go on tour as the Toxic Twins,” Tyler says with a laugh. “ We had T-shirts printed with a skull and crossbones on the front and a list of the rehab places we’ve been in on the back and called it the Toxic Twins World Tour.”

Perry smiles and says, “It was not funny then. Not at all. And I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone, but looking back.... Tyler interrupts and says, “If it took rehabs to get our sense of humor back, it was worth it. I mean, I lost some fun when I was on drugs.

And drugs ultimately led to the disappearance of a band that the Los Angeles Times recently described as “classic hard rock, cannily bridging the gap between the swing of the Rolling Stones’ R&B and the stalk of Led Zeppelin’s heavy metal. ”

But, drug and alcohol rehab and Permanent Vacation turned it all around for Aerosmith. Having more time to prepare, they spent months rehearsing before altering the studio. Then, armed with more than an album’s worth of material — 26 songs to be exact—they turned on the tape.

“On Permanent Vacation, we accented the song aspect. That’s how our first four albums were done. But, unfortunately we had veered away from the process — to see how many different ways we could arrange a song — and avoided the simple direct way. That’s always been the best way for us,” explained Hamilton.

Tyler agreed stating, “Aerosmith’s best stuff has always been done on the second take.”

Ironically, this band, which received scant critical praise during the period when it was unquestionably the top American hard rock band, is now being acknowledged as having made an important contribution to modern pop music.

Still, Aerosmith takes exception to being labeled as a heavy metal band.

“The reality is that our music came out of a melting pot. They thought we were heavy metal, but we weren’t,” Tyler commented.

"Just because we played loud,” Perry added, “and in big arenas, they missed the point. What bothered us then too is that they never said we were real musicians, that it’s an art to make good records. ”

Hamilton feels Permanent Vacation was a turning point for Aerosmith. “What’s important is for the band to be recognized for how able we are musically in the form we play. I came away from the studio doing the album feeling like a musician, that we really accomplished something on this LP.

The time and effort that went into Permanent Vacation is evidenced through sales and the chart-topping singles the LP has yielded including Dude Looks Like A Lady, Angel and Rag Doll.

It should prove to be an interesting concert — Guns N’ Roses followed by Aerosmith, the band that paved the way for rowdy rockers.

New and old hard rockers bring heavy metal jungle

By DAVE WEBB
Times Leader Staff Writer

PLAINS TWP. — Welcome to the jungle of heavy metal music.

Meet Axl, Slash, Izzy, "Rose" and Steve, a.k.a. Guns N’ Roses.

On Tuesday night, these hard-rocking newcomers brought their own wild, denim-and-leather-covered world to the stage at the Pocono Downs Racetrack in Plains Township where they opened for rock immortals Aerosmith before a sold-out general admission crowd of more than 22.000.

Hard rock newcomers Guns N’ Roses pleased both the young and old factions of the audience as they punched through their two recent Top 40 and MTV hits ("Welcome To The Jungle” and "Sweet Child O’ Mine"), preceded by other true stories of love and rebellion from their debut album, "Appetite for Destruction."

After several numbers, lead vocalist Axl asked the crowd to move back one step because several fans close to the stage had either passed out or were injured.

"We just got back from doin’ a concert in England to a hundred thousand people, and two of them were crushed to death,” he said. "We’re not gonna continue until you people (bleeping) settle down ’cause we don’t wanna see you get hurt."

They then took a 10-minute respite.

"We want Aerosmith!,” yelled one man in his 20s, taking advantage of the sudden silence.

But soon Guns N' Roses were back in action to finish their last four songs, one of which was their slow-paced, soon-to-be-released video, "Patience.”

With their neo-punkish, classic-rock influenced sound and late 60s-rock fashion, Guns N’Roses were the perfect opening band for veterans Aerosmith.

The biggest drawback of their set, which consisted of just nine songs, was that it may have been too short.

Which meant only one thing — all the more time for Aerosmith.

Boasting a lineup of all five original members —including vocalist Steve Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry — the legendary group appetized its audience with some of their older AOR (album oriented rock) songs, such as "Same Old Song. "

But the highlights of their performance were when they played classic hits like "Dream On" and "Walk This Way,” as well as the recent smashes "Dude Looks Like A Lady" and "Angel” from their most recent LP, "Permanent Vacation.”

The show was sponsored by Makoul Productions.

Despite the large crowd, state and local police at the scene reported few major incidents.

But 27 people were treated at local hospitals — with three admitted — for problems ranging from substance abuse to minor bumps and bruises.

At least 12 concert-goers were treated at Geisinger-Wyoming Valley Hospital, mostly for substance abuse which caused some to pass out during the concert. As of midnight one woman was admitted and officials were planing to admit another.

A hospital spokeswoman said two people were treated for minor cuts as a result of a few scuffles in the crowd.

At least 13 fans were treated and released from Wilkes-Barre General Hospital for minor cuts, bumps and bruises received during the show.

Two people were being treated at Nesbitt Memorial Hospital in Kingston Tuesday night for substance abuse. Officials said one would be admitted.

Yet another concert-goer suffered minor injuries after being struck by a car. A full report on that incident was not available at press time.

A police dispatcher for Forty Fort, located across the river from Plains Township, reported 25 borough residents called police to complain about the noise from the concert.

Times Leader Staff Writers Gary Muraca and Mitch Horowitz contributed to this report.