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Correction: An earlier version of this story had an incorrect song listed at the concert opener
Aerosmith has been around since the early 1970s. All of its members are closing in on 60 – or already there.
But on Sunday night, the group put on a show at Intrust Bank Arena that tripled the energy of most of the younger acts that have come through Wichita recently.
The group, touring in support of just-released album, “Music from another Dimension” (its first new studio album in eight years), put on a show in front of 11,000 Wichita fans that was made up of its catalog of hits from the past 40 years as well as several new releases and numbers designed to highlight the individuals in the group.
And haven’t they earned it?
The stage was designed with a long cat walk jutting into the audience, and after the lights dimmed, lead singer Steven Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry – the two most famous members of the group – rose up from below the tip of the catwalk, accompanied by a cloud of smoke.
They launched into 1973’s “Mama Kin,” Tyler wearing a floor-length coat and gripping his signature microphone stand draped with scarves, and Perry donning his signature floppy hair that obscured his face as he played.
Aerosmith spent the rest of the show delivering some of its most recognizable hits, including “Love in an Elevator,” “Rag Doll,” “Dude Looks Like A Lady,” “Jaded,” and “No More No More,” a song Tyler introduced as his favorite.
Charismatic Tyler, famous recently for his stint as an “American Idol” judge, was in true form, and his voice was clear and strong. He ran and danced and twirled around the stage like a man half his age, easily hitting his soaring, screamy high notes, song after song.
A highlight was the song “What it Takes” from 1990’s album “Pump.” Tyler started off the song a cappella, savoring each note. When the band finally backed him halfway through, the audience erupted.
Perry also got his time in the spotlight, as did drummer Joey Kramer, who got a long, rocking drum solo that was interrupted halfway through by an assist from a drumstick-wielding Tyler.
Audience members were rewarded late in the set with some of the band’s most well-known hits, including the Beatles cover “Come Together” and “Dream On."
Equally energetic (and equally classic) rock band Cheap Trick opened the show, delivering all its radio hits, including “The Flame,” “Dream Police” and “I Want You to Want Me.”
