Steven Tyler’s rendition of the National Anthem before Sunday’s Patriots-Ravens game has probably reached Bombay or Mumbai by now, where it’s ricocheting through an alley and scaring the cows.
But both fans and critics should know this was not the rocker’s first encounter with the song. Truth is, he’s such a serial National Anthem singer that if he does it a few more times, he’ll have to include it on Aerosmith’s next “greatest hits” package.
Not surprisingly, he has sung it most often in Boston, where he and Aerosmith are beloved the way his fellow “American Idol” judge Jennifer Lopez is embraced in the Bronx.
Except Tyler actually does return to Boston.
When he sang “The Star Spangled Banner” at a Boston Bruins game on Oct. 21, 2010, he sounded almost exactly the way he sounded Sunday.
That is, when he got to “the rocket’s red glare” or “banner yet wave,” his voice sounded as if it had been routed through an electric blender set to “puree.”
Forty years of singing hard rock will do that to vocal chords. In the rock game, it’s called “character.”
Interestingly, though, his voice sounded a lot less raw just six years earlier when he sang the Anthem before a 2004 World Series game at Fenway Park.
It isn’t completely smooth, but he gets a lot closer to treating the high parts as musical notes rather than primal screams.
He also sounded more musical when he sang it before the 2001 Indianapolis 500, which he may not realize is not held in Boston.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psi2930wuVo
At Indy, as he does elsewhere, he blew harmonica notes to get his key before he started the song. This time, however, he played half a song on the harmonica.
He also paused briefly during the song for applause moments, then took a longer pause before the last word: “… home of the ….”
Then, instead of “brave,” he sang, “Indianapolis 500.”
No one has ever accused him of not having flair.
Let’s hope, however, this does not foreshadow a National Anthem night on this year’s “Idol.”
NY Daily News