Brad Delp, lead singer for rock band Boston, died today.
Boston has only released five original albums in its 31-year history -- Don't Look Back, Third Stage, Walk On, Corporate America, and the first, the classic (iconic even), eponymous Boston. That first album hit like a thunderstorm in 1976 -- it was pure rock 'n roll, sweet guitars and cosmic sounds, and I was on the very cusp of my teenage years when such things were, and still are, so influential. And Delp's vocals were so fluid, integrated with the music, even integral to it. Yeah, Boston was always Tom Scholz' playground, but Delp's voice brought it to life and made it worth listening to.
I saw Boston live twice, in 1976 at the New Haven Coliseum and in 2004 at the Frank Erwin Center here in Austin. Both shows blew me away, and despite the 28-year interval and the evolution of Scholz's music and available tools and instruments, I couldn't tell the difference in how I felt after each show, other than being older, probably better able to appreciate the performance, and hoping the daughter was asleep when we got home following the 2004 concert.
The Coliseum came down in January after being closed for years -- and it's not sorely missed, because it was a dump from the day it opened. But I saw Boston play there (and probably inhaled my first marijuana smoke that night -- not mine, I was but twelve, but there was plenty being lit up), and that will always be a fond memory. Delp, Scholz, and the band were but dots down on stage, but damn, I saw Boston play, and even if it was very early in its career, it was probably the band at its peak; they've hardly come down since, and that was, to me, a great show.
Scholz works at a glacial pace, but maybe he's got a few tracks still unreleased that, some decade, he'll grace and surprise us with, some last legacy of Brad Delp's voice -- not great by itself, but so wonderful within the Boston sound. Well, we can but hope, and it'd be a topic for another time anyway.
I'm gonna pull out a Boston CD and play it. Why not do the same? Or find some clips on YouTube. Go forth and enjoy the delightful works Brad Delp left behind.
Thank you, Brad. Sorry you had to go.
(All potential Boston lyric-related puns deliberately avoided, I hope.)
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It is said the memory is one of the first things to go as we age. I guess that's true for me, a little bit. The Boston show I saw was in 1978 -- November 8 to be exact (consider how dedicated a following a band must have that someone keeps records of tour dates). Nonetheless, it was a powerhouse show, I loved it, and everything else holds true.
Except the bit about my first whiff of grass. I saw ELO at the Coliseum two months earlier, and folks were blazing up at that show as well. Supercool green lasers (cutting edge stuff back then); story for another time.
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