I have to offer a bit of full-disclosure here. I’m not an Aerosmith fan. I think they produced a handful of good to great songs in their first four years between 1973 and 1976, but they’re certainly a band who overstayed their welcome and the atrocities of their 1977-2012 catalog piss over any legacy they may have ever had as a decent hard rock band. I once made a list of my top ten “most hated songs of all time,” and Aerosmith appeared a whopping three times on that list (“Ragdoll,” “Dude [Looks Like a Lady],” and “Love in an Elevator,” in descending order for anyone keeping score.)

I have to admit, however, a soft spot for “Dream On.” It’s one of their few tracks that I view as truly transcendent. One day in a classic rock YouTube k-hole, I stumbled upon what I thought would have been a killer live performance of the song from 1977. Seconds after hitting “play,” I began scanning the comments to see if what I was watching was indeed a true Aerosmith performance and not one of those internet “shreds” videos. If you’ve been living under a rock, “shreds” videos were all the rage a few years ago - clever YouTubers would record out-of-tune audio tracks over the top of performance footage of popular bands, resulting in a few yuks at the bands’ expense.

This is not a “shreds” video.

What we have here are Steven Tyler and Joe Perry at the height of their “Toxic Twins” indulgence,  zonked completely out of their minds, barely able to stumble through their signature tune. Perry delivers so many clams he could open a seafood shack, sounding like a fumbling teenager’s first visit to a Guitar Center President’s Day sale. Tyler fades in and out, struggling to keep it together. At times the other band members look on with some confusion. The band starts to gel by the crescendo, and then allows the fizzle-fart ending to put a cap on how much of a shit they don’t give about being onstage.

This has since become a YouTube favorite, and one I like to pull out anytime someone mentions the “greatness” of ‘70s Aerosmith.

In a just world, copies of this performance would have been distributed as parting-gifts to American Idol contestants dismissed by Tyler. Certainly, many bruised egos could have been salved. 

You can’t say much in defense of this, but at least, once-upon-a-time, Steven Tyler looked cool.