The Musical Summer Continues

Sunday Jen and Larry and I went to the venue formerly known as Harborights to see Come Together: A Tribute to the Life of Brad Delp. I think I could write 100 pages on the show but I’m going to keep it short.

The doors opened late… at the announced show time we were still outside with the gates closed. Ernie and the Automatics took the stage before they had even let people to their seats. The band included ex-Boston members Barry Goudreau and Sib Hashian, as well as Ernie Boch, Jr… the guy from the car dealerships… that Ernie Boch. They were pretty forgettable, but they were only on-stage for two songs.

Beatlejuice was next and without Brad Delp they were pretty weak. They used a slew of guest singers and a couple of them were downright horrible. Fortunately each was better than the one before so they at least finished strong.

Farrenheight was next. I sort of dug them 20 years ago, and Charlie Farren is still a great singer… but damn did they make me feel old. They weren’t bad.

Next was Godsmack. I have to give them credit for understanding that they were totally out of place on the bill. They went acoustic for their set. That was a good thing. Unfortunately I have to take all the credit away for their decision to do a drum solo. (duet actually) It was pretty lame.

Extreme sucked. Oh my god did they suck. I mean they absolutely fucking sucked. I was embarrassed for them, they sucked so bad.

RTZ made a good go of it but, as with Beatlejuice, without Brad Delp they seemed kinda lost. I was glad to see that Barry Goudreau can still play. He was impressive. They had another band member sing and he did a good job. Still… they sort of sounded like Boston-light. Not bad, but not terribly great either.

This brings us to Boston. The band that made Brad Delp famous. It was basically the line up that toured last time around (2003 was it?) minus Delp and the Cosmos with the addition of… it pains me to say this… it was really awful… >sigh< Michael Sweet… the clown from that 80s Christian hair-band Stryper. It was, for all intents and purposes, a Boston cover band that just happened to include the guy who wrote all of their songs and played lead guitar. Tom Scholz can still get it done. He's still a hell of a guitar player.

There were a number of guest singers to go along with the hack from Stryper. Charlie Farren did one song and couldn’t hit the high notes and forgot some of the words… he’s still a hell of a singer though. For my money the best of the singers was Kim Dahme. She joined Boston as the bass player on the last tour. Had I been in charge I would have let her sing everything. I think the end results would have been better.

The cool part was the last song, “Don’t Look Back” which had almost everyone who had ever been in the band up on stage together. Sib Hashian was noticable in his absence, but Fran Sheehan and Barry Goudreau from the first two records were both up there.

Now I’d like to speak directly to Tom Scholz. Tom… dude… please, I beg you… put Boston to rest. Hang it up. Don’t go on without Brad. It’s not worth it. Don’t further soil the legacy of a great band. I’m not saying you should retire. You are 60 years old now and the time to retire is coming, but please don’t try to make another Boston record, and please don’t put together another tour. There are other outlets for your considerable talents. If I were you I’d focus on making records for Fran Cosmo’s kid… I can’t remember his name. You thought enough of his work to put some of his songs on the last Boston record, why not give that a shot. You could do the same with Kim Dahme. Her songs were strong enough to play on the last tour, why not produce and engineer an album for her? Just please… please… don’t try to resurrect Boston. Without Brad it just isn’t worth it.

So despite the fact that some of the bands were less than impressive, it was a very positive event. All of those people together to remember the life of Brad Delp. There were plenty of drunken asshole morons in the audience to entertain us, and Jennifer Delp’s short film about her father was great. I’m very glad we went, even if Boston did sound like a cover band and Extreme fucking sucked.