TODAY IN ROCK AND ROLL HISTORY - 10/10/1978

Singer Steven Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry of Aerosmith are injured at a Philadelphia concert after a firecracker is thrown on stage. From then on, the group performs from behind a cyclone fence.

"We were going back up on the stage to do the encore," guitarist Brad Whitford later told Goldmine. "I was going up the stairs right behind [singer] Steven [Tyler] and [guitarist] Joe [Perry], and I felt the concussion of the cherry bomb going off. Steven immediately covered his face and there was blood shooting up out of Joe’s arm, literally. So pretty quickly we got ourselves to the emergency room."

The incident reportedly burned Tyler's cornea, ruptured an artery in Perry's hand and forced the band off the road for a while. Understandably angry, Aerosmith declined offers for a return to the City of Brotherly Love for a while. "I have to say we were shaken by it and extremely pissed off," Whitford added. "We had a few offers to come back and we passed on it."

Eventually, of course, Aerosmith did return to the scene of the crime. But Tyler was once again injured onstage at a Philadelphia show.

"Five songs into a sold-out show, someone threw a beer bottle from the balcony," Whitford recalled in Aerosmith's Walk This Way autobiography. "It hit the stage dead center, right in front of the monitor, and exploded – sending shards of glass into Steven's face. I think some glass went right through his mouth. That's it. Backstage, Steven's holding a towel to his bloody face, and he wants to go back on! The vote was four-to-one against, and we were in the limos two minutes later. Fuck this."