Just a Band Out of Boston

Had no idea Boston was still around and thought they were all dead or retired.  Aside from the guitarist, is there any original members?

Of all the "arena rock" bands, Boston was the most tolerable and had some good tunes.   I think "More Than a Feeling" has the longest sustained guitar note in the history of rock.

First album...(only one ya need, lol) was all Tom Sholz concept and music written by him etc

They just lost original drummer within last two years..he had a heart attack (i think) while playing drums on stage w a band on a cruise ship...

As long as TS is in band...id go see them

Joan Jett rocks, she has always put on great shows of heart and soul guitar rock

>Boston's sound system and light/laser show was as good as it gets.<

better than Tool?

Scholz WAS Boston- he recorded , produced, wrote, played all instruments except drums on the first album.

There was a singer.

"I think "More Than a Feeling" has the longest sustained guitar note in the history of rock."

That's because of the "Rockman" outboard device that he invented and marketed under Scholz Research & Development, Inc. (SR&D).  Guy knows his electronics.

I only saw Boston twice, both on their first nationwide tour. The first time they were great. That show was a contractual show at The Capitol Theater in Passaic, NJ that John Scher forced them to honor their contract with him. They blew up before the tour started and most of the small shows they were booked for, many of them as the support act, were moved to full sized arenas. The second show, at Madison Square Garden, was lackluster at best. They weren't ready for that sized venus.

As an aside, I went down to the Capitol without a ticket to try to see the band and review the show for my high school newspaper. I got there early with my friend and looked and looked for a ticket but the only ones being sold were upwards of $300. It may have been the hottest show in the US at that time because they were selling out arenas already. After a few hours of trying, I gave up and was walking back to my car. A guy came out of the bar around the corner and I gave one last, "Do you have any extras?" He looked at me and my friend and said, "I guess the bitch stood me up. You can have my tickets." I asked him how much, he looked at the ticket and said the face value. It didn't matter where the tickets were, face was golden that night. I gave him the money, told him to keep the change and we took off to the front doors. We went inside and kept being ushered all the way down the orchestra aisle to our 4th row center tickets!!!

A memorable situation, for sure.

That story warms my heart every time I tell it. What I left out was one of the other reasons I didn't check out where the tickets were located was we were surrounded by street scalpers the second I started pulling out my wallet. I figured if I even paused, someone would offer more money so they could resell them. There was easily 100 people milling about trying to score tickets that night and very few sellers.

p.s. Joan Jett always delivers the goods.

^

When I watched Vinyl, my first thought was about how close to my rock and roll reality it tracked. Although the series wasn't that good overall, the writers did capture that lower East side energy well.  I hear ya on how the Capitol story could have fit right in.

Was hoping for a Modern Lovers, J. Geils Band, Ultimate Spinach, Mission Of Burma, Blake Babies or a Pixies thread.

Glad you enjoyed the show, but calling them the best "Arena Rock" (a pretty nebulous term)  band is ridiculous.  In their own town, Aerosmith wipes the floor with Scholz & Co. (Fake Boston?).  I'd certainly rate the original Van Halen, ZZ Top and Blue Oyster Cult above Boston's original incarnation.  Hell the early "Riding The Storm Out" REO Speedwagon put on a better show.  I'd probably have gone to see them before Styx, Journey or Foreigner, but #1?  Zoner, please.

This thread topic makes me miss James The Highway Terror, who would have no doubt regaled us with tales of nitrous and acid- fueled abandon from the arenas of Mid-America.

Fake PJ^

grandfather.rock

Plus

Third Stage -- To Be A Man - Searing Guitar !

Don't Look Back - Feelin Satisfied

Boston

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHU7EdyAYrg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZxP3bMn0as

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gmc_t7m2pC4

Boston

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CylP-jwVA68

________

 .

boston, journey, reo speedwagon, foreigner, elo are all the same shitty band.

javaless dave needs to change his strain yet again.

and I agree with Turtle

All except ELO, who at least recorddd a great show to present to us, and then mixed  w an amazing light show (for its time etc)

In catagory w " bands id never miss (original lineups or close) , if playing within a stones throw of home, and tix were dirt cheap." 

Prices just never seemed to be an issue "back in the day" , it was always just "go to the show"...

Unless, of course it was Journey....then we just went to the woods, and got a keg for same price

FWIW: John Lennon liked ELO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOBm8hcvWDw

The guy that liked Yoko?

Yeah. The guy that was in the Beatles. Is there another John Lennon I'm not aware of?

Who are the Beatless? 

They did the soundtrack for that hippie cartoon about the submarine. 

Lego made a yellow submarine. 

Keep asking questions, slack, its the only way to learn

Of all the "arena rock" bands, Boston was the most tolerable<<<<

Y'all are the one who need to get off the pipe.  In a week, it'll be a year for me.  

Anyone with a decent grasp of the language can identify that statement as an absolute statement. It's pretty clear what Ken was saying, and equally clear that he, Bluelight and ATGD are dead wrong.

Boston was the first rock concert I ever saw, at the Cow Palace in early '77 when they were on their second go-round promoting their amazing first album, with Nils Lofgren & Starcastle opening.

I have a very cool story about that show which I'll share in a minute. That story along with the entire evening was quite a memorable experience for me so I've always had a place in my heart for Boston, even when they never recorded anything decent again, so when I had the chance last month to wander in and see the second half of Boston's show at Shoreline I went for it, expecting virtually nothing.

I thought they sounded good & strong, a good live version of who they were, but unfortunately they were just finishing up a long run of their best songs when I walked in, and right about then they went into a long, jammy solo bit that began to remind me of Spinal Tap's Jazz Odyssey. It was endless, boring and seemed to be a time-filler to stretch out their set and it killed any good vibes I had, but I was comfortable in the lower bowl with an icy cold beverage so I stuck around and when they finally played a few more of their good ones to close it out they sounded very solid. 

It's easy to bag on bands of that era, especially those that still tour now, but for the most part it's shallow bagging. There was a lot more to all those bands "back in the day", and it's harmless fun to see music you grew up with played live now, as long as it's played decently.

My Boston story from the Cow Palace in '77 happened because at that time my friends and I were all crazy Yes heads and three of us went to that Boston show mainly to see Starcastle, who were a young wanna'be Yes type band from the Boston area with one album out that we all liked.

In those days hanging homemade banners made from bed sheets and such were all the rage at concerts, so we made a real good one for Starcastle that was a solid image of their album cover. We hung ours amid dozens of Boston banners and settled back to enjoy the show, when about an hour before it was to start this scruffy looking dude with a camera wandered up to us and asked if we had made that Starcastle banner.

He told us that the guys in that band had seen it and were really excited to see that they had some fans on the west coast. He then began casually asking about us, where we lived, where we went to school and such, but I kept asking him how he knew the band was happy about our banner.

He skirted it a bit but then said, "Well, I'm the singer in the band". "Which band"? "Oh, Boston, my name's Brad."

He was the coolest guy in the world and hung out with us for about ten minutes talking about how great it was to be touring and how much they loved playing Winterland a few months earlier. And since he looked just like every other young stoner type in the building no one recognized him. Because we were not big fans of Boston and didn't know what their singer looked like we began wondering if he was full of shit after he left, but a few minutes later another guy came up and gave us a bunch of Starcastle & Boston swag; stickers, shirts and some other junk.

After that I was always a big fan of Brad Delp's, and I was very sad when I heard he had taken himself out. All the reports about him when that happened made him sound just like the humble, super nice guy he was with us dumb teens back in '77.

As for the show, Boston rocked that old dump down that night, especially to a 16 year old newbie like me, and I still have strong images of the raging, partying, puking and fighting that were happening all around me that night.

I had never seen or heard anything like it before, and I clearly remember being somewhat shocked at how comfortable I felt right away in that crazed environment, and how much I loved it all. I knew that night that I was home, and that I was going to keep going to these things called rock concerts.

That was 40 years and somewhere north of three thousand rock concerts ago for me, and I still feel the same way today.

Long live rock 'n roll!

Saw Starcastle open for Elo in Hartford Civic Center, in 1980 or so. Their debut album hit was a song called Lady of the Lake, and all my friends and I had the album. I loved to play it for ppl who would automatically guess that it was Yes.

They put on a fun show that night.

  On a side night...for xmas 77, or was it 76 .i rcvd Boston 's first album 3x......i was a big fan...;)

Saw BOC a couple of times in small setty

man they were fun

We saw Joan Jett open up for The Two at Forest Hills Stadium in May of 2015.

She kicked ass.

Great stories in this thread!   I haven't seen Boston, Joan Jett or Blue Oyster Cult;  but I love them all!

>> I had never seen or heard anything like it before, and I clearly remember being somewhat shocked at how comfortable I felt right away in that crazed environment, and how much I loved it all. I knew that night that I was home, and that I was going to keep going to these things called rock concerts. <<

oh verbose one, you FINALLY nailed it!  Kudos and a moist eye (by the way that shoreline show way surpassed my non expectations, you should have gotten there earlier)

Long Live Rock n Roll - Chuck >> all of it >> Dead >> on to the future

I'd argue that Trey holds that note in YEM longer than the Boston note.

>>>oh verbose one<<<

I can't deny that label, but "a long story short" is rarely the best way to tell a story.

>>>you FINALLY nailed it<<<

FINALLY? After all these years and words posted, FINALLY???

Better late than never I suppose.

Oh, and Bluelight, I have no problem with you sharing my VERBOSE story with whoever you want.

Let 'er rip.