Aerosmith After the Farewell: 10 Key Moments Leading to Their Big Reunion Concert

By Andy Greene

Andy Greene

In a little under a week, Aerosmith will awake from a three-year hibernation to play the first of two “Aerosmith & Friends” shows at the Hollywood Bowl with a pretty stunning lineup of guests, including Guns N’ Roses, Run-DMC, the Black Crowes, Billy Idol, Heart, Sammy Hagar, and Tom Morello. “We have the songs that we’re going to do and all that, but I don’t know what the rest of the whole production is really all about at this point,” Slash recently told Eddie Trunk. “It’s been very sort of last-minute throw and go.”

The highlight of the event will be the first Aerosmith performance since their farewell tour was prematurely called off in 2023. In rehearsal photos they posted to Instagram, the band is playing with original drummer Joey Kramer, who last played with the band during a Las Vegas show in February 2020.

It’s unclear exactly how many songs Aerosmith are going to perform at the concerts, if singer Steven Tyler has recovered from the larynx injury that ended the farewell tour, and whether or not this marks a rebirth of the band or some sort of Black Sabbath-style coda for fans. Either way, it’s going to a genuine moment in rock history.

But it won’t be the first time that Tyler has performed in public since the last tour, or even the first time several members of the band have played together. Here’s a look at 10 key Aerosmith moments over the past three years that show how they slowly pieced themselves back together, setting the stage for their big comeback in L.A.

• Steven Tyler Claims to Injure His Larynx — Sept. 9, 2023

  Image Credit: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

  Aerosmith’s Sept. 9, 2023, stop at UBS Arena in Elmont, New York, was supposed to be just the third stop on their epic Peace Out…Farewell Tour, which likely would have stretched on for at least a couple of years. They opened with “Back in the Saddle,” broke out big hits like “Rag Doll,” “Love in an Elevator,” and “Sweet Emotion,” and pleased the hardcores with the first live rendition of the Draw the Line deep cut “Bright Light Fright” since 1994, before wrapping up in standard fashion with “Dream On” and “Walk This Way.” But at some point during the night, Tyler claims he fractured his larynx. They initially postponed dates and then ultimately pulled the plug on the entire tour. There’s a small contingent of fans who have analyzed tapes from the night like the Zapruder film and see no moment where Tyler fell, collided with something, or did anything that would have resulted in a larynx injury. But we have no reason not to take the man at his word. We may never know exactly what happened that night, but we do know it marked the end of a major chapter of Aerosmith history.