Update: Joe Perry is ‘alert and responsive’ at the hospital.
Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry performed “Walk This Way” with Billy Joel on stage in New York at Madison Square Garden last night, and TMZ are reporting that after the show Perry collapsed backstage in his dressing room. A source connected with the concert tells TMZ, Joe collapsed and “looked terrible.”
Paramedics rushed to the scene and worked on the rock icon for around 40 minutes in his dressing room. We’re told they put a tracheal tube down his throat to clear the air path. There was panic in the dressing room, and one eyewitness says “Joe did not look good.” Paramedics put the famed Aerosmith guitarist on a stretcher, gave him oxygen and rushed him to a hospital. Watch video of Joe performing right before his backstage collapse below. You can also see a photo of him backstage, which was possibly the last photo of him taken in the area prior to the health scare.
Perry also had a health scare in 2016, as he was rushed to the hospital during a Hollywood Vampires show in Coney Island. Hollywood Vampires were performing a cover of Spirit’s “I Got A Line On You,” the second song of the set, and Perry’s energy level noticeably dissipates at the song begins, with the rock legend becoming unable to play by a minute in.
The first video is the full performance of the song, with the angle on Perry shifting from him just before he leaves the stage, and shows his bandmates carry on and finish the performance. The second video is a new angle of Perry actually leaving the stage. Hollywood Vampires carried on and played a complete concert.
There was chaos once Perry exited the stage, as he collapsed backstage. A Vampires crew member backstage had a pocket mask and immediately started CPR to revive him.
The iconic guitarist was playing alongside actor Johnny Depp, Alice Cooper, Robert DeLeo (Stone Temple Pilots), and Matt Sorum (Guns N’ Roses, Velvet Revolver) with the Hollywood Vampires, when he apparently went into cardiac arrest around 9:30PM, Page Six reports.
Videos posted to social media showed Perry shredding on his guitar before he suddenly walks over towards a speaker and stumbles off-stage. Sources said he lost consciousness and police on the scene revived him.
“He had to sit on drum kit and then went behind a small wall and passed out,” a concertgoer wrote on Instagram, adding that “FDNY and NYPD carried him off quickly.” Hollywood Vampires continued to play, and Perry was taken to Coney Island hospital. Perry is in stable condition and currently surrounded by his family.
