“We got on the stage and I just remember watching people walk away before we even started playing”: Brad Whitford and Joe Perry on the time Aerosmith were upstaged by their support act

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Joe Perry and Brad Whitford have recalled the time when Rory Gallagher served as a support for Aerosmith during a festival in the 1970s – and ended up proving such a hit with fans that he stole the band's thunder.

The two Aerosmith icons sat down with Rick Beato for a career-sprawling interview, and a particularly memorable show starring the late Irish guitar hero cropped up during the conversation.

“I don't wanna hear about that,” Perry quips as Whitford begins to spin the tale, which took place when Aerosmith was set to headline the Schaefer Music Festival in 1974 in Central Park.

“It was before we were accepted in New York at all. Rory Gallagher probably had one of the most stunning shows of his entire career,” Whitford recalls. Perry puts it more bluntly: “He kicked our ass. We headlined. He went on first, and he kicked our ass.”

“He went off stage, they made him come out for an encore,” Whitford continues. “He did this encore. Went off. They made him come out again. Another encore. They wouldn't stop. He came out for three encores. Oh my god.

“And then we got on the stage, and I just remember watching people walk away before we even started playing.”

In the Room with Aerosmith's Joe Perry & Brad Whitford - YouTube

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That sinking feeling must have been horrific. The band were on the upswing at that point. Their third album, Toys in the Attic, had saved the band from getting axed by their label and reversed the fortunes of their career. But Gallagher was an unstoppable force that day.

“It was like the show's over, and who are these guys? They didn't care,” Whitford adds. “I swear, it had to be one of his best concerts.”

That Gallagher made such an impression shouldn't come as a surprise. The late Irish guitar great is widely considered to be one of the most influential blues-rock guitar players of all time and a true guitar one-off who inspired the likes of Brian May and Jimi Hendrix.

In fact, it's oft-reported that Hendrix was once asked how it felt to be the greatest guitar player in the world, to which supposedly responded: “I don’t know, you’ll have to ask Rory Gallagher.”

Gallagher was revered for his distinct blues-rock style and famed for his heavily relic'd 1961 Stratocaster – believed to be the first to reach Irish soil – which sold at auction for almost $1,000,000 last year.