Brad Delp: 1951 – 2007

I can remember being a kid in the fourth or fifth grade, sitting next to my radio, listening to just about anything off of the first Boston record with all of those layered guitars and thinking… hmmm there may be something to this rock & roll shit.

I saw him live three times, all with Boston.  The first was in ’87 during their residency at the Worcester Centrum… nine consecutive nights and I think they were all sold out.  Next was at the Boston Garden at a benefit show.  I think the charity was the Aids Action Committee but I’m not sure.  It was in ’89 or ’90 I think.  They played “Television Politician” in the encore that night.  That song was never released, but I had a copy of it on a bootleg from ’77.  I like to think that I was the only person in the arena who knew it.  The last time I saw him was opening night of the ’03 tour at the Verizon in Manchester, NH.

I never saw RTZ or BeatleJuice.  I was planning to see BeatleJuice a couple of months ago but something came up to keep me away.  Now I’m seriously regretting it.  I never met him, but I think we had friends of friends of friends and that sort of thing.

The closest I can come to a personal Brad Delp story is one night when Larry the Engineer and I went to see my friend Jeff the Drummer’s band Cry Cyn open for Charlie Farren at a little dump in Billerica called Mr. Tips (which isn’t there anymore).  Shortly before Charlie went on stage, Brad walked in with not one but two stunningly gorgeous women.  The whole room hushed a little as they walked over to a table near the front of the stage.  It was like some one from the Royal Family had decided to pay us a surprise visit.  As the show went on, any time you looked around the room at least half of the eyes were on his table.  Everyone knew who he was, and everyone felt pretty cool to be hanging out at the same dumpy bar.  He was just like Royalty.  It’s not much of a story, but it’s the best I got.

Here’s an article from the Boston Globe, and another from the Lawrence Eagle Tribune.