Opening Day Report by Tom Hamilton of Aerosmith

Aug 05, 1999 in "Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith"

Posted: Thursday August 5, 1999 by WDWMAGIC Staff
Sorry. I just woke up. Actually I've been home for a couple of weeks now and I'm finally adapting to civilian (i.e. off the road) life. As a matter of fact, I'm starting to really like it.

We're taking a break now, but it's kind of a calm before the storm break because pretty soon we're going to go into serious album mode. We've decided we're sick of taking 2 years at a time to make records. Everybody knows what we went through on the last two and we're determined not to repeat ourselves this time.

I've got a lot of catching up to do on Europe, but first I want to talk about something more recent. We went down to Disney World last Thursday for the grand opening of the Rock' n' Roller Coaster.

I want to make something really clear here - this is not the Mouseketeers. Mickey doesn't show his face anywhere on it. It ain't Small Small World. It's more like completely blown apart, upside down, 60 miles-per-hour-plus in the dark world. We got down to Disney World the night before and checked into one of the hotels at the park. There were a lot of kids there on vacation and they started spotting us in the lobby with confused expressions on their faces. Some of them probably thought we were part of the cast like the people that dress up as Minnie and Goofy, and sign autographs as you're walking around. Speaking of Goofy, someone down there with us said they were feeling Goofy when they first woke up. Hubba hubba. They really said that! I heard it.

We went over to the park at about ten o'clock the next morning. The ride is at MGM right across the street from Tower of Terror. Great neighborhood. We stayed there all day riding the ride, which was a blast, and doing interviews and stuff. It was so organized it was better than the military. That really helped because it was 95 degrees all day long. They whipped us in and out of the air conditioning like a turkey on the day after Thanksgiving. The vibe was amazing. People at the park were psyched! They screamed at us the whole time!

That night we did the Grand Opening. Or the Official Opening. Or the Imperial Starfish Mega-Grand Opening. Whatever. That's what it was. First they had an artist named Denny Dent come out and paint giant pictures of the band while our music blasted out. He did the whole thing in 20 minutes. I wish we could make a record that fast. When he was done, we came out and did the big hello with the crowd. They gave Joe a giant pick so he could strum a huge chord on the colossal guitar that makes up the sign for the ride. Then the place went insane with pyro. Disney knows pyro. For about 30 seconds it was like Apocalypse Now. The final bang was a missile blowing the doors off the ride. Get it? We were at an "opening" - it was way better than cutting a ribbon. We went inside while they blasted Walk This Way with a huge group of fans following us. It's so great to just walk onto a ride. No lines for us on this one! Yeah!! We blasted around the track a bunch of times with the fans. The whole day was a gas. I still can't believe it.

I forgot to mention that Slash was there, as was Jesse Camp. That guy's tall, and his hair is even taller.

T. H.

August 6

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