It ain't easy livin' like a gypsy, tell ya honey how I feel

Aerosmith - "Live Bootleg" (1978) - Columbia Records

Hello Friends,

Tonight we've got a great double-live album on the turntable that captures one of the 1970's best hard rock bands at the height of their creative powers while in the the throes of drug addiction and overindulgence!  Sounds like a recipe for some great rock & roll!

Contrary to the LP's title, "Live Bootleg" is not a bootleg at all. Actually, it was kind of joke by the band and the record label to spoof the bootleg format which was usually plagued by bad photocopied artwork & really crappy sound quality!

Not only is Live Bootleg one of the 1970's best live records (its right up there with Alive!, Live at Budokan, Live at Leeds, If You Want Blood You've Got It and The Last Waltz), but it also would prove to be the high point in the band's career.  In our opinion, 1977's Draw the Line would be the last great, sleazy Aerosmith LP.  1979's Night in the Ruts isn't very good, 1982's Rock in a Hard Place is missing Joe Perry & 1985's Done With Mirrors is abysmal!  We all know the story how Aerosmith resurrected their career in the mid-80's thanks to MTV and Run DMC, but none of that stuff can hold a candle to their first five studio albums!

And unlike a lot of the other great live albums of this era, Live Bootleg captures the band at their most raw and strung out.  The album is not littered with polished-sounding overdubs or glossy production.  This is the band warts & all and by 1978 Aerosmith was a hot mess!  (And if you listen closely you can even hear some fans throwing M80's at the stage!  Apparently in the seventies, this was a "thing.")

The album begins, like most Aersomith shows in '77 & '78, with the sound of Norman Bates' knife music and kicks right into the opener, an amped-up version of the cowboy sex anthem, "Back in the Saddle".  

"Sweet Emotion" follows and then a sped up, seven minute version of "Lord of the Thighs". Side One ends with "Toys in the Attic" which, according to the liner notes, is a "folk song about the band's state of mind!"  Nice!

Side Two gives us "Last Child", "Walk this Way" and the underrated classic, "Sick As A Dog". It also contains a hard rocking cover of the Beatles' "Come Together" that the band would later record for the Sgt Pepper's movie.  Can't believe these guys didn't get more acting roles!

Side Three kicks off with the obligatory, "Dream On" followed by the bluesy, "Chip Away The Stone"-- the album's lone single as well as the only Aerosmith song on the LP that wasn't previously released on record!  There's a "nice and ratty" version of Draw The Line's "Sight for Sore Eyes" as well as great, great versions of "Mama Kin" and "S.O.S. (Too Bad)".

Side Four actually takes us back to two early recordings from a live performance at Pall's Mall in Boston in April 1973: the blues-standard, "I Ain't Got You" and a cover of James Brown's "Mother Popcorn".

If you look at the liner notes on the record you would not see the song, "Draw The Line", however in true bootleg fashion the song is included here in all its raucous glory!



The bad boys from beantown wrap things up with a rollicking version of The Yardbirds' "Train Kept A Rollin".  House lights come on and our ears are still ringing! But I just couldn't tell her so...

Live Bootleg is a fantastic listen from start to finish!  Capturing the band at their hardest, most cynical, strung out and sleazy! Even though the band would stick around and actually flourish over the next several decades, it's the band that you hear on this record album that's a reminder to what a great rock & roll band Aerosmith actually was!

RATING: 4.5 Keepin' Touch with Mama Kins out of 5