Richard Williams recently recalled how Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler tried sabotaging a live show while the two acts were sharing the bill on an appearance on AXS TV.
Competition between rock acts isn’t uncommon in the rock scene since most artists try to outdo one another and have the spotlight all over themselves. However, there were times these competitive rants pushed limits, and Steven trying his chances to sabotage a Kansas show was, perhaps, one of them.
So, Williams was disclosing how friendly they had been with Aerosmith over the years while recalling performing with the Boston-based band. Still, as friendly as they had been, he couldn’t help but also remember when they weren’t on good terms, sharing how Tyler almost ruined a Kansas show.
Well, Richard explained how they had come to learn that Steven had a reputation for unplugging opening acts if they were to upstage Aerosmith, so he and his bandmates decided to have a little game planned out for the frontman and placed dummy wires all over to stage; so that if Tyler tried sabotaging them, he wouldn’t be able to locate the hidden power source and unplug them.
Well, the opening show was a success as the audience loved Kansas, but as they’ve guessed, Steven wasn’t as pleased with how the show played out and came on stage to unplug all the amps. However, as Richard and his bandmates planned, he failed to do so by falling into their trap, and the night ended with the Kansas-based band confronting Tyler in what we might imagine, not a very friendly way.
Richard’s words on how Tyler did his best to sabotage them but failed:
“Aerosmith, we had done some shows together, and they were becoming popular at a little fast array but around, but at the same time we were playing together, and we got along great… [Starts recalling the incident] We’re playing in Kansas now, and this kind of our turf, and we were still first on the bill, and they were closing the show.
We have been told that their singer which is, nothing against him, it’s a funny story, but Steven Tyler, a tremendous rock vocalist, he had a problem sometimes with the bands going over a little too well, and we were told that sometimes he’ll come out and unplug the band.
So what we did was we ran dummy lines to where he could get to, and we ran our main power to another direction that was hidden. So he came out there to stop our show, and it didn’t work out, and I guess he got upset about it, and our bass player went after him, and it was a confrontation, and it wasn’t a good moment.”
I mean, it was a bit ‘low blow’ that Tyler used to unplug Aerosmith’s opening acts if the audience seem to love their performance, and Kansas was righteously angry when Steven tried sabotaging their show and confronted him. However, in the end, all was good, as they had made their peace for a longtime now.
