Tyler takes a tumble

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STURGIS, S.D. (AP) — Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler suffered head, neck and shoulder injuries in a tumble from the stage at a South Dakota show, a concert spokesman said Thursday, and the audience thought it was part of his hipshaking act until he didn’t get up.

Tyler, 61, fell while entertaining the crowd by dancing around as the sound crew replaced a fuse that blew during the song “Love in an Elevator,” said Mike Sanborn, spokesman for the Buffalo Chip Campground, which hosted the Wednesday night concert.

An amateur video showed him spinning around before falling off the stage.

A concertgoer said Tyler’s head was bleeding and he was holding his shoulder after the fall, but it wasn’t immediately clear how seriously he was hurt. The frontman was airlifted to Rapid City Regional Hospital, Sanborn said, the only major hospital in western South Dakota. A hospital spokeswoman would not confirm whether Tyler was there, and a representative for Aerosmith’s publicity firm said the company was gathering information about the accident.

The band’s next concert, which was scheduled for Friday in Winnipeg, Manitoba, was postponed. On June 28, Tyler hurt his leg at a concert in Uncasville, Conn. and the band had to postpone seven shows in July.

Tyler, whose performances often include swaying and grinding on microphone stands adorned with scarves, was dancing on a catwalk Wednesday night that was connected to the main stage.

“He does a lot of dancing on the stage and he does a lot of stuff with his mic stand. He put his stand down and twirled around and stepped backwards off the stage,” Sanborn said.

Many in the crowd were surprised and thought it was part of the act, said Jessica Kokesh, a University of South Dakota journalism student who covered the concert for the Rapid City Journal.

“We thought maybe he stage-dived into the crowd, but he didn’t get back up,” Kokesh said. “I thought he was falling back to crowd surf.”

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