Credit: Far Out / Piatkus
October 29th, 2026 · 11:07pm GMT
When an artist is starting out, there’s a lesson to be learned from every show they attend as a fan, whether this be for good or bad, as Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler can attest.
Of course, live music is subjective and down to taste. For example, Bob Dylan and Freddie Mercury are highly regarded as some of the greatest artists of their respective generations, but it’s not like Dylan is going to give Mercury a run for his money in the vocal department in front of a crowd. However, if there was one person who understood the essence of what a frontman should be from day one, though, it would have to be Tyler.
Before finding fame with Aerosmith, Tyler had studied under some of the best. When he was a teenager, Mick Jagger and Robert Plant were starting to form the crux of what rock star moves were supposed to be like onstage, so when Tyler came to the forefront with his scarf-clad microphone stand, he was practically everything that anyone could have expected out of a blues singer. He could dance, he had an endless amount of energy, and most importantly, he could sing his ass off.
Despite his various vocal issues over the years, Tyler has been the archetype for keeping one’s voice in check. Any other band would have to lower the keys of their tunes to get a decent performance in their later years, but until his final days onstage, Tyler made sure that he had the same gusto whenever he hit those high notes in ‘Dream On’ or crooned ballads like ‘Angel’.
That kind of sleazy rock and roll was all well and good, but that wasn’t the kind of music that Tyler necessarily grew up with. It was the beginning of Flower Power when he first began, and while there was a good helping of blues rock for him to soak up during that time, the focus had shifted towards folk-leaning acts, whether that was The Mamas and the Papas or The Byrds. Even at that time, though, there wasn’t a more singular voice than Donovan.
While there was the occasional dip into psychedelia on tracks like ‘Mellow Yellow Man’ and ‘Hurdy Gurdy Man’, the lion’s share of Donovan’s music was all about trying to find the next beautiful melody as he picked away on his acoustic guitar. It may have sounded heavenly coming out of the speakers, but Tyler remembered being incredibly disappointed when he heard the tracks live.
This was 1968, shortly after the release of ‘Hurdy Gurdy Man’, when Donovan was already established as a big name after two years of hits on both sides of the Atlantic. Seeing him at Carnegie Hall should have been one of those shows that the audience members told their grandchildren about in decades to come. He was viewed as the heir to Bob Dylan’s throne, but Tyler simply wasn’t having it.
The folk icon was always going to have to sacrifice something when playing live, but Tyler remembered being pissed off not hearing the signature echo on his voice when he played ‘Hurdy Gurdy Man’, later saying, “I’ve always been one of those people who says, ‘I’m gonna give ’em what they came for’. I know how I would feel in the back row. I saw Donovan at Carnegie Hall years ago.”
Tyler continued, “He was being his quiet self, stoned on hash or whatever, and someone said something in the audience. And he said – I’ll never forget it – ‘You’re playing havoc with my senses.’ What a statement! And he never talked to the audience after that. I was so bummed”.
“He played his songs faster, didn’t use that vocal effect. I was let down”.
While Tyler didn’t enjoy the show from a fan’s perspective, that feeling of disappointment stayed with him and was later used as fuel every time he stepped on stage, adding, “I’m very aware of that today. During the shows, I do stuff the audience saw me do on TV. And we do all the songs for them. I want to be true to what I felt in the beginning. I don’t believe that I shouldn’t be my own caricature.”
So when Tyler eventually got in front of the stage, he seemed to be making up for what Donovan didn’t do when he talked to the crowd. Plant and Jagger had their occasional bits of banter with the crowd, but Tyler seemed to be the kind of smart-ass kid that everyone wanted to hang out with the minute that he got on-stage, even having a few moments where he got into trouble by using the crowd to evade the police.
Although there are pieces of Donovan’s songwriting in some of the tender moments Aerosmith have in their back catalogue, Tyler knew that he was not going to be in a band where the lead singer sat on a stool to play. He wanted to grab the audience by the throat, and that meant being the polar opposite of the sensitive singer-songwriter.
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