No matter how unlikely it sounds, it really happened.
On the road to rock ’n’ roll stardom, Aerosmith played a gig in the gymnasium at Akron’s Firestone High School.
Vintage posters commemorate the event Nov. 15, 1974, with opening acts Cactus and the Joe Vitale Band. Tickets cost $6 in advance — about $28 today — and were also sold at the door. That’s right: The Bad Boys from Boston, future Grammy winners and inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, didn’t sell out in Akron.
Fans who attended the concert witnessed music history, although few realized it then.
Aerosmith, featuring vocalist Steven Tyler, lead guitarist Joe Perry, rhythm guitarist Brad Whitford, bassist Tom Hamilton and drummer Joey Kramer, was touring behind its second album, Get Your Wings, which had the radio staples Train Kept A-Rollin’ and Same Old Song and Dance. The band’s debut album, Aerosmith, released a year earlier, had the hit single Dream On.
“They weren’t really popular yet,” recalled Stewart Lenox, 56, of Sharon Township, a 1976 Firestone graduate. “I had to kind of tell my friends: You’ve got to go to this.”
Lenox, owner of Lenox Design, was one of Aerosmith’s early fans in Akron because he and his family used to spend summers in New England.
“For several years before they came to Ohio, Aerosmith was big in Massachusetts,” Lenox recalled. “They’d be on the Boston radio all the time.”
Lenox said he “flipped out” when he heard Jer-Mar Productions was bringing Aerosmith to Firestone, because he played guitar and was trying to learn the group’s songs.
He remembers hearing that Firestone initially balked at the show because the band made some “crazy demands” for backstage. It wasn’t about money — or sex or drugs. The musicians apparently wanted to eat turkey dinners.
“You wouldn’t expect a rock band to be demanding a Thanksgiving turkey dinner, you know,” Lenox said. “It was weird stuff, we all thought at the time.”
More than 3,500 people were estimated to be in the crowd. There must have been a student discount because Lenox insists he paid only $2.
What does he recall about the show?
“It totally rocked,” he said.
With long hair and layered clothes, Aerosmith epitomized cool in 1974.
“They were all thin and they all wore kind of tight clothes to accentuate their thinness,” Lenox said.
He thinks the band played just about everything from its first two albums, including Walkin’ the Dog, Mama Kin and Lord of the Thighs, but one track stands out from the show.
“The accessible song for all of us guitar players was Train Kept A-Rollin’ — that was the big hit on the radio,” he said.
“After they got there, every band, including the ones I was in, all they wanted to do was play Train Kept A-Rollin’.”
South Akron resident David Ames, 57, a 1975 Firestone graduate, also attended the show.
“Most of us had never heard of Aerosmith before,” said Ames, owner of David Ames Karate on North Hill.
He was a wrestler at Firestone and recalls that some athletes hid in the ceiling tiles of the weightlifting room to sneak into the 8 p.m. Friday show without paying.
“Six bucks. That was expensive,” Ames said.
Wrestling coach Ronnie Laubaugh, mindful of practice at 8 a.m. the next day, rolled his eyes when he saw Ames arrive at the main door. It was going to be difficult to get up early after a late night of rock ’n’ roll.
“He gave me that look,” Ames said. “Oh, boy. Wrestling practice tomorrow is going to be hell.”
Ames couldn’t have asked for better seats. He was in the upper level, far left, third row on an aisle. The opening bands were good, but Aerosmith was the main attraction.
“Just as they came out onstage, they unfurled this huge banner that covered the whole back of the stage,” he said.
It was the winged logo from the cover of Get Your Wings.
“They had a heck of a light show and the crowd just went nuts,” Ames said.
For the most part, the audience was well behaved and there were no security problems, he said. However, he does recall a wobbly girl getting sick in the row behind him.
“That was essentially the worst issue of the evening,” he said.
Bob Ellis, 56, of Green, a 1975 Firestone graduate, recalls lobbying his parents for permission to go to his first concert.
“I begged and pleaded,” he said. “Not only was it a favorite group, but I figured I could sell it fairly easily because it was at the high school.”
Ellis, president of Davis Graphic Communication Solutions in Barberton, said the Firestone gym was “packed to the gills” when he and his pals took their bleacher seats six or seven rows from the top.
The concert was “knock-down, drag-out fun,” he said.
“I had just a killer time, living in the moment, getting to see my idols in person,” he said.
Ellis appreciated that the band didn’t depend on makeup or theatrics to entertain.
“It was when music was music,” he said. “You went there to listen to music.”
Several Firestone teachers were also in attendance, serving as chaperones and keeping an eye on the crowd.
“They were having a good time,” Ellis said. “I remember seeing teachers in a whole different light.”
Another 1975 Firestone graduate, Scott Shriber, 57, of Akron, group publisher at Babcox Publications, said it was cool to go to a concert at school.
“Back then, it was like a social gathering,” he said. “You’d move and go sit with these people and then the band would play and then you’d go over and see your group of friends.”
He wasn’t the biggest fan of Aerosmith at the time, but he did know a few of their songs.
“I went to hear Dream On,” he said. “I know that sounds crazy, but I was a radio listener at that time. Pretty much for every concert, I wanted to hear the specific, popular song for any given band. I guess I was a bubble-gummer.”
Shriber said he had no idea in 1974 that Aerosmith would become as huge as it did.
“They were just ready to fall off the cliff and become mega stars,” he said. “They weren’t there yet.”
When the show ended, the crowd streamed out of the gym. It was orderly, but a little scary as people jostled their way out of the building.
“I do remember the craziness of everyone filing out after the concert into that hall down below,” Shriber said.
Ames made it to wrestling practice the next morning. The gym was strewn with trash. As he ran the bleachers, he spied a bottle of Old Granddad.
“They didn’t do a thorough cleanup for a few days,” he said.
Firestone was the final high school for Aerosmith before it graduated to larger venues. The band soon went into the studio to record Toys in the Attic, which had the hits Walk This Way and Sweet Emotion.
Aerosmith played April 12, 1975, at Cleveland State University, then the World Series of Rock on Aug. 23, 1975, at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. They sold out two shows July 28-29, 1976, at the Richfield Coliseum.
Not bad for an act that couldn’t fill Firestone High.
Ellis, a lifelong Aerosmith fan, remains thankful that high school officials gave their permission for the concert.
“God bless them for allowing that to happen,” he said. “A whole lot of kids had a whole lot of fun.”
Lenox, who plays lead guitar in Acid Raincoat and the Steel Hip Blues Band, stills plays Aerosmith songs and will always remember the band’s “butt-kickin’ ” show in Akron.
“To me, that was just unreal,” he said.
Ames still can’t believe he got to see the band in an early performance.
“I’ve got really great memories of it,” he said.
Shriber also remains in awe of his Aerosmith experience.
“When I tell people they played Firestone, no one can believe it,” he said.
Copy editor Mark J. Price is author of The Rest Is History: True Tales From Akron’s Vibrant Past, a book from the University of Akron Press. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.