darth_darsh

Hey Joe! I run www.aerosmithsetlists.com (which was actually referenced in the back of your book 'Rocks') and I'll ask the question many superfans want to know.

Am I going to be able to add a new setlist to my site from your upcoming 'Blue Army Tour 2015' with songs like Woman of the World, Write Me a Letter, and Sight for Sore Eyes? Many fans have gone to your shows for decades hoping that gems like these will make it into the set (and stay there!), but they almost never do. Instead, year after year we can expect pretty much the same songs in roughly the same order (understandably, since you have lots of hits). It was really great for the fans when Combination showed up and stayed for a couple years, and recently Kings & Queens got a decent run.

Any plans to significantly shake up the songs and/or the order of the songs? If not, what's stopping you? You guys are at your best when you're spontaneous.

It's not really that Aerosmith doesn't play deep cuts. They do, but very few and they don't often vary.

Aerosmith has a few tiers of hits. There are classic hits, like Walk This Way, Dream On, Sweet Emotion, Toys In The Attic, Train Kept A Rollin', and Last Child. There are 'new' hits (which are 20-30 years old despite being called 'new') like Love in an Elevator, Cryin', Livin' On The Edge, Rag Doll, Dude (Looks Like a Lady), and I Don't Want to Miss a Thing. Already there you have a dozen songs (and you can play with that list a bit) which you know is gonna form the core of the set 95% of the time.

They play about 20 songs, but the remaining 8 can't be filled with deep cuts because Aerosmith still has a class of songs people want to hear - things you'll hear on the radio but aren't must-haves - like Draw The Line, Back In The Saddle, What It Takes, Jaded, Eat The Rich, Mama Kin, and so on. So most of the remaining 8 get filled with those.

You're then only left with 2 or 3 slots. If they're promoting something new, the new stuff will be put in there. Otherwise, what usually happens is that they'll settle on a few gems per tour, like S.O.S. (Too Bad), Combination, or Movin' Out, and keep them in. Which is great, don't get me wrong. But what would be even better would be to get maybe 10 gems ready and every night choose a random 2 or 3 from the set of 10. That way the diehards who have seen them year after year can still be surprised.

They could also muck with the order. Open with Sweet Emotion, get it out of the way, and then the encore (which is usually predictable) becomes a surprise. I saw them in 2005 and they opened with Helter Skelter into Walk This Way. Totally unpredictable, you'd never think it was a good idea, but it totally worked.