“I just sat with my mouth open”: the two rock shows that left Steven Tyler in shock
Live music is an unparalleled experience, particularly within the realm of rock and roll. From the earliest days of the genre, artists have placed utmost importance on crafting an awe-inspiring live show, and that attitude has never really subsided. After all, a truly groundbreaking live performance is capable of changing lives – both of the audience members and the artists themselves – something that Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler is all too aware of.
Aerosmith were often famed for their big-budget productions and stadium concerts. After all, they were once one of the biggest rock and roll outfits in the United States. However, Steven Tyler spent years honing his rock craft before formulating the hard rock devotees Aerosmith. His origins in music date back to his teenage years in the 1960s, many of which were spent as an archetypal young rebel. Tyler was a disciple of the era’s raucous rockers, the likes of The Rolling Stones being a particular favourite of the budding young musician.
There was no shortage of inspiration when it came to the rock scene of the 1960s; it was a vibrant and incredibly productive time for music. Not only did you have the pop sensation of The Beatles regularly dominating the airwaves, but there was also the landscape of other British Invasion and beat groups making their own mark on the world. Couple that with the stunning counterculture psychedelia dominating youth culture in the United States at the time, and it is easy to see why Tyler was so attracted to the world of rock.
As a rock and roll obsessive, Tyler spent a lot of his adolescence at live shows or playing with his own group, Chain Reaction. One such live show, in 1966, changed the lineage of Tyler’s life dramatically. “In the ’60s, I was in a band called Chain Reaction. We got to know The Yardbirds because they played at Staples High School in Westport, Connecticut, in 1966,” the Aerosmith frontman once recalled.
The Yardbirds are perhaps the most underrated rock group of the 1960s. Their mainstream success was never in danger of rivalling The Rolling Stones or The Who, but their music was utterly revolutionary. Blending elements of blues, soul, and psychedelic rock with a proto-hard-rock sound, the group were true originals. What’s more, they had an awe-inspiring live show, which Steven Tyler bore witness to, because Chain Reaction opened up for The Yardbirds at that 1966 gig in Connecticut.
“It was the lineup with Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, who was playing bass on that tour,” Tyler told Rolling Stone. “They did ‘Shapes of Things,’ ‘Beck’s Boogie,’ among other songs. I was in such awe. They played like no other band. They weren’t concerned with clothes or looks or hit singles. Their thing was, ‘What do we do with these sounds?’ They did things with harmonics — minor thirds and fifths — that created this ethereal, monstrous sound.”
It speaks to the transformative nature of that gig that Tyler can still remember it in such vivid detail. “You hear it in every song — the way they could take the blues and turn it into a pop song like ‘For Your Love,’ then something psychedelic like ‘Shapes of Things,’ which has that weird middle,” he continued. “You can hear the click when Beck hits his fuzz box. Page, in the end, was the one who took those ideas all the way with Led Zeppelin.”
Page’s post-Yardbirds group, Led Zeppelin, certainly overshadowed the young blues-rock outfit. Pioneering the sounds of hard rock and becoming one of the biggest bands in the world in the process, Zeppelin were similarly adored by Tyler. “The two shows I remember where I just sat with my mouth open was that Yardbirds show and Led Zeppelin at the Boston Tea Party in 1969,” the singer said. It’s easy to see where Aerosmith’s live shows took their inspiration from.
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