Another show at the Joint in Las Vegas this weekend, this time solo. A little lonely not having Toni or one of the kids joining me, but neither of the bands were top of their must see lists, however for me having both Boston and Cheap Trick on the same bill is a double header flash-back 70’s experience.
Boston and Cheap Trick co-headline (at least I feel they did) putting on a couple of absolutely awesome shows. Cheap Trick came on right on time at 8:00 and played an incredible set including the big hits such as Surrender, I Want You to Want Me, Ain’t That a Shame and Surrender, but they also played some somewhat rare songs like Big Eyes and Need Your Love and then my all time favorite California Man. This is probably the fourth time I have seen Cheap Trick over the years, starting with a huge festival in LA where they headlined with Journey back in 1980. Most recently, we had seen them open up for Areosmith in 2012. They always put on a great show, and this time I was sitting up in front of the stage (not the side with Rick Nielsen, but bassist Tom Petersson’s side) and was able to get a real up close experience actually having Rick Nielsen toss one of his guitar picks at me which was super special until he proceeded to throw a whole handful in the audience a few songs later…but mine was personally tossed at me :).
Boston came on about 9:15 or so, opening up Rock & Roll Band going into Smokin’ and then Feelin’ Satisfied…Great opening with awesome songs from their first two albums. I have never seen Boston before and was a little apprehensive and didn’t know what to expect with a new lead singer due to their original lead singer Brad Delp‘s untimely death in 2007. Boston has been one of my favorite bands since their debut album in 1976,. This album being the very first cassette tape I ever purchased…I still have that cassette and actually still occasionally play it on my retro car cassette stereo during those sunny summer days when I want to escape back to simple times. My apprehension was not realized when they started playing and sounded absolutely great. Tom Scholz of course played all those old iconic guitar and organ sounds which defined Boston. The band was great, with the lead singer being very close to Brad Delp‘s sound, but with a little modern twist. The only part of the show I wasn’t entirely sold on was when they had Siobhan Magnus from season nine of American Idol come out and sign to Walk On. She has a great voice and tore it up, but come-on, singing a Boston song? They played until a little after 11:00, which ended up being over a two hour set including a the song Party as their encore.
It was a great double bill and now I have seen Boston and can mark them off my list of must see bands.
bryonsconcertblog 
Leave a Reply