Fan Stories & Photos

Brian C. from Japan writes: The "Don't Look Back" album was still fresh and riding high on the charts, as I recall, when Boston came back to town about a year and a half after Long Beach ? this time to the outdoor Anaheim Stadium (home of my then-favorite baseball team, the Angels) to play a summer festival concert. I remember this one because it was on my mother's birthday. By this time, of course, I was well into my rock 'n' roll conversion. It was a period when I went to one rock concert after another. I had survived another big outdoor festival at Anaheim Stadium earlier that same summer ? the Rolling Stones on the "Some Girls" tour in July ? and was still hungry for more. So there was the bill: Sammy Hagar, Van Halen, Black Sabbath and....Boston. How could I resist? My brothers and friends were into Sabbath, I was into Boston and Sammy Hagar, and *everybody* was into Van Halen (their debut album tour), so we made a group trip out of it. I remember us camping out with hundreds of other fans in the Anaheim Stadium parking lot the night before the concert, too excited to even think about sleeping. Sometime during the late evening, we could hear the echoes of Boston doing their sound check inside the stadium ? that alone was enough to get the parking-lot crowd cheering. One funny episode: I do remember going to one of the portable toilets on the outer edge of the parking lot for an extended "visit" and when I came back, someone telling me that Boston had jammed a bit on Led Zeppelin's "Communication Breakdown" as part of their sound check. I would've loved to have heard it. To move the story up by hours: Dawn broke, we're still jacked up from partying all night, and sometime between late morning and early afternoon, they opened the gates and let all us "savages" into the arena. We rushed toward the outfield area and staked out our place maybe a couple yards from the massive stage. It was the biggest stage setup I'd ever seen. And the heat ? yes, that I remember. It was a scorcher, even that late into the summer. The whole day was one sweaty, hot, chaotic party. Hagar eventually came on in the afternoon and did his thing (which was great back then), Van Halen "parachuted" into the backstage area from an overhead circling plane (great gimmick), Sabbath came on and played to their loyal followers (Ozzy and mates looking a bit jaded, in my opinion), and then by evening, it was time for Boston. My mind flashed back to Long Beach a year and a half earlier, and I wondered if the band would knock me out again as they had that first time. Well, you can only lose your virginity once, but somehow I knew I wouldn't be disappointed. A few highlights that still stick with me from that 1978 Anaheim concert: the wild audience reaction to the new songs from the "Don't Look Back" album, the ELO-like lighting system that the band now had (they'd come a long way, baby), and that massive pipe organ that Tom Scholz ? draped with a cape this time ? banged on during "Smokin' ". I can still see Tom sitting and playing this huge pipe organ and then, when it came time for him to play those two quick keyboard fills in "Smokin' ", he moved to his regular keyboard. But his timing was off, and I remember seeing Tom Scholz literally jumping over something on stage and diving from his pipe organ over to his regular keyboard to reach the notes just in the nick of time, his cape fluttering behind him. One second later, and he would have thrown the whole rest of the song out of time. "Phantom of the Opera" Tom wasn't, but the band put on a great show nonetheless. It seemed that Boston was still riding on top of the world that night. We left the stadium late that evening sleepless and exhausted to the bone, but I was glad I had gotten to see Boston just one more time. By the time the band's third album had come out several years later, I had moved on to jazz and university studies, and still later I moved overseas. I never got to see Boston again. But it's good to "look back" on one's rock 'n' roll roots from time to time, and thanks in part to Boston, I can say my life has gone in a good direction.

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