More than three-quarters of Boston's 31 million album sales are for their 1976 eponymous debut and its '78 follow-up, Don't Look Back. So gargantuan were these creations that the band, built around founding guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Tom Scholz, remains an arena-filling radio staple, despite releasing only four full-lengths since. Boston's secret is essentially simple songs performed and recorded with staggering attention to detail. For all of Scholz's love of virtuoso musicality and complex, harmony-saturated production, at the heart of his compositions are bar-rock and garage-pop sensibilities (Nirvana's grunge template “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is unashamedly built upon the main riff of Boston's signature single, “More Than a Feeling”). Equally enduring and perhaps even more influential on contemporary acts, from Smashing Pumpkins to Kings of Leon, are ultimate power-poppers Cheap Trick.

Tue., July 29, 8 p.m., 2014
(Expired: 07/29/14)

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