Dead End Drive-In: Now Showing – ‘Aerosmith Rocks Donington 2014’
Written by Gaz Tidey
Saturday, 05 September 2015 03:30
‘Aersosmith Rocks Donington 2014’ (Eagle Vision)
Like many of you reading this, no doubt, my thoughts on Aerosmith always wander, strut perhaps, to those classic ’70s albums, the swagger of the Toxic Twins, the effortless groove of the musicians around them. This thinking, though, is forever tainted by seeing the band live when its stuttering career was given a shot in the arm of a wholly different nature and the hit singles flowed out of the speakers as quickly as the dollars poured into the record company coffers.
I saw Aerosmith at Wembley Arena on the ‘Pump’ tour and, man, were they boring. The Quireboys supported them, and I saw Cronos from Venom in the crowd, but, those aside, the highlights were few and far between. Yes, the stage set was impressive; yes, the set list was littered with great songs; but this was at the arse end of the eighties where superficiality was king, excess was queen, and gloss was jacked off over every available surface.
Great songs followed, of course, as did lauded music videos, spats and pitfalls – a couple of high profile falls as it happens, both off the stage and in the shower. Steven Tyler’s stint as a judge on American Idol caused a bit of stir – cunningly on gossip pages, worryingly in the context of the legendary band – but the 2012 studio album, ‘Music from Another Dimension!’, though hardly released to critical acclaim, seemed to galvanise the troops once again.
‘Aerosmith Rocks Donington 2014’ appears to be the highpoint of that rejuvenation. Filmed in high definition, Dick Carruthers and Jeff Claire’s film, which actually got a limited theatrical run in 300 North American cinemas earlier this year, is fresh on the shelves in multiple formats – DVD, Blu-ray, DVD+2CD, DVD+3LP, and across digital formats.
My Blu-ray promo copy proves that, to my mind at least, this is the ultimate format by which to witness this fine modern example of the concert film. It sounds great – very loud! – and looks pretty damn dashing; a high end blur of multiple cameras and visual jiggery-pokery.
Opening with a Joe Perry intro and what I’m guessing are staged dressing room invasions that were chucked up on Download’s giant video screens prior to the band arriving on stage (Tyler’s as ludicrous as one of Paul Stanley’s “manly” clips from the eighties, complete with “Donnington” misspelling), the film checks almost every mark required of a modern-day concert film as scores of fans get the chance to do the whole “I can see me, I can see me!” thing as the cameras not only dwell on the die-hards on the barrier but also throughout the assembled throngs.
‘Train Kept A-Rollin’ opens the twenty-song set, Tyler and Perry leading from the front – the former in Indian headdress, the latter looking as cool as you’d expect, resplendent in black and red rock ‘n’ roll garb. Brad Whitford is simple, effective coolness personified, Tom Hamilton is wiry and rockin’ (even if most of his basses appear to have one string too many), and Joey Kramer still looks the band member you’d most like to cuddle and inform that everything is gonna be okay – his rabbit-in-the-headlights look at the start of second song, ‘Eat The Rich’, is quite comical.
It’s the looseness of the song openings that endeared this set to me, actually. When other bands of this aged ilk are miming and going through the motions, Aerosmith retain a sloppy rock ‘n’ roll edge that harks back to the sick seventies rather than the slick eighties.
‘Love In An Elevator’ is suitably massive, Tyler out on the walkway (as he is for most of the set – don’t worry, there are plenty of teleprompters around to spit forgettable lyrics at him) conducting the masses. The frontman’s performance is hardly worthy of real dissection – his looks are overly piratey, his attitude appears to be focussed on the band again, and his vocals are above average when compared to the yelps and wails of some of his contemporaries – Messrs Stanley, Elliott and Neil could do worse than pencil this Blu-ray on to their Xmas lists. Okay, Tyler is bailed out time after time by keyboard player/backing vocalist Buck Johnson – a bit of an unsung hero in this live band, it has to be said – but he generally impresses here.
‘Cryin’, ‘Jaded’ and ‘Living On The Edge’ keep the momentum high, before Tyler heads into the front rows to sing ‘Last Child’. There’s a bit of a lull as Perry fronts ‘Freedom Fighter’ but a winning trio of ‘Same Old Song And Dance’, ‘Janie’s Got A Gun’ and ‘Toys In the Attic’ wake the audience members back up quickly.
Tyler’s vocals are at their weakest during ‘I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing’ but you’d hardly notice, such is the crowd noise during “event” songs such as this. The singer’s favourite Aerosmith song, so we’re told, ‘No More No More’, is followed by a raucous cover of ‘Come Together’, before a gargantuan one-two of ‘Dude (Looks Like A Lady)’ and ‘Walk This Way’ closes the set.
Steven reappears at a grand piano to play ‘Home Tonight’, except the wonders of high definition show the viewer that the grand piano is in fact some plywood casing knocked-up to house an electronic keyboard. ‘Dream On’ will have you thinking that this revelation was just some nightmare you had with your eyes open, before ‘Sweet Emotion’ has you asking “wait, is that it?” Of course it isn’t – there’s still time to introduce you to ‘Mama Kin’ and a few more minutes of lowslung rock ‘n’ roll played the way it was originally intended.
The lack of bonus material is disappointing – audio options and song selection the only things to fanny about with other than just watching the concert film – but the essay in the twenty-page booklet from Rolling Stone’s David Wild is entertainingly impassioned.
As live releases go, this one is head and shoulders above many others. Looking and sounding great, it will satiate Aerosmith lovers and possibly jolt lapsed fans into thinking that maybe, just maybe, there is more to this band than well-publicised fallings-out and television deals.
To pick up your copy of ‘Aerosmith Rocks Donington 2014’ – CLICK HERE
