The Final Warming In Osaka (Zodiac 038)
Municipal Central Gymnasium, Osaka, Japan – August 16, 2013
Disc 1: (72:55) Intro, Let The Music Do The Talking, Love In An Elevator, Legendary Child, Oh Yeah, Same Old Song And Dance, Cryin’, Last Child, Drum Solo, Toys In The Attic, Stop Messin’ Around, Joe’s M.C., Kings And Queens, Livin’ On The Edge
Disc 2: (60:02) Eat The Rich, F.I.N.E., I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing, No More No More, Come Together, Walk This Way, Home Tonight, Dream On, Train Kept A-Rollin’, Sweet Emotion (inc. Third Stone From The Sun), Band Introduction, Outro (Manish Boy)
Aerosmith’s Global Warming Tour, which ran from June 2012 through June 2014, rolled through Japan in August of 2013. Four shows were played starting with Chiba City on August 8th, Nagoya on August 11th, and two shows in Osaka on August 14th & 16th. This was their second trip to Asia during this lengthy tour and the two shows that followed Osaka, their first scheduled shows in Shanghai and Taiwan, were ultimately cancelled due to poor ticket sales.
With all of our favorite bands getting up there in age now, it is to every fans delight that we still get the five original members some forty plus years later and the fact that they can still genuinely pull this off is no small feat. The band sounds tight, Tyler is in good voice with some great guitar work from Perry and Whitford to top things off. Helping out on keyboards and backing vocals is Russ Irwin who really plays an important part in the lineup.
The Final Warming In Osaka from the Zodiac label features the second show from the Osaka Municipal Central Gymnasium. It is a very good to sometimes excellent audience recording with a nice atmosphere. The guitars start out a little lower in the mix than I would like them but the recording has a nice low end punch to it that accents Joey Kramer’s drums. This concert is also notable for a Japanese fan who donated a large sum of money to hear his five favorite Aerosmith songs (they don’t say which ones). The band in turn donated the money to the Japanese Red Cross in support of the recent Tsunami.
Judging by the band’s vast back catalog and their slew of pop hits from the late 80’s and beyond, I can imagine it would be pretty difficult to pull together a setlist that would satisfy everyone. Regardless, they do an admirable job include tracks from every era of the band including two from there latest studio record, Music From Another Dimension, with “Legendary Child” and “Oh Yeah” which do sound good and are played well but are certainly less appealing than the early stuff.
Their 90’s influence is well represented too with tracks from Pump (technically 1989) and Get A Grip. Along with hits like “Love In An Elevator”, “Cryin”, and “Livin’ On The Edge” we are also treated to hard rockers like “Eat The Rich” and “F.I.N.E.” which retain more of their raw edge and still sound more enthusiastic to me than anything they have written since.
With all that being said, we come to expect classics like “Walk This Way”, “Dream On”, “Sweet Emotion”, and “Train Kept A-Rollin” but to see “Kings And Queens”, “No More No More”, and “Come Together” included is a really nice surprise for me and worth the price of admission. They even include “Home Tonight” from the Rocks LP which is unfortunately only a snippet used as an introduction to “Dream On”. Probably just as well as it sounds like it might have given Tyler trouble with the vocal.
The recording itself is about as complete as can be and starts with four and a half minutes of PA music before Aerosmith takes the stage opening with “Let The Music Do The Talking” (another very nice surprise). The taper captures everything through (with no music lost) to the after show music featuring Muddy Waters’ “Manish Boy” over the PA.
Aerosmith has been getting some much needed attention on silver discs lately from the Zodiac label making this an exciting time to be an A-smith collector. The Final Warming In Osaka is packaged in a double slimline jewel cases with some very nice picture discs that both feature the same live photo of Tyler and Perry, of course. The good sound quality and great setlist makes this easy to recommend and it certainly shows how Aerosmith can still kick it out and have fun doing it after four decades.
