AEROSMITH Guitarist Joe Perry - "We Use 'Walk This Way' With RUN D.M.C. As A Landmark"
July 22, 2014, 10 years ago
Currently on the Let Rock Rule Tour 2014, Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry spoke with Artist Direct about the jaunt and having former Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash on the road as support. An excerpt is available below:
Q: You’re dusting off some hidden gems on the "Let Rock Rule" tour for the set list...
Joe Perry. "Once the tour is up and running and all of the relative big things are taken care of, we have to deal with the set list. We really pay attention to it. On this last European leg, we’d never played half of the places we went to before this tour. We spend some time trying to figure out what kind of set people will want. We try and take everything into account like how close we are to a place we have played. Of course now with the internet, there’s another voice. It really is just a few people talking. Still, it’s another person weighing in. Sometimes, we get an idea for the meet-n-greet. The bottom line is, this particular set evolved over the European tour. The second-to-last gig we did was straight out hard rock festival. Deep Purple played. So, we loaded it up. When we came back to the States, we had this thought that we really stumbled on a good set. There’s enough of the old material in there."
"Like you said, there are a few gems. We’ll probably build a few more songs into the set from the last album, Music from Another Dimension!. We’d all like to get one or two songs in there from that record without taking away some of the gems—the Eighties and Nineties music. Our set list was really '70s-heavy. It was fun to play that stuff. I think we got away from a lot of material that provided many people with their first Aerosmith experience. We use 'Walk This Way' with Run D.M.C. as a landmark since then. To some people, that was our first album. We hear that at the meet-n-greets. In Europe, people would say, 'It’s crazy. I love your first single ‘Walk This Way’ with Run D.M.C.' That’s just another generation. Back then, we played a lot of those records. It was everything from Pump to Get a Grip to Nine Lives. It fell by the wayside over the last few years. Now, we’re bringing it back. We’re having a good time with the set. I hope everyone likes it."Click here for the complete interview.
Quality single-cam video of Aerosmith playing a 30 minute set at the Whisky-A-Go-Go in Los Angeles, CA has been posted online. Check it out below (photo by Zack Whitford Photography).
This was the Let Rock Rule Tour 2014 kick-off performance on April 8th. The setlist was as follows:
"Draw The Line""Same Old Song and Dance"
"Pink"
"Walk This Way"
"Mama Kin" (featuring Slash)
"Train Kept A-Rollin'" (featuring Slash)
On the third date (Wednesday, July 16th) of this summer’s Let Rock Rule North American summer tour, Aerosmith fans saw a special collaboration between the band and good friend Johnny Depp.
The performance - at the Xfinity Center in the band’s Boston hometown - featured a guest spot from Depp on the band’s “Train Kept A-Rollin”. Depp last performed the song with the band at their August 2012 sold-out Hollywood Bowl show in Los Angeles.
Check out fan-filmed footage of the performance below:
Aerosmith's confirmed tour schedule is as follows:
July
25 - First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre - Tinley Park, IL
30 - The Forum - Inglewood, CA
August
8 - Lake Tahoe Outdoor Arena At Harveys - Stateline, NV
13 - Sleep Train Pavilion - Concord, CA
16 - The Gorge Amphitheatre - George, WA
19 - Pepsi Center - Denver, CO
22 - American Airlines Center - Dallas, TX
25 - The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion - Woodlands, TX
28 - Phillips Arena - Atlanta, GA
31 - Atlantic City Boardwalk Hall - Atlantic City, NJ
September
6 - Jiffy Lube Live - Bristow, VA
9 - DTE Energy Music Theatre - Clarkston, MI
12 - Open Hearth Park - Sydney, NS
