Has Age Slowed Down Aerosmith? Dream On

Aerosmith never got much respect in the early days. Too much like the Rolling Stones, all big riffs and fat lips, critics repeated again and again. Time has proven differently, and Aerosmith now stands as a crucial hard-rock resource nearly three decades on.

Not even the Stones have managed to remain genuine hit makers this many years later. But at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater on Monday, Aerosmith showed just how far its impossible winning streak has gone, drawing young listeners (and their parents) with new material and classic rockers.

At center stage was singer Steven Tyler, still a frantic, vital frontman, his elastic rasp endlessly playful and suggestive. Standing beside him was Joe Perry, who was described by the singer as “the Hannibal of rock guitar who will slice your brain into little tiny pieces!” Both played the role of flamboyant rock stars without shame or hesitation.

“I know you love the old [stuff], right?” declared Tyler after the ancient blues raunch of “Big Ten-Inch Record,” which somehow mingled easily with the modern pop of “Cryin”’ and “Love in an Elevator.” If anything, it was the earliest material that has aged the least, with “Mama Kin” drawing on the band’s core boogie-rock energy.

If the ‘80s were mostly a disaster for Aerosmith, lost in a fog of substance abuse and unfocused music, the Boston quintet at least remained intact long enough to find new inspiration with a slicker, more pop-oriented sound with 1989’s “Pump” album.

Which means Aerosmith is not the same band it was in the ‘70s, though the new “Just Push Play” album again taps the raw force of guitarists Perry and Brad Whitford. Both eras, old and new, were successfully blended into a fast-moving whole during Monday’s two-hour concert. Things slowed down only during the occasional power ballad, such as 1998’s sleepy, weepy “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing.”

More in character were the opening moments of “Dream On,” which were unusually ragged for this polished concert but only added to its charm. Or the final passages of “Train Kept a Rollin’,” performed so intensely that it could easily have come undone, ending with Perry alone in the spotlight, bathed under feedback and Aerosmith’s ageless decadence and noise.

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Aerosmith, with Fuel, plays Friday at Glen Helen Blockbuster Pavilion, 2575 Glen Helen Parkway, Devore, 8 p.m. $30 to $85. (909) 886-8742.