Aerosmith's love for rock and blues is no act

Reprinted from late editions of yesterday's Globe.
MANSFIELD -- Fans of "Cryin' " and Hollywood-extra wannabes were in heaven at the Tweeter Center on Thursday night. For everyone else, the first half of the Aerosmith concert was a rock 'n' roll "Groundhog Day" that went like this:

1. The band played a false ending to a song.

2. The audience screamed loud enough to be heard in New York, as instructed.

3. Steven Tyler yelled, "Good evening Boston," or some variation thereof.

4. "Cryin' " was performed with female guest vocalist.

5. Repeat.

6. Repeat again.

The band tossed in a few crowd pleasers between takes in an effort to approximate the experience of being at a concert instead of on a movie set: "Toys in the Attic," "Love in an Elevator," "Same Old Song and Dance," and "The Other Side." But the bulk of Act 1 was commandeered by sound men, camera operators, and still photographers who descended on Aerosmith's hometown venue to film a scene for the forthcoming feature "Be Cool."

Happily, the band wasted no time shifting into serious musical gear for Act 2, where fans got exactly what they paid for -- manhandled, streamer-draped mike stands and a mouth big enough to swallow the venue. They also got something they might not have expected: a 34-year-old band that's been entirely reinvigorated by a bunch of old songs.

An astute friend describes Aerosmith's 25th album, "Honkin' on Bobo," as arena blues, and indeed, there was nothing back porch or down home about the generous selection of songs Aerosmith played from the new disc. They were lighter-raising, feel-good, slick, and super-size blues, and interspersed with cherry-picked favorites, they inspired the sort of bar-band energy and meat-and-potatoes riffs that hearken back to the days before hit soundtracks became a priority.

The entire back end of the set amounted to a killer run: the obscure Fleetwood Mac track "Stop Messin' Around," dripping with Tyler's dirty harmonica licks, fed into "Dream On" and "Draw the Line," which sparked the vintage tunes "Baby, Please Don't Go" and James Brown's "Mother Popcorn" and culminated in civic pride-inducing versions of "Walk This Way," and "Sweet Emotion."

Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry made frequent trips down a runway into the heart of the audience -- where the entire band gathered for the concert's two opening songs. Much posing and swaggering occurred, and Tyler hit up a couple of delirious female fans for a scarf and spangled cowboy hat.

Cheap Trick was the perfect complement to the fest -- all cool guitars and excellent attitude, power ballads and arena rockers. Rick Neilsen hauled out his five-necked axe for "Surrender" and Robin Zander's stringy blond hair and golden whine were '70s hot buttons embalmed to perfection.

Joan Anderman can be reached at anderman@globe.com.

Aerosmith
With Cheap Trick
At: the Tweeter Center, Thursday night