Hello, hello. I have now seen Aerosmith who were just recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum this spring (if you didn't know that, pretend that you did because you're a disgrace). So then, dar.. it's been awhile since I saw the show, but if I get my ass off the chair and check... it was Saturday July 7th at Alpine Valley.
I don't know if any of you are diehard fans here and read my other reviews, but you should all know that Alpine Valley is the Valley of Death. I hate that place and you can hear my kind words about when I saw Creed there last year if you click here.
So yea, Alpine Valley blows, but I would sacrifice the crappiness of that venue in order to see Aerosmith and their opener Fuel. Although I highly regret calling Fuel an opener because in all reality I bought the ticket in order to see Fuel, and I was like "Eh, I'll stick around for Aerosmith too."
Fuel rocked the house I must say. And I'm not just saying that because I'm bias towards liking them in the first place. The guys can not only replicate their album sound live, but they expand on it in solos and vocal work, etc. They were great, and if they tour on their own (which I hope they do) I shall be getting tickets for sure.
The only problem is Fuel sounded good, but I had no clue what they looked like. My friends that I went with read that Aerosmith sets up a second stage in the front of the lawn seats which they play a few songs at during the show. So, us cheap bastards with lawn seats that we were, we stood in front of that thing the entire time; therefore, we could not see the actual real stage only the tv monitor (which they didn't have on for Fuel.. grr!).
Aerosmith came out and they did some old stuff/some new stuff. But all we really wanted was them to come up to this stage. And thank god, they finally did. They had lame red siren-type lights flashing on stage and everyone started pushing to the rail which caused problems for the lady in front of me, so we had to pull her out (not fun ya'll). Anyway, then I got the rail (yay!) and that was so rad. Steven Tyler slapped my hands a couple of times and he was just about a foot in front of me the entire time they were there. Joe Perry came up to the front by us too, and held out his Les Paul which me and a couple other guys got to run our hands across its strings. (That by far, was the best seeing as I am a guitar player and all).
They only played a couple songs, and I tried desperately to get a guitar pic but those roadies were not being nice. Though, I did score the set list from the stage which is what you see right below...
By the way, the ripping is because the roadie ripped it like that when he was pulling it off. That was not caused by me. Anyway -
After they left the lawn stage, the day's activities started catching up on me. It was a hot, humid day, and I was in long pants and a t-shirt. We were standing on a hill so my feet had been at a 45 degree angle for about 4 hours now. I hadn't had anything to drink for about 6 hours. So I started getting lightheaded. It was terrible, I tried to just sit down for a bit but that didn't help. Some drunk girl near me had water that the band threw out, and I asked for a sip, but she wouldn't give me any. (I wish I would have just clocked her but I was too weak to think of that option at that point). So, I was trying to just chill but I was getting so weak I couldn't stand up. I told my friends that we had to leave the pit so I grabbed one of their arms and we left.
Walking up a hill while being lightheaded is a bitch. I almost fell like five times and eventually I'm like "We have to sit now!" One friend bought me water for a good $4 and after that I was able to see again, though still kinda dar. But the diehard that I am, I still held onto my precious setlist the entire way.
My friends were kinda feeling crappy, too, so we decided to leave early ... we had seen the best we would the entire night. We got to walk through the joy that is Alpine Valley's gravel/lawn parking lot to find my car and it only took us about 30 minutes, unlike Creed which was like an hour. It was a good concert, but it was nice to leave. We had another big day that Sunday seeing Bon Jovi along with the coolest Mom in the world...
Check out the Bon Jovi review by Jamie...
Take it easy, and remember.. ALPINE VALLEY SUCKS!
Diane
Jakob's Music Site | RoadTrips w/De
