“Gonna Hitch a Ride” — My road-trip to Rhode Island later this summer to see a Boston tribute band

PART ONE

When I was 15, I started listening religiously to classic rock radio on WMMR and WYSP outside Philadelphia, PA. It was 1984, and while hair metal bands and cheesy pop stars dominated MTV, local FM airwaves were ruled by classic rock giants from the previous decades of the 1960s and 1970s — the Beatles, Hendrix, and The Rolling Stones, and all their ilk — these guys ruled the radio. Aerosmith was in heavy rotation with this crowd, and they were being promoted relentlessly for a local reunion concert after a multi-year hiatus that saw them reunite their original lineup. Steven Tyler was back with Joe Perry and concert promoters spent generously to let me and my friends know all about it.

Radio ads over the summer of 1984 heralded Aerosmith’s return with some unknown opening act called Orion the Hunter. Announcements kept touting Barry Goudreau as some special performer with Orion, he being formerly of “THE SUPER GROUP Boston”. Ah, Boston — a supergroup: something special and worth being affiliated with, both as a musician and as a fan.

Turns out, Goudreau wasn’t much of a draw and Orion the Hunter largely sucked. And as I soon later found out, Boston was actually the brainchild and passion-project of the great Tom Scholz, not Barry Goudreau. But I digress. More on that soon.

I started connecting the dots and realized Boston was broadcast every day on classic rock radio. “More Than A Feeling,” “Rock and Roll Band” and “Feelin’ Satisfied” were songs I heard over and over. And even today — in 2023 — they still are. On Sirius XM radio, a song by Boston gets played every few hours around the clock on Classic Rewind and on other satellite stations that highlight 70s and 80s music. Boston were — and still are — staples of classic rock Americana, and for good reason.

Let me tell you why:

Around this same summer of ‘84, I decided to dive into the record collection my older sister left behind when she left for college. There was a lot of fluff that didn’t appeal to my rock-rebel 15 year-old self — stuff like Captain & Tennille, The Bay City Rollers, and disco-era Dan Fogleberg (all terrible stuff). But there also lurked a few golden nuggets — Led Zeppelin’s “The Song Remains The Same”, AC/DC’s “Back in Black”, and Boston’s 2nd LP, “Don’t Look Back”. Pinching the Boston LP and putting it on the family turntable was a bit of musical magic I don’t believe I’ve ever been able to fully replicate.

The experience was amazing. Boston’s vintage sound is definitely pure classic rock — but mixed with influences from the blues, classical music, prog rock, and country. There’s a truly unique guitar sound pioneered by mastermind, Tom Scholz, himself; a sort of throaty, distorted sound that only he seemed to find and perfect. Booming harmonies, celestial keyboards, double-and triple-tracked guitar solos, signature pick slides, hammers and pull-offs, and multi-tracked vocals (where the main vocalist harmonizes with himself and sings back-up while simultaneously also singing lead) — all these things made for studio wizardry. You see, Tom Scholz basically did everything — he wrote, he composed, he recorded; he played rhythm, lead, and bass guitar. He was the group’s keyboardist and he engineered everything and produced it all, too. He did everything on Boston’s first three albums (the ones worth listening to) all by himself — except for drums and vocals.

The more I listened to and learned of Tom Scholz, the more enchanted with him I became. He worked at Polaroid, graduated MIT, and was a guitar god on par with Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page; he was tall, athletic, and good-looking to boot. He was kind of everything my 15-year-old self just wasn’t. I ended up getting into college partly on the strength of my personal essay that extolled Scholz’s virtues and detailed his musical achievements.

In the intervening years I’ve probably listened to the first three Boston LPs hundreds of times each, often finding new musical expression along with unique timing and interesting syncopation. Boston truly were - and are — a supergroup, but they were doomed to fall short of total excellence because Scholz’s dominance was also the band’s Achilles heel. There never really was a “group” called Boston, per se, and only Scholz and vocalist Brad Delp were signed by their label as a duo. The rest of the band — including the puffed-up and over-promoted Barry Goudreau — were merely touring musicians and replaceable stand-ins. This is what one got with the crappy Orion the Hunter — the chaff, not the wheat.

So it’s with great anticipation that I’ll drive to Rhode Island this August to see a Boston tribute band named for the LP I discovered abandoned in my sister’s record collection. When DON’T LOOK BACK hits the stage, all my attention will be focused on seeing if I get that same thrill hearing the sound I first heard when I was 15 in my parents’ attic, and dreaming I could — maybe, just maybe — be that amazing myself as a significant musical figure.

Check back in 2 months for my report post-road trip.