The Get a Grip Tour was a concert tour by American hard rock band Aerosmith that lasted over eighteen months, from early June 1993 to mid-December 1994. The tour was put on in support of the band's third consecutive multi-platinum album Get a Grip, released in April 1993.

Background

The Get a Grip Tour began June 2, 1993 in Topeka, Kansas and ended December 19, 1994 at the band's Mama Kin Music Hall in Boston, Massachusetts. It included approximately 240 shows, alongside special performances. To date, it is the second-longest tour in the band's history, eclipsed only by the Nine Lives Tour, which lasted for three years. However, it holds the record for the most shows performed by Aerosmith on a single tour. The band played multiple legs across North America, Europe, Japan, and Central and South America. The tour included their first performances in Central and South America, as well as European nations including Romania, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Turkey, Israel, Spain, Finland, Norway, the Czech Republic, and Austria. "Someone said, 'You've never been to South America,'" recalled Steven Tyler. "We said, 'This is the end of the tour – no more gigs.' But then they said $2 million… and you think, 'Okay, that's the worry taken out of Christmas.'" Interspersed among regular show dates were performances on television shows such as Saturday Night Live, Late Show with David Letterman, MTV's Most Wanted, the MTV Video Music Awards, the Grammy Awards, and the MTV Europe Music Awards. The band also played club shows, in Los Angeles, London – as a surprise – Sioux Falls, South Dakota after a concert there. At the Woodstock '94 festival in August 1994, the band closed the show on Saturday night, taking the stage at 1:15am to a crowd of 350,000. They were supposed to start at midnight, but a heavy downpour delayed the start time. Steven Tyler and Joey Kramer had attended the original Woodstock Festival in 1969. Opening acts on the tour included Megadeth, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Cry of Love, Jackyl, 4 Non Blondes, Soul Asylum, Therapy?, Collective Soul, Extreme, Brother Cane, Mr. Big, and Robert Plant in Argentina. Megadeth opened the first shows in June, but was fired on July 17, after the band overheard Dave Mustaine talking poorly of Aerosmith in a radio interview: "We think we oughta be headlining, but we don't mind because everyone knows this is Aerosmith's last hurrah." Steven Tyler replied, "Dave, we'd like to help you out. Which way did you come in?" And it turned out to not be "Aerosmith's last hurrah": Aerosmith went on to stage fourteen successful tours, release five top five albums, chart five singles to the Billboard Hot 100 (including a #1 hit), and chart sixteen singles to the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart over the next 20 years. By the end of the tour, Get a Grip had sold twelve million records worldwide, including six million in the United States alone (eventually seven million), charted four Top 40 hits, and won the band two Grammys, four MTV Video Music Awards, two People's Choice Awards, two American Music Awards, and a Billboard Music Award. The Geffen compilation Big Ones was released in November 1994. Its new songs "Blind Man" and "Walk on Water" were included in the setlist for the final days of the tour. Those two tracks were recorded at a hotel on the island of Capri in July 1994, after the band's summer dates in Europe. During the show in Costa Rica on November 10, 1994, a fan was killed when the gates of the stadium were opened. The band had no idea this had happened and played the show. After learning of the death, they sent condolences through local networks for family and friends of the victim. The tour closed at the band's recently opened Mama Kin Music Hall in Boston on December 19, 1994. Heavy on 1970s classics, the show was broadcast on radio across North America.

Set list

Tour dates

Citations

Sources