Baltic Times has issued the following report from Steve Roman:

It seems that every summer the Baltic capitals are visited by one hugely famous rock band, and this summer the honored guest is AEROSMITH, who will be swinging through in early July as part of their World Tour 2007.

As of press time, tickets were still available for the two shows: in Riga’s Skonto Stadium on July 3rd and in the A. le Coq Arena in Tallinn on July 5th. Lithuanian fans will have to hoof it up to Riga to see the show, since the band won’t be coming to Vilnius.

A good number of Lithuanians might be doing just that; anticipation for the event is running high throughout the Baltics. If the local radio stations playing 'Love In An Elevator' almost hourly hasn’t created enough of a buzz, there’s the simple fact that this is the first time the US band has toured Europe in eight years.

For anyone who has been living in a gulag, here’s the basic rundown: Aerosmith is the best-selling American hard rock band of all time, with 150 million albums sold worldwide. They’ve been around since the early 70s, and have had the same line-up for the past 23 years. Their hits make up a big chunk of those tunes you’ve been hearing on your car radio for the last couple of decades, including 'Walk This Way', 'Jaded', 'Livin' On The Edge', 'Dude Looks Like A Lady' and 'I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing', the theme of the 1998 romantic meteorite thriller Armageddon.

All of the above tracks are on the set list for the show, which is a essentially a “best of” presentation of 17 of their hits. Opening for Aerosmith in both cities will be the Finnish group LOS BASTARDOS FINLANDESES and the Estonian band TANEL PADAR & THE SUN, who in Latvia are better known under the name S.U.N. and will be singing in English for the Riga audience.

According to Ilja Judeikin, press representative for the Tallinn concert, it’s going to be quite a show. To give us an idea of how big an event this is, he said that technicians would be arriving in seven buses, and that the equipment takes up six cargo trucks and requires two days to set up. In addition to the three big TV screens and the 30-meter catwalk - the longest ever used in Estonia - there will also be video effects and a small camera mounted on lead singer Steve Tyler’s microphone which he can use to tease the audience.

Judeikin said Estonian journalists who went ahead to preview the tour in Denmark were bowled over. “They told me it was absolutely amazing and great and unbelievable, and rock and roll is still alive,” he said.

For their part, the band seemed equally enthusiastic to be coming here. “We love the fact that on this tour we are playing countries and cities that used to be completely off-limits for Americans,” the band said in a release. “We never dreamt we could come here, because we grew up during the period of cold war. Even during these years we knew we had a lot of fans in Estonia, we couldn’t imagine we will ever meet them. But now our dream comes true and this is really great!” There seems to be more to this than the obligatory PR lip-service. Judeikin said that Aerosmith’s bassist, Tom Hamilton, is something of a history buff who has been reading up on Estonia and Latvia. “He also said he’s very interested in seeing how Estonia has developed since independence ...and wanted to see it with his own eyes,” said Judeikin.

Those interested in getting to the concert should move now. It’s not clear whether tickets will reach the sell-out point, but inevitably the cheaper ones will go first. Lithuanians can purchase theirs through the www.ticketa.lt service for 150 litas. In Latvia www.bilesuserviss.lv is selling them for 25 - 55 lats, and in Estonia the Piletilevi agency (www.piletilevi.ee) is letting most of them go for 795 - 995 kroons.