Was BOSTON always a fraud?

[GAR]

For some dumb reason, I thought I'd look up live concert footage "in this Youtube age" of a few old acts you never got to see on TV.. so I look up Boston.

WTF was up with Boston? Arent they the fraud, or what?

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Did they ever, ever really tour?
Were they once a concert contender OR DID TOM SCHOLTZ just pull a fuckin' multitrack boner - Boston has sold millions of records, but lunike that other multitracking genius ELO's Jeff Lynne Boston's Tom Scholtz never got caught masterminding a lip-synching scam.

There's very little footage of Boston. Why? How come.. there's very little footage of Randy Rhodes also, but we know he existed and he could pull off live very well what he did in the studio.

I ask you good people: check this clip and tell me, where's the audience?

Is this just a live rehearsal, a karaoke rehearsal for a live later-to-be staged show, or a rehearsal to be recorded, then dubbed over the album tracks for live show later?

I smell a rat. Okay, I need a shower but still, this doesn't look right and there's not enough video documentation to support my doubts they were not a good live band.

ANother hint at rats in the cellar: they didn't tour much, at all. Maybe they didn't want to risk getting caught.

OK to be fair, by "they" I probably mean Tom Scholtz. He was a fucking PUTZ when I met him, his lyrics are stupid peacebead crystal hippie subject matter and I wanted to punch him in the teeth for some reason, and all his band hated him.

The singer killed himself. Probably over unresolved millions Tom ripped him off for.. but that's another story.

Someone should write a screenplay about this band and how Tom's greed ruined live rock. But in the meantime, can anyone tell me for certain did BOSTON ever really exist in the arena-rock world or not?

Did you see 'em?
Did they suck or what.. did it sound prerecorded?

[FORD]

Yeah, sure they're lip syncing, you fucking dork......


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btLuzjHbCUU

Shitty sound quality here, but clearly a live performance.

[bueno bob]

Is this actually a thread?

For what it's worth, Boston used overdubs when they played live - and for what it's worth, a lot of bands in that era did...

[Igosplut]

OK to be fair, by "they" I probably mean Tom Scholtz. He was a fucking PUTZ when I met him, his lyrics are stupid peacebead crystal hippie subject matter and I wanted to punch him in the teeth for some reason, and all his band hated him.



Were you scrubbing the toilets, and he pushed you out of the way so he could use it coward??

Boston toured plenty back in the day, at least around here. And I'm sure Tom would be shattered to think the homeless ex-janitor didn't like his lyrics....

[VanHalener]

~BOSTON KICKS ASS~

Think I'll crank some right now


I love BOSTON!!!

Turn it up motherfuckers

[VanHalenFan5150]

Boston kicks ass! Too many overdubs though, yeah. My mom saw them at the East Rutherford Arena back in the 70's or 80's. She said that they were terrible.

[Steve Savicki]

Is this actually a thread?
This thread is more than a feeling... got my laugh for the day.

[Igosplut]

Boston kicks ass! Too many overdubs though, yeah. My mom saw them at the East Rutherford Arena back in the 70's or 80's. She said that they were terrible.

Yea, that's what I heard too. Never saw 'em, but it makes sense that you couldn't replicate that music live.

[Unchainme]

This thread is more than a feeling... got my laugh for the day.

fuck off faggot.

[Hardrock69]

Once again, Garfuckle demonstrates his lack of a brain.



Did they ever, ever really tour?

Yes, in addition to the tours they did from Third Stage onward, they did two very lengthy world tours, one for the first album, one for the second. I saw two shows from the second tour. One in Seattle, Sept. 15, 1978, one in Wichita, KS March 3, 1979. I recorded both shows, the tape of the Seattle show was stolen, but I have transferred the recording of the second show to CD and have uploaded it here in FLAC format:

Disc 1 - http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BQADWZ6M

Disc 2 - http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5KVKJ6VM

Cover I made for it:

http://i10.tinypic.com/6fzvk90.jpg

Set List:

Disc 1:

1. Rock 'n' Roll Band
2. Shattered Images
3. Peace Of Mind
4. Feeling Satisfied
5. Don't Look Back
6. The Journey
7. More Than A Feeling
8. A Man I'll Never Be

Disc 2:

1. Smoking
2. Guitar Solo
3. Foreplay/Long Time
4. Something About You

Encores

5. Party
6. Television Politician (unreleased track)





Were they once a concert contender OR DID TOM SCHOLTZ just pull a fuckin' multitrack boner - Boston has sold millions of records, but lunike that other multitracking genius ELO's Jeff Lynne Boston's Tom Scholtz never got caught masterminding a lip-synching scam.

That is because they never lip-synched you fucking idiot.


I ask you good people: check this clip and tell me, where's the audience?

Is this just a live rehearsal, a karaoke rehearsal for a live later-to-be staged show, or a rehearsal to be recorded, then dubbed over the album tracks for live show later?

Christ you are fucking stupid. That clip is from Giants Stadium, Rutherford, NJ June 17 1979.
YOU CANNOT SEE THE FUCKING AUDIENCE BECAUSE THE FUCKING CAMERA IS FOCUSED ON THE FUCKING BAND! :mad:


I smell a rat. Okay, I need a shower but still, this blah blah mumble snort **FART** blah blah, etc. etc.

Did you see 'em?
Did they suck or what.. did it sound prerecorded?

They sounded as good as they did on record.

SHUT THE FUCK UP LOSER! :mad:



For what it's worth, Boston used overdubs when they played live - and for what it's worth, a lot of bands in that era did...

Yes you are right. You can plainly see a recording console in the center of the stage, and the band are each in their iso booth and they are overdubbing. :biggrin:

They used no pre-recorded anything live. The FOH sound guy was great at the use of an echoplex on Tom Scholz's guitar, but it was all live, including a groovy Hammond B3 that Tom played in addition to his guitar.

A friend of mine knew the drummer Sib Hashian, and hung out with him at the show I recorded. Said they had some killer pot, which I got to sample a little of later on. :hee:

[Hardrock69]

Correction: The show I taped was March 8, 1979, not March 3.

[VanHalener]

This thread is more than a feeling... got my laugh for the day.

Fuck off

[VanHalener]

Yea, that's what I heard too. Never saw 'em, but it makes sense that you couldn't replicate that music live.

They were really tight and sounding fucking GREAT when I saw them in '04. Had some new chick with them, and sure it wasn't the same, but they rocked the house like heavyweight champs. Fucking sucks that my two favorite bands are always in turmoil and Brad Delp is dead.

[Va Beach VH Fan]

My mom saw them at the East Rutherford Arena back in the 70's or 80's.

Christ, you really need to stop that.... :D

[Hardrock69]

:lmao:

No shit.

The chick on bass is originally from Gnashville. I have not seen them live since that show I recorded. Not sure I am really motivated enough to see them, even if they came here to do a concert.

[VanHalener]

I would see them if they came around again, but I would don a Brad Delp t-shirt and sit in the front row. The chick was hot, and she could get down. Think I'll grow a mustache for their next show in case she wants a ride.

[78/84 guy]

Fraud !!!! Wrong answer dude . 87 for Third Stage & 94 when Brad came back for the tour After someone else sang on the disc were AWESOME !! 87 was one of my favorite shows ever !!! They were doing the sound check as we were coming in to the building !!! Delp killed that night !! There are a couple of boots from the 70's flying around that are great .

[Hardrock69]

Yes. One of them is posted above.

[Igosplut]

They were really tight and sounding fucking GREAT when I saw them in '04. Had some new chick with them, and sure it wasn't the same, but they rocked the house like heavyweight champs. Fucking sucks that my two favorite bands are always in turmoil and Brad Delp is dead.

Like I said, I never saw them but I'm refering to the time frame of the late 70s/early eight's. The buss at the time was they were less than great live from the people that had seen them. Thinking about it yesterday I remember WBCN-FM in Boston running a fake commercial about Boston touring non-stop, it was a parody of being never ending because they did tour that much...

[Va Beach VH Fan]

I saw them here when they toured in '03... Was nice to hear the old stuff again... I can remember Tom Scholz coming out to the stage acting like a roadie, then going right into the Star Spangled Banner to start the show....

[ODShowtime]

"I saw two shows from the second tour. Wichita, KS March 3, 1979"

Cool the day I was born there was a Boston show. Saturday night party time!

[ODShowtime]

"Correction: The show I taped was March 8, 1979, not March 3. " gay

[Hardrock69]

So I wanted to correct myself, goober. Sorry you can't handle it. :hee:

[Terry]

I've never even really thought of Boston as a band...more like the Tom Scholtz/Brad Delp act. I mean, depending on which recollections are accurate, most of that first album was just the Sholtz demos anyway, with Scholtz doing a majority of the instrumentation (regardless of who got credited). Certainly never thought of Boston as a live act, and it wouldn't be a shock to find out they were playing along to backing tapes in the 1970s when performing.

Fuck, after the slow trickle of information over the years about how such "live" albums like Frampton Comes Alive, KISS Alive, The Song Remains The Same and such were recorded (none of them being taken from a single gig with unedited performances), to me anything Boston were doing along these lines seems like small change.

Nah, I don't think Boston was a fraud. Not in the sense of that first album having such a great, rich sound (even if it was the result of extensive multitracking) and a batch of great songs. I mean, the studio is the studio and live is live. If a band sounds exactly the same live as it does in the studio and there is no deviation from the sound or song structures, well, what's the point of even seeing them live? Am not talking about tuning down a half-step live or howling mistakes, but an odd bum note here and there is par for the course.

[GAR]

Fraud !!!! Wrong answer dude . 87 for Third Stage & 94 when Brad came back for the tour After someone else sang on the disc were AWESOME !! 87 was one of my favorite shows ever !!! They were doing the sound check as we were coming in to the building !!! Delp killed that night !! There are a couple of boots from the 70's flying around that are great .

I'd love to hear those.. I heard Boston on the radio for years, and got the albums scratchy and second-hand. So I was really excited they reformed, got another label, and the whole Third Stage story was pretty dramatic I felt compelled to buy it the day it came out.

It was great. But they never toured.

Then one day, like you say in 87 I heard it on the radio Boston's coming to do shows and they're giving away tickets and was disappointed they're sold out.

That's one thing bout life in LA.. sure we got Hollywood music scene, some nice arena venues and such, but fuck - try getting a ticket to go someplace you're not up in the nosebleeds without going thru a broker jacking you for bank to get a fair seat.. I never got to see Brad Delp live.

I'm nearly convinced this "band" was all about Tom Scholtzes egomaniacal desire for money, and not so much to do with having to perfectly record everything pefectly.

Look at Van Halen.. one or two takes. Sure, maybe you gotta pay the others for their performances, but you get 'er done and by spring you're out to tour till the fall. It's my belief any "touring" Boston ever did was an afterthought against a certain pre-pegged sales threshold that, if met, they would setup and play a few cities.

But to me, that's not really fair to say "you're a touring band" for that reason. To me, you tour because you play well and are entertaining to watch in live venues, not because you sold at least a half-million units by April or you don't get the trucks out to go.

I'm not totally decided yet if the term "fraud band" applies here or not in the ELO-sense of the word or not.. but I'm not really happy calling this "the Boston Band." I'd rather Tom Scholtz just go out as "the artist Tom Scholtz and friends" the way Ringo does it. That way, you know what you're getting into when waiting 3 hours in line to buy tickets. (does anyone do that anymore?)

[GAR]

Yeah, sure they're lip syncing, you fucking dork......


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btLuzjHbCUU

Shitty sound quality here, but clearly a live performance.

okay, scratch the youtube contribution then answermy question: cuz I know how to use youtube..

"did you ever see Boston live, and did they really play their instruments?" because some vids I've seen they appear to play them, obviously the drummer plays.. but what about everyone else?

I'm not cuntvinced of the vocals being real, for one thing..

[sadaist]

One of the only couple of shows that I've left early was Boston. We almost fell asleep. It did not sound any different from the cd...I mean exact. And there was very little banter between songs, just 1 after another. Also, all the band just stood basically totally still. Very mechanical. So the sound was the same as cd and there was zero to the "show" aspect. We bailed about 3/4 the way through.

The only other band I did that too was Van Halen III at the Del Mar fair. Walking through the parking lot I could hear Panama :(

[Hardrock69]

Nah, I don't think Boston was a fraud. Not in the sense of that first album having such a great, rich sound (even if it was the result of extensive multitracking) and a batch of great songs. I mean, the studio is the studio and live is live. If a band sounds exactly the same live as it does in the studio and there is no deviation from the sound or song structures, well, what's the point of even seeing them live? Am not talking about tuning down a half-step live or howling mistakes, but an odd bum note here and there is par for the course.

They had some bum notes when I saw them in 79, and not only that, they had lengthy musical seques from one song to another. No backup tapes, lip-synching or anything 'fraudulent' about the performance. Just a real rock band actually playing their instruments and playing them well, with great backup vocals.

As for Tom Scholz.....I mean for the most part the first two albums were basically Tom Scholz solo projects, though as time went on, eventually others in the band got to write more and have more input into the final album.

And true, they did not run around like nutcases, they had no flame pots, no incredibly over-the-top stage show, though it was not without it's moments.

They made it a better performance by adding instrumental links between the songs, and in general turning in a quality performance of the material they had.

Both times I saw them they gave up a performance that was easily worth the price I paid.

[lesfunk]

I saw them in concert once. It was the Third Stage tour. I don't remember much about it except they seemed truly live and a little boring and the house sound wasn't geat. They were Ok but not great.

[Hardrock69]

Gotta admit, they are not an exciting band.

[chefcraig]

Gotta admit, they are not an exciting band.

Yeah, they played here in 1977 with the positively ghastly top 40 one hit wonder Starbuck ("Moonlight Feels Right") opening for them. The highlight of Starbuck's set was an extended marimba solo, of all things. This was even more disappointing when you realize that Starcastle (essentially a prog rock band that used just about two of everything to sound just like Yes) played on many of the tour's stops, yet naturally not this show.

Boston only played material from the first album, with one exception being a ballad ("A Man I'll Never Be") that showed up on the next album a year or so later. Playing in what amounted to a concrete barn, the band sounded remarkably good in a venue notorious for it's dismal sound. Maybe they were not quite at a stage in their career where they could relax while playing complicated material, as they were pretty dull as performers. Seriously, it could have been the Eagles up there going through the motions. Yet you did get the impression that there was zero backing assistance, particularly with the vocals, which were occasionally hit or miss. The best tune of the night was "Foreplay/Long Time", with Sholtz taking the opening keyboard solo in extended fashion. Considering his only competition of the night was a marimba, he did OK.

It was a good show for such a limited amount of material, and outside of the crappy opening act (and some spectacularly awful concert T shirts for sale that looked like the crummy iron-on decals you got at the kiosk in the mall in the seventies), a respectable effort at reproducing the sound of the album.

[VanHalener]

The next motherfucker to talk smack about BOSTON is being removed from my Christmas list.

Fuckers!

;)

[VanHalener]

These cats were another band with a better studio sound than live.
My very first favorite R&R tune...
(with a side of T&A, S'il vous plait)

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[Hardrock69]

Always wanted to see them, then when they played Gnashville, I went "meh....".

[Catfish]

The times I saw Boston Brad Delp had someone standing next to him helping with those ridiculous studio-aided highs that no human being can duplicate. And Delp was very out-front about this extra singer's presence. I recall early on the set he'd say so-and-so is here to help out, give him a hand.

[VanHalener]

I saw them here when they toured in '03... Was nice to hear the old stuff again...

Guess it was '03, not '04. They sounded very good that night, but I would have still loved to toss a few eggs at Tom for being such a ball gargler.


Gotta admit, they are not an exciting band.

That's why I love my LPs. The albums are BOSTON, and the studio is where their best work was done.

[Terry]

They had some bum notes when I saw them in 79, and not only that, they had lengthy musical seques from one song to another. No backup tapes, lip-synching or anything 'fraudulent' about the performance. Just a real rock band actually playing their instruments and playing them well, with great backup vocals.

As for Tom Scholz.....I mean for the most part the first two albums were basically Tom Scholz solo projects, though as time went on, eventually others in the band got to write more and have more input into the final album.

And true, they did not run around like nutcases, they had no flame pots, no incredibly over-the-top stage show, though it was not without it's moments.

They made it a better performance by adding instrumental links between the songs, and in general turning in a quality performance of the material they had.

Both times I saw them they gave up a performance that was easily worth the price I paid.

Frankly, the input from the other members (who shared performing credits on the first album and were part of the first album touring band) on Don't Look Back, composition-wise, wasn't all that great...the second album to my ears was pretty much an attempt at making a carbon copy of the first, with slightly weaker tunes. An understandable choice that umpteen million bands have done with their second album.

I mean, in some ways it'd be more understandable with a group like Boston to use a bit of fakery live. Not saying that they did or didn't, as I've never seen 'em live, but trying to replicate that dense, rich, multi-layered sound of that first album live without any sort of backing tapes or whatnot would be a bitch to pull off for ANY 5-piece band!! Even today!!!

Perhaps people in the 1970s might have thought of Boston as a band, but beginning in the early 1980s as the story of how the first album was made started to trickle out pretty much everybody knew Boston was more or less Scholtz and Delp (and more or less always had been all along) writing the definitive tunes and handling production chores, and anyone else playing in the band at any given moment had a supplimentary role at best. I mean, I'll give Sib Hashian his due for being credited with most of the drums on the first album, but even presuming he actually played on said tracks (which is still disputed by some), does one really think of Boston in terms of how great the drumming was? Do the names Barry Goudreau and Fran Sheehan even ring a bell in most people's minds? Even among those who actually own a copy of the album?

Milli Vanilli was a fraud. Boston, and that first album in particular, was the real deal inasmuch as that album still sounds great today. Least to me it does, even in spite of being played to fucking death on the radio. Outstanding production and one awesome tune after another. Was it a band along the lines of Zeppelin, or The Who, where every member was important? Nope. Probably not a great live act, either. Yet neither were The Beatles, and I don't hear many people grousing that Sgt. Pepper was the work of a bunch of frauds.

[Hardrock69]

I agree completely. The band has always been, in my view, a Tom Scholz solo project. If you have not, download the show I recorded and give it a listen. They did good in concert, considering the stuff they did when in the studio.
I have the 24-track multi for More Than A Feeling. Pretty interesting to listen to all the parts, and how they fit together. The first album surely sounded really lush but at least on this one song it is just 21 tracks. If Epic records had been allowed free reign over this album the results most likely would have been pretty inferior. Glad Tom had the education and the dollars (thanks to Polaroid) to record that first album.

Just for kicks, here is the track listing.

Track 1 - Hand claps, with slight bleed through (mostly drums in the headphone bleed). Sounds like the whole band clapping at once in unison.

Track 2 - Kick

Track 3 - Snare

Track 4 - Overhead one side

Track 5 - Overhead the other side - of course the drums have bleed through on all the drum tracks.

Track 6 - Bass

Track 7 - Rhythm Guitar (some parts he cleans it up a bit with the volume knob on the guitar, but mostly it is lazily strummed dirty sound, harmonics played at intro and at one point later on)

Track 8 - Rhythm Guitar Same thing as Track 7, but not just 'doubled'. Interesting that the pick scrapes down the strings have reverb on them, then the guitars go dry as soon as the pick scrape is over.

Track 9 - 12-string acoustic - pretty cool chordal stylings

Track 10 - Same as above

Track 11 thru 13 - lead guitar lines, echoplex work at the end on all three, track 13 has some cleaned up rhythm guitar in some parts.

Track 15 and 16 - main lead vocal (sounds like Tom Scholz to me) amazing thing is that no producer these days would allow such loose performances to remain in the final mix.

Track 17 thru 19 - vocal harmonies with guitar part harmony punch-ins

Track 20 and 21 - electric rhythm guitars

They used some nice compression on this album. Just enough to punch it up a bit, without going to extremes. Thing is, everything has a sort of warm coloration, as if he was using the same compressor for each individual track during tracking. Or just coulda been the mics he was using.

What is really a trip is to listen to the 24 track multis of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. Something like a dozen of the 24 tracks are vocals, with most of them comp tracks with 3 part harmony vocals.

[Hardrock69]

Probably not a great live act, either. Yet neither were The Beatles, and I don't hear many people grousing that Sgt. Pepper was the work of a bunch of frauds.

Just give Garfuckle some time. :hee:

[VanHalener]

There is no fraud going on in my garage, bitches!

~BOSTON~

Shakin' Down The Motherfuckin' Walls here, Jack~


OWWWWWWWWWWW

[sonrisa salvaje]

You must have seen them around 1995 because i saw the exact same thing. The lead singer introduced the guy and told the crowd that he couldn't hit the high notes the way he used to and thus this guy was helping him out. I thought it was very cool thing to do. Doesn't seem like Boston would have a track record of hiding anything if they were willing to be so up front about this.

[Hardrock69]

I am fortunate that I got to see them 2wice in 78/79 when they were still young, and the band was still original.