Hyde Park Calling - Aerosmith Concert Review:

This was a day that I had been waiting over 8 years for. The last time Aerosmith played the UK was at Wembley Stadium in the summer of 1999. I had tickets but ended up not being able to go because I re-broke my wrist (quite badly) the night before the gig, playing football, and my next door neighbour (who is a nurse) took my car keys off of me so that I couldn't drive up to Wembley and then ordered me to go to hospital to sort it out instead. I never thought it would be over 8 years until Aerosmith would return to these shores.

Around the time the tour was announced I must have refreshed the Aerosmith fan site (aeroforceone) a million times and even found out about the Hyde Park gig prior to them knowing. Then they announced that the tickets would go on sale at 9am US eastern time, which just so happened to be a time that I was going to be at a funeral - ahhhhhhh. Thankfully the fan club released some more tickets in the evening and I was able to get some without too much trouble.

I have to say, we were sooo happy that we were staying in a hotel just minutes walk away from Hyde Park, otherwise this might have been a completely different story.

The rain started early in the morning and was constant throughout the whole day. As a member of the Aerosmith fan club I had early entry tickets that allowed me to get into the venue half an hour before normal ticket holders. Due to the rain we decided against this because the first band we wanted to see were The Answer, so we decided to spend the early part of the afternoon in Hamley's playing with toys instead.

We were prepared for the rain when we did enter the venue as we had waterproofs covering all of us. We entered the arena at about 4.45pm to watch The Answer. I was looking forward to The Answer because I had been listening to their album and really liked it. As for a live band they were just as good as they were on their CD, the front man was energetic filling the large stage and the crowd looked like they were enjoying it.

The next band on were Jet. I have seen Jet a couple of times and each time they were as good as the last. However there was something missing from this performance. The music was good, the set list was good but the band members were static and there wasn't any crowd interaction which went against them. Never the less the songs are still good and they were a worthy support act.

Chris Cornell came on next and had an hour and a half to perform. For people who liked Soundgarden and Audioslave then this was a great set. He performed all of the hits including Audioslave's ‘Cochise' and Soundgarden's ‘Black Hole Sun'. He played some of his solo material that not many people knew apart from his song ‘You Know My Name', which was the theme tune for last years Bond film Casino Royale.

Cornell received a mixed reaction and I think most would agree that it was probably because he had been given the same length of set as the headliners Aerosmith. I'm not sure why the festival organisers decided to let the last two bands play the same length sets as most people there were there to see Aerosmith and having Chris Cornell on stage for an hour and a half frustrated them and probably wasn't fair on Cornell who I thought was very good.

The wait for Aerosmith took a while, again the festival organisers hadn't done their homework and when Aerosmith were due to take to the stage crew members were still frantically trying to set the stage up ready. Having waited over 8 years for this moment I think most people didn't mind this extra wait too much. The extra wait was enough for the rain to stop for the first time since the morning as well to the delight of most fans, as fans down the front area started to take their umbrellas down.

Aerosmith entered the stage like they had never been away, playing opener ‘Love in an Elevator', a brilliant rocking tune to start the concert off with. Aerosmith continued to play their hits including ‘Cryin', ‘Don't Want to Miss a Thing', ‘Eat the Rich' and ‘Jaded' with Steven Tyler and Joe Perry strutting their stuff up and down the walkway into the crowd.

My favourite song of the evening has to be ‘Dream On', recently mixed in an Eminem song; this live version showed that only one band can play this song how it was meant to be played.

As the sun went down the hits kept coming, with ‘Living on the Edge', with the crowd lapping up all of the songs, singing along and dancing like it had been a sunny day.

The final couple of songs made the crowd erupt with ‘Sweet Emotion' and ‘Draw the Line'. Aerosmith went off the stage and there were immediate chants for more. A minute later Aerosmith came back on started ‘Walk this Way', where ex Run DMC member (DMC) came on stage to make an appearance on the song.

At the end of the show Steven Tyler said that they had to rush because the Police were about to chuck them off, already being past the 10.30pm curfew. They quickly rushed off stage to a hero's send off.

The gig was amazing and was worth the 8 year wait, its just a shame that it was rushed near the end because of not allowing Aerosmith enough time to play. Only one question remained unanswered as people were leaving, when are they going to be back in the UK? I for one will be hoping it's soon.

If you have any questions, comments or stories about Aerosmith in Hyde Park or any other concerts then email them to me at mike.scoones@thelocalchannel.co.uk.