If kicking hard drugs is the greatest thing to have ever happened for Aerosmith, teaming up with Motley Crue might be next best. Monday night's double-bill at Riverbend brought out the best in the Boston classic rockers. The short set ?
12 songs in barely 80 minutes ? was also the best of their many Riverbend stops over the past decade. The band wasted no time between tunes and went for the throat with each selection.
Most of the fat of their ?90s comeback was omitted. After all, they can?
t be doing sappy songs like ?Amazing? and ?
I Don?t Want to Miss a Thing? when the shed is half-full of savage Crue fans.
The concise set focused on Aerosmith?s finest days, the 1970s, and the blues sounds that helped shape their own. It began with a blistering ?
Toys in the Attic,? with front man Steven Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry singing into the same mic on a ramp at the apex of the stage set-up. Later in the song, they met up again on a runway leading halfway into the pavilion seats.
Other ?70s hits and lesser-known gems populating the set list included ?Seasons of Wither,?
?Dream On,? ?
Sweet Emotion,? ?Draw the Line,?
the encore ?Walk This Way? and ?
S.O.S.
(Too Bad),? featuring a great solo by guitarist Brad Whitford. Drummer Joey Kramer completed the core lineup of the band.
Bassist David Hull filled in for Tom Hamilton, who is recovering from several weeks of radiation treatment and chemotherapy for throat cancer. Russ Irwin played keyboards. Portions of the first half of Aerosmith?
s set came off like an audition for the next Tall Stacks music festival, as the band dug into its blues roots and worked up versions of Rufus Thomas? ?Walkin?
the Dog,? Big Joe Williams? ?
Baby Please Don?t Go,? and Fleetwood Mac?
s ?Stop Messin? Around.
? For their part, Motley Crue played no blues. It was a fairly standard-issue performance that stuck to anthems that have become singalongs for a generation of hard rock and metal fans, songs like ?
Dr. Feelgood,? ?
Live Wire,? ?Girls Girls Girls?
and ?Kickstart My Heart.?
The set design had a familiar air about it as well, leaning on those things that make up the three cornerstones of a Motley Crue concert stage: pyrotechnics, smoke machines and caged women. If there aren?t two women, each in her own cage, suspended from the rafters during the performance of ?
Looks that Kill,? is the song even worth playing? The visuals were perhaps a bit more inspired for ?
Shout at the Devil,? which on a video screen a rendering of the song?s title character was superimposed onto the flickering image of George W.
Bush. In the video montage, the president was in the company of Stalin, Hussein, Hitler and bin Laden. Bush should rest better knowing he is not the only target of the Crue?
s ridicule. The crowd was on its feet throughout the band?s set, and bassist Nikki Sixx asked everyone to have a seat for a moment.
?Look around,? he said.
?This is what it would be like at a (expletive) Bon Jovi concert.?
It was an episode proving once again that there is nothing more enticing than to witness drama unfold within the hair-metal community.
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