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By Doug Elfman
Las Vegas Review-Journal
A woman went to a meet-and-greet for the band Boston recently and she told the group, "This is show No. 114 for me." Boston guitarist Gary Pihl thought, "Wow, that's more shows than my wife's been to."
Pihl said 114 Boston concerts is "more shows than some of the guys in the band have been to, because some of the guys are new.'"
That's just the way it is with Boston fanatics. Many will come to Vegas just to see Boston/Cheap Trick rock Saturday at the Hard Rock Hotel. (Their hits: "More Than a Feeling," "Rock and Roll Band," "Smokin'," "Amanda," "Peace of Mind," "Foreplay/Long Time" and "Don't Look Back.")
Boston has hung with some fans so often, the musicians know them by name.
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By Scott Mervis
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The second Boston album, "Don't Look Back," followed two years behind the breakout 1976 debut.
Since then, things have been a little less on schedule. The band, led by legendary guitarist and tinkerer Tom Scholz, adopted more of an eight-year cycle, and the recent album, last year's "Life, Love & Hope," arrived after an 11-year gap.
This one was more painstaking than most, following the suicide of original singer Brad Delp in March 2007, which obviously threw the band's future into doubt. It regrouped the following spring, though, hitting the road with shared vocals by Michael Sweet of Stryper and newcomer Tommy DeCarlo, a Home Depot employee discovered via YouTube. The latter, a vocal ringer for Delp, has developed well beyond Mr. Scholz's expectations, and he has taken the reins of the veteran group on recent tours.
It's vocal by committee on "Life, Love & Hope" with Delp's earlier recording, and Mr. DeCarlo, Kimberley Dahme, David Victor and even Mr. Scholz, for the first time, contributing. What stands out, however, more than any vocal disparity is a sound that time-warps back to the '70s with the same ramped-up guitar sound and processed effects.
Boston now returns with a slightly tweaked lineup, according to Mr. Scholz, who talked with us recently.
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By Brian Aberback
northjersey.com
WHO: Boston and Cheap Trick.
WHAT: Rock.
IN TOWN: 7 p.m. Sunday, PNC Bank Arts Center, Garden State Parkway, exit 116, Holmdel; 732-203-2500 or livenation.com. $25.50 to $81.50.
ALSO PERFORMING: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nikon at Jones Beach Theater, Wantagh, N.Y.; 516-221-1000 or livenation.com. $37.50 to $82.50.
MORE INFO: bandboston.com.
Boston vocalist Tommy DeCarlo has sung the band's hits for the past seven years. Now, fans have the chance to hear the energetic singer perform new material. "I love singing the classics, but to sing on something new is very special," DeCarlo said by phone. "It's an amazing experience being part of a Boston record."
Boston's first album with DeCarlo, "Life, Love & Hope," was issued in December. The band performs on Sunday in Holmdel and Tuesday at Jones Beach.
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By Ed Condran
Asbury Park Press
It isn't easy for a band to move forward after its vocalist dies. But Boston, which lost singer Brad Delp in 2007, has forged ahead.
After Delp's shocking suicide, guitarist-songwriter Tom Scholz has found the resolve to keep the long-running, but slow-moving, band alive.
Scholz is perhaps the most meticulous tunesmith in rock. The brainy electronics geek pays attention to every detail and works on each nuance while making a song. As a result, Boston released just three albums after 1978's "Don't Look Back" up until Delp took his life.
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By Jude Gold
Guitar Player
If you've been exposed to any amount of rock radio over the years, you've probably heard Boston's "Hitch a Ride" dozens, if not hundreds, of times. But did you ever notice that the Hammond organ on that song does something impossible? The last note of its solo clearly bends up a whole-step--but there is no pitch-bend on a Hammond.
To see how Boston founder Tom Scholz pulled off this bit of sonic subterfuge, let's time travel back a few decades and step into the tiny recording studio he had beneath his Watertown, Massachusetts, apartment in the mid-'70s--the cramped basement where the guitarist, fresh out of MIT and working as an engineer for Polaroid, tracked every part (except for vocals and hand claps) on Boston's multi-platinum eponymous 1976 debut.