Aerosmith - Unplugged 1990 (2017)

At the beginning of the 1990s, Aerosmith were celebrating a high point in their career. In the wake of 1987's Permanent Vacation, which had gone 5 x platinum and spawned the Top 20 singles Dude (Looks Like A Lady), Rag Doll and Angel, their 1989 follow up Pump was an even greater success. With four hit singles, all on heavy rotation at MTV, Pump was certified 7 x Platinum in the U.S. alone, and earned Aerosmith their first Grammy award for the song Janie Got A Gun. In addition, Janie also received two MTV Video Music Awards, and is still regularly featured in lists of all-time great videos. In support of the album, the group embarked on the year-long Pump Tour, which saw Aerosmith play 166 shows across the U.S., Europe and Asia. The tour featured a staggering selection of support artists, including Metallica, Poison and Skid Row. The band also played many high-profile TV and radio shows, including The Howard Stern Show and Saturday Night Live. On the latter, they appeared in a Wayne s World sketch, during which they discussed the fall of the Soviet Union and performed Janie Got A Gun and Monkey On My Back; Entertainment Television would later rank this appearance as the No. 1 moment in the program's history. On 11th August 1990, Aerosmith performed the entirely acoustic show featured in its completion on this CD. Recorded and filmed at New York's Ed Sullivan Theatre for transmission as part of MTV's then regular concert series Unplugged, the event was a musical departure for the band, but a wholly worthwhile and thrilling show, which is released here for the first time. During a period where Aerosmith were being described as the biggest band in the world, they played a broad range of classics from across their back catalogue, including Monkey On My Back and Toys In The Attic, as well as several covers of numbers from The Doors, Rufus Thomas, Howlin Wolf and others.