Concert report / Published 2026-10-31

Aerosmith Plays Its First Show in Three Years at the Hollywood Bowl

The band opened a two-night bill in Los Angeles with a six-song set, Dave Grohl on drums and Johnny Depp on guitar. The host called it the end; the band has not.

A flat conceptual editorial illustration: an empty band stage, deep burgundy velvet side drapes, a single warm spotlight pooling on bare boards and one stool with a microphone stand at the centre. Concert staging reduced to flat geometric shapes. No people, no faces, no band logos, no instruments br
Conceptual editorial illustration; not a photograph of the people or event described.

THE SHORT VERSION

  • Aerosmith played its first concert in three years at the Hollywood Bowl on Thursday, Oct. 29, on a two-night bill called "California, Dream On: Aerosmith & Friends."
  • Dave Grohl played drums for the first five songs, Johnny Depp joined on guitar for "Train Kept A-Rollin'" and original drummer Joey Kramer returned for the closing "Walk This Way."
  • Variety reports that host Bill Burr called the two nights the final shows in the band's history; neither outlet carries any confirmation from Aerosmith.

Six songs, three years after the farewell tour stopped

Aerosmith played its first concert in three years on Thursday night at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. Variety and Consequence both reviewed the night, the first of two billed as "California, Dream On: Aerosmith & Friends." The band's set ran six songs and, by Variety's count, about 45 minutes at the end of an evening that stretched to nearly four hours. Consequence reports it was the group's first performance since a vocal injury to Steven Tyler forced them to retire from touring. Variety's verdict was that the set was all you could have hoped for from the Aerosmith of 2026, and maybe a little better.

The setlist printed by both outlets was "Toys in the Attic," "Back in the Saddle," "Sweet Emotion," "Dream On," "Train Kept A-Rollin'" and "Walk This Way." Variety reported that Tyler showed no sign of the injury that ended the 2023 tour; he told the crowd the band had been together 55 years and was the same band that started 55 and a half years ago. Variety put the set's high point at "Dream On," which Tyler began at a grand piano and finished standing on top of it. The review also noted the older signifiers: scarves on the microphone stand, an open blouse, hair moving in hurricane-level breezes.

Grohl took the drum stool, Depp took half a solo

Dave Grohl played drums on the first five songs, and Johnny Depp joined on guitar for the penultimate number, "Train Kept A-Rollin'." Consequence reported Grohl's presence for the majority of the set and Depp's guitar on that song. Variety reported that Joe Perry, Depp's bandmate in the Hollywood Vampires, called him out by name and handed him half of the guitar solo, which the review said he pulled off with ease.

Joey Kramer, the band's original drummer, had stepped back from the group for health reasons before the 2023 interruption, though Variety notes he had made clear he did not want to be done. Variety reports he walked to center stage near the end, hugged Tyler, and settled at a second kit marked with the initials JK while John Douglas took the main kit. Consequence reports Kramer and Douglas both played on "Walk This Way." Variety's assessment was that Kramer could still lay down a good beat but probably could not do the heavy lifting, and it called the arrangement a compromise that let a co-founder collect his flowers at the close.

The 2023 tour ended a few shows in

Consequence reports Aerosmith were forced off the road a few shows into a planned farewell tour when Tyler suffered a vocal injury in September 2023. The following year the band planned to make up the dates, then canceled a few weeks before the run was to start and announced its retirement, citing Tyler's slow recovery. Neither outlet gives a more specific medical account than the vocal injury itself.

Variety frames the two Bowl shows as the band's first since that abrupt stop, a little over three years earlier, and asks whether they might also be the last. The paper reports that nobody has said anything official about a finale, and that fans have speculated about further dates, including a possible hometown show in Boston. Consequence's report does not raise the question of an ending at all.

The host said these were the final two shows

Variety reports that the evening's host, Bill Burr, told the crowd at the top of the night that these were "the final two shows in Aerosmith’s history." Burr said it while introducing Warren Haynes. Variety adds that the offhand delivery made clear he was speaking out of turn, and that it could not be established whether he had let something slip. The review also records a long Burr monologue about a DUI he picked up driving home from an Aerosmith show.

Neither outlet quotes the band, its management or its publicist on that point. Consequence names the producers as C724 Management and Blackbird Presents; Variety gives the first name as 724 Management. Variety reads the involvement of Blackbird Presents, plus a camera flying on wires above the box seats, as signs a documentary or television special is planned, and as the likelier reason the two nights were assembled.

Two opening sets built almost entirely from Aerosmith songs

The Black Crowes played five songs before Aerosmith, all drawn from Aerosmith's catalogue or from Perry's side project: "Let the Music Do the Talking," "Write Me a Letter," "Combination," "No More No More" and "Chip Away the Stone." Consequence counts four Aerosmith covers and one Joe Perry Project song in the same order.

Guns N' Roses played five songs, three of them Aerosmith covers: "Nobody's Fault," "Last Child" and "Seasons of Wither," followed by "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Paradise City." Variety's review found Axl Rose stronger in his lower range and, up top, closer to a choirboy falsetto than the raspier instrument it remembered. The rest of the bill was Eric Church, Heart, Sammy Hagar, Billy Idol with Steve Stevens, Warren Haynes and Godsmack's Sully Erna, backed by a house band that Variety says included Don Was, Kenny Aronoff, Nuno Bettencourt and Andrew Watt. Variety counted Church's "Rag Doll" as fun and his "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" as a miss, with the singer reading the words off a monitor through his shades.

A second night on Sunday, and what is still unconfirmed

A second California, Dream On show is scheduled for Sunday, November 1, at the same venue. Variety reports ticketholders for the first night were warned through their apps that the bill would start at 6:45 rather than 7, and that advertised acts including Run-DMC, Tom Morello, Marcus King, Jerry Cantrell and Train's Pat Monahan had not appeared on Thursday. Variety also records that the band walked off after "Walk This Way" without a farewell, while fireworks went off over the Bowl's shell.

Liv Tyler and Alicia Silverstone, who both appeared in Aerosmith's 1994 video for "Crazy," introduced the band, Consequence reports. Neither outlet carries a statement about future touring, a release of the footage, or Sunday's setlist. Related coverage on this site includes the Powderfinger reunion tour, Cheap Trick's touring break, Noah Kahan's 2027 stadium dates and the RedBird Sound Ventures fund.

Sources & reporting limits

  1. Aerosmith Hits the Hollywood Bowl for First Show in Over Three Years — Variety
  2. Aerosmith, with Dave Grohl on Drums, Play First Show in Three Years — Consequence
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