Aerosmith
Ventura County Fairgrounds
Ventura, CA
August 3, 1983
Quality: B+
"Ventura Adventure"
Psycho/Tyler Introduction 2:02
Back in the Saddle 4:31
Big Ten Inch Record 4:10
Mama Kin 3:40
Three Mile Smile 4:18
Reefer Head Woman 1:09
Lord of the Thighs 6:45
No More No More 5:15
Minister Tyler Preaches 3:16
Sweet Emotion 5:04
Walk this Way 3:40
Toys in the Attic
Notes: Man, what to say about this...you have to hear it to believe it. Oddly, the dude who sent it to me just had it listed as: Ventura 8-3-83 50m, no mentioned of the chaos here. I sent a copy of this show to an esteemed professor pal who wrote these notes...
"Hey, J-J-Jaded!" Let's face it: twenty-first century middle-America loves Aerosmith. Today, the Toxic Twins are clean and lead a great rock (if not corporate) band that plays to sold out houses across the nation. But we shouldn't let today's sleek edition obscure the tightrope which Aerosmith walked and sometimes fell off of during its 1979-1984 period. In particular, this 1983 Rock in a Hard Place show illuminates how erraticially Aerosmith could perform in those days thanks to a steady diet of drugs and booze. To be fair, only Tyler embarrasses himself here, and the band of Crespo, Dufay, Hamilton, and Kramer try to save him from himself by singing for him when he doesn't (No More No More) and by starting songs (Three Mile Smile) or starting solos (Sweet Emotion) when he rambles incoherently, but there efforts are all for naught. Early in the show, a blitzed Tyler tells the California crowd that "I gotta act drunk, otherwise if I don't, I'll get blamed for being something I wasn't." Um, try again, Steven. You are drunk, at minimum, who knows what was in his bloodstream this night.
Other hilarious Tylerisms:
- "California has been our new home ever since Boston, you all know that, doncha? Well doncha!. . . So when we play here they don't know when we're playing here, back there, anyway...."
- "This song ['Big Ten Inch Record'] happens to be one of [legendary rock promoter] Billy Graham's motherfucking favorite songs. I heard him tell me that last night when I whoomped his ass at ping-pong!"
- "I ain't gonna fuck up on any words tonight," just prior to inventing indecipherable but undeniably unrecognizable lyrics to 'No More No More.'"
- "[You all are saying] what the fuck is wrong with Tyler tonight? He's fuckin' so stoned, he can't do shit. Well, what would you do . . . if you had six inches, had six inches [of blow? smack?] My dick is bigger than six inches!"
- "We ain't like women, you know. Women can cum anytime they want. Boys, you know, it's a two-bit shuffle, you know, doin' it?"
Mercifully, someone in the band makes the executive decision to cut about six songs from the setlist and the show ends after fifty minutes. Tyler departs with a charming "Good night, motherfuckers!" The night before, the band played ninety minutes in Sacramento as headliners with Dio as opener. The crowd reacts to Aerosmith's early departure with a hail of obscenities and jeers, such as "Come on you fucking assholes! Fucking I want my money back! Fuck you!" In sum, the performance here is so bad it is good. Scratch that, it is pure Aerosmithian genius. So let's take Tyler's 2004 advice: "Ladies and Gentlemen, Step Right Up! Let's go see the Elephant!"
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