MÜNCHEN – Babylon – 24th march 2001 – the AeroGospel according to St. Luca …

By Luca Celletti

The capacity of the Babylon Club in München (Bayern) is up to 1500 people. As to the posters in the streets nearby, the Living End are expected…Their music is a kind of punk revival. And yet media and fans from all over Europe are not here for them: they’re truly here for Aerosmith, unnecessary hidden after their meeting with the press of yesterday, they booked up the show! With teutonic precision, at 9 o’clock P.M., five stunning models dressed in silver and yellow with space helmets (as on the cover of Just Push Play) take place on incredibily little stage (that’s the strange thing for such a great band) that the musicians will occupy later. The blues intro fades and Aerosmith take place …Actually the sexy animal sweet figure of the singer dressed in optical laced t-shirt, hair highlighted and shorter than usual, firm biceps, was already comin’ out from the dark. He comes out smiling and staring, he kisses one of the girls’cheek,half covered by her helmet…WOW! The long-awaited Aeroshow is going to start, the most advertised secret gig in history. A lot of shouts lead the primordial sound of Mama Kin master fully played, the song fills up the atmosphere of the little Babylon discoclub of München. The rumble of the people goes along for half an hour of deafening hard rock, deafening, professionally coarse, of everlasting hymns growing to dazzling jam sessions and new hit singles (so few as so good). In Big ten Inch Record Perry turns on a breath-taking solo while the frontman fakes a sexual act with left cybermodel, just to remind us that here the show plays the lord and master. Fun by trade,not just customary professionism; risks (the voice of Tallarico springs everywhere around like a rubber band) that means not daily routine. Personally I’ve been enraptured by the chords of One Way street played by Perry…One of the most worn out pieces of my Aero-collection!!!I remember as I began to play it around in ’93 with my at that very moment Yes of Course and I remember as we tried to find a particular live version of it, maybe in some bootleg…The break is to a sweetest Miss A Thing that heads another outstanding blues session before Walk this Way, a must piece that the Aerosmith always use to celebrate even after long years since they played it for the first time. Sweet Emotion comes as well from far away, grows and blasts in the end, the version is more or less arranged as in the double live A Little South of Sanity , when we quite forget the these five 50 years old rockers are here to introduce their new album release. Here we are with Jaded, the only track from Just push play,it doesn’t betray and pays off very well when played live as the most attentive soon realized, as they had already played it live for the American music Awards. The set ends with Train kept a rollin’ that takes ‘em back to hard rock domain where Aerosmith move as ancient experts. One hour has elapsed, Perry is now in a red shirt and Tyler has become dehydrated not only for the atmosphere but from the temperature which is now like hell!! It’s even difficult to know how he can reach now such voice peaks. The audience found back that, when superlative band concentrates all in a less than 80 minutes performance, a flaming exibition comes out. Calls for encore are left to top-rank covers as Come Together of the Beatles and a blasting Toys in the Attic that causes the whole Babylon to jump. This time the show is really over. The sensation is bitter-sweet: on one hand for not havin’ listened Love in an Elevator or Pink,on the other because of listening to a live of Aerosmith in such a little club as they had the habit to perform in the oldest time of their career is a big score. As Joe Perry said introducing Jaded: ” we came here to meet media and fans but for once we came here with the aim to do the thing that we’re good at: playing. Sure, and all of us learned from this evening the way to perform a winning show. The true sensation after a couple of years since the latest time I saw them live is that old good rock n’ roll never grows old, remaining a mind panacea. Differently from ’99 when, owing to the Italian fan club, I could luckily meet the band, spending a little time with them (and being even invited by Steven Tyler to sing a part of Fallin’ in Love on the stage of Naples), this time it was quite impossible to reach them. When I was quite tired out and had almost surrendered to fate “with a blink of an eye, I finally saw the light”. So I could manage to greet Steven personally and give him a tribute souvenir, an Eurosmith video recorded in Rome Hard Rock Cafè on 26.03.1999 to pay homage to HIS birthday. After all the suspence, finally I got the satisfaction of seeing him flattered, also for having recognized, after 2years, the singer of a Aerosmith Tribute Band from Rome. I have given my thanks to my fate and to the cooperation of some nice people: Barbara Caserta, Marinella Carraro, Giancarlo Passarella, Marco Bellora of Italian Sony and the conclusive assistance and help of super-Victoria from MTV. A special thanks also to Giovanni Volpi of Aero-italian fan club and also thanks, in all modesty, to all of the people like me that decided to join together contributing to fulfil the expectations of all the italian fans who were there. An exclusive experience…if I can suggest something I would say to all of you, even not excited like us, not to lose the next event even if it could be more daring than this…, because, even after that incredible resurrection of ten years ago, their show still results to be one of the three or four best live shows all over the world…and in the meantime…JUST PUSH PLAY!!!

Luca Celletti (EUROSMITH).