For two nights at the Hollywood Bowl, it was 1976 again. Aerosmith played “California, Dream On: Aerosmith & Friends” on Thursday, October 29, and Sunday, November 1, their first full concerts in about three years, and 78-year-old Steven Tyler was back out front in the scarves. Comedian Bill Burr, hosting the first night, set the tone with a line that sent a jolt through the crowd: “Welcome, everybody, to this amazing event! The final two shows in Aerosmith’s history!”
Tyler let that sit for a few days. Then, on Sunday night, he answered it from the stage, with the kind of line only Steven Tyler could get away with. To understand why it mattered so much to fans, you have to go back to the night his voice gave out.
Why Did Aerosmith Stop Touring?
On September 9, 2023, three shows into the band’s Peace Out farewell tour, Tyler injured his voice onstage at UBS Arena in Elmont, New York. Doctors later found he had fractured his larynx, and the band pushed every remaining date into 2024, as Pollstar and TheWrap reported. “I promise we will be back as soon as we can,” Tyler told fans at the time.
The comeback never came. On August 2, 2024, the band announced it was done with the road for good. “Sadly, it is clear, that a full recovery from his vocal injury is not possible,” the statement read, according to Rolling Stone and the Associated Press. “We have made a heartbreaking and difficult, but necessary, decision, as a band of brothers, to retire from the touring stage.” You can read our original story on Aerosmith’s retirement announcement here. Fans assumed that was the end of the Toxic Twins on a stage together. It wasn’t.
How Did Steven Tyler Get Back On Stage?
He started small. At his Jam for Janie Grammy viewing party at the Hollywood Palladium on February 2, 2025, Tyler sang about a half-dozen songs, including “Dream On” with Lainey Wilson, as Blabbermouth and People reported. Seven months later, at the MTV Video Music Awards on September 7, 2025, he returned to the very arena where his voice had failed, UBS Arena, and sang “Mama, I’m Coming Home” with Joe Perry and Yungblud in a tribute to Ozzy Osbourne.
That partnership kept going. Aerosmith and Yungblud released a five-song EP, One More Time, on November 21, 2025, the band’s first new music in more than 12 years, according to Capitol Records and Blabbermouth. By April 2026, Perry was hinting that the door was open. The band was “still kind of definitely not in touring mode, but there are certainly other options,” he told Billboard. “You just never know.” In October, the Hollywood Bowl shows were announced.
What Happened At Aerosmith’s Hollywood Bowl Shows?
The first night was a reunion in more ways than one. Dave Grohl played drums for the first five songs, and then original drummer Joey Kramer walked out for “Walk This Way,” his first show with the band since February 15, 2020, as Blabbermouth and Loudwire reported. Kramer had famously sued the band that year after being kept out of a Grammys performance. Johnny Depp joined on “The Train Kept A-Rollin’,” and Guns N’ Roses and Heart came out as guests.
For longtime fans, the sight that mattered most was the five men from Boston standing together again. Joe Perry, now 76, has had his own scares over the years, including an onstage collapse with the Hollywood Vampires in 2016 and a 2018 hospital stay after sitting in with Billy Joel, as CBS News and Ultimate Classic Rock reported. Tom Hamilton and Brad Whitford were right there beside him. When Tyler looked around at them on the first night, he thanked “Joe, Tom, Brad and Joey” by name for what he called quite a ride, according to Blabbermouth.
Sunday’s show had its own surprises, with Run-DMC joining Kramer and the band for “Walk This Way,” the song that put them together on MTV in 1986, according to Stereogum. Tyler, born March 26, 1948, was at the center of both nights. And before Sunday’s encore, he finally got around to Bill Burr.
Is Aerosmith Really Finished?
“So Bill Burr said these are our final shows, huh?” Tyler asked the crowd, as Ultimate Classic Rock and Consequence reported. “Doesn’t he know that you can’t get rid of Aerosmith? In fact, at the end of the world, there will only be cockroaches, Aerosmith and I guess, Bill Burr!” He used a stronger word than “world,” but the message was clear enough.
No new dates have been announced, and nobody in the band has talked about another tour. But the man whose doctors said a full recovery wasn’t possible just fronted two Hollywood Bowl concerts, and he didn’t sound like someone saying goodbye. “Before we say goodnight, I just want to say what a ride it has been with my brothers,” he told the crowd on Sunday. “55 years, you guys, 55 years.”
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