After Aerosmith moved to Geffen Records, their previous label, Columbia, still wanted to trade in on their back catalog. The immediate result was two live albums released a year apart, one lackluster (recorded in the time Joe Perry was not with the band) and one fairly definitive (recorded just after he rejoined.)
Each is only 8 tracks long. There are only a couple of songs on either album that aren't on Live! Bootleg: "Kings and Queens," a version of "Three Mile Smile" mashed up with "Reefer Headed Woman" from Night in the Ruts (which roars a bit more live.) The most notable inclusion, however, was a studio cut called "Major Barbra," which was left off one of the early albums. I initially thought it was the self-titled debut, but it's got a bit more lush production so it was probably Get Your Wings. It has a loud, ringing, Southern rock feel with glorious slide riff and anthemic ballad chorus. It would've been a very progressive tune for those times, but they were already recording better songs (eg "Seasons of Wither.") Still, it remains a hidden gem. The rest of the album is skippable, but oddly enough, "Kings and Queens" (which I harped about being too ornate for the gritty Draw the Line) sounds great in a live setting. Still, there is absolutely no polish on these records and here it shows.
Classics Live II is actually the live Aerosmith album of choice. Like its predecessor, it's lean at 8 tracks in under 40 minutes but all the duplicates from Live Bootleg are improvements, the performances are energetic and fun and it has a cohesive atmosphere (whereas CL1 was various concerts between 1978 and 1984, CL2 was two specific concerts from 1984.) Among the "new" material is a definitive, bombastic version of the early cut "Movin' Out," a take on "Same Old Song and Dance" that is all fireworks, and a version of the Done With Mirrors single "Let The Music Do The Talking" that is better than the studio one. Conceptually, the album hangs together because it spans from the earliest song to the most recent without ever revealing a crack of daylight between them.
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