For this one, I think you need to click the little button below and let the music play.
Lots of memories related to Brad Delp, Tom Scholz, and Boston.
Standing behind the stage at the old Charlotte Coliseum during Boston's Don't Look Back tour. The huge pipe organ on stage, and Tom Scholz hovering over it like some kind of Phantom of the opera. That was my first rock concert, and a good start it was.
As a high school kid cruising around Charlotte, cassette on repeat, with all of those layered guitars pouring forth from the speakers, out into the night. In those days Charlotte's Eastland Mall was a cool place to go. As a matter of fact it was THE place to go. Today it's a dying mall, doomed for demolition, and it attracts only the wrong kind of crowd.
Date night on Saturday, queing up just the right song on the "Boston" album, hoping my ever-so-cute companion, M would get the hint. I'm sure she did, but she was much smarter than that.
Kids still drive around with music blasting out the windows, but "thump, thump, thump" just doesn't carry the same weight as the amazing layered guitars of Tom Scholz, and the voice of Brad Delp.
I was talking to one of my friends from work the other day. He lamented the fact that there was no such thing as a guitar solo anymore. I think it's worse than that. I think popular music today lacks musicians. It takes a lot of talent to write a great solo, and I'll argue that creating a solo is much harder than stringing a bunch of rhymes together, but what do I know?
Boston died with Brad Delp, just as the Ramones died with Joey Ramone. No one can deny the musical genius of Tom Scholz, but it was the voice of Brad Delp that brought the music home.
I think I'll queue up that old worn vinyl ...
"I looked out this morning and the sun was gone Turned on some music to start my day I lost myself in a familiar song I closed my eyes and I slipped away"
More Than a Feeling - Brad Delp and Boston
'til guitars are once again an important part of music
