A firecracker injured Aerosmith stars during a concert on this week in Philly history
The M-80 firecracker thrown during an Oct. 9, 1977, show at the Spectrum injured lead singer Steven Tyler and lead guitarist Joe Perry.
It’s always the throwers.
The minority of Philadelphians who inflict a majority of the damage to the city’s reputation are the throwers: from light-up wristbands and dollar hot dogs, to batteries and beer cans.
So many eggs were thrown at opposing NFL teams’ busses that the New Orleans Saints hung up a target. And we’ll never live down those snowballs.
And when Aerosmith played the Spectrum in the fall of 1977, it was firecrackers.
The band had a two-show run on Sunday, Oct. 9, and Monday, Oct. 10. It was part of their yearlong, 88-concert tour that mostly crisscrossed North America and promoted the band’s fifth studio album, “Draw the line.”
Throughout the Sunday show, a vocal minority of the 18,300 in attendance were firing off firecrackers so often that the audience was threatened with ejections over the public-address system.
But that didn’t slow the throwers.
As the performers returned to the stage for an encore, an overexcited attendee hurled an M-80 firecracker at the stage, and it reached the performers.
The explosive, which is typically more powerful than a cherry bomb, injured the two foundational members of the iconic rock n’ roll group.
Lead singer Steven Tyler suffered a burned cornea in his left eye, and lead guitarist Joe Perry injured his hand. They were both treated at St. Agnes Hospital and released.
It could have been a lot worse: The firecracker exploded “about a foot” from Tyler’s face, according to the band’s spokesperson.
The projectile didn’t inflict serious damage to the performers, but it definitely didn’t help the city’s reputation as a bunch of tasteless tossers. The thrower was never charged with a crime or publicly identified.
The band postponed the second show.
“For the guys,” group spokesperson Dan Beck told The Inquirer, “it’s like performing in a war zone.”
“It’s really a shame,” he added, “because the guys know it’s only a handful of kids who do that kind of nonsense.”
The band returned in December to make up the second show, and by all indications they played in front of a well-behaved audience.
So everyone moved on.
Right?
Fast-forward one year later. Aerosmith returned to the Spectrum with its Live! Bootleg tour, which ran 47 shows mostly in 1978, and drew an estimated 19,500 fans for their single Philly date.
About 40 minutes into the show, on Nov. 25, 1978, an attendee in the upper levels threw a glass bottle at the stage and it shattered. Pieces of glass popped up and cut Steven Tyler in the face, and the band cut the concert short.
“We love you,” Perry told the audience, according to XPN, before walking offstage, “but you can’t throw things at us.”