Boston still provides ‘More Than a Feeling’ in feel-good concert.

BY HOWARD COHEN
hcohen@MiamiHerald.com
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Something about classic rock gets into one’s DNA like nothing else. The joyous sound of it, cranked on electric guitars, infused with its majestic pop hooks, hits the body’s central nervous system as a rushing wave of euphoric dopamine. This was proven repeatedly Thursday night at Boston’s energetic, 105-minute concert at Hard Rock Live.

You could say it has something to do with being a boomer — like this critic and most of the few thousand fans who were gathered at the Seminole complex near Hollywood to hear a revamped version of the rock band whose only original member remains mastermind guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter Tom Scholz.

But it’s more than that. True, we were weaned on the enduring hits from Boston’s first two albums in the mid to late ’70s, nearly all of them performed flawlessly in this expertly paced and filler-free concert. These included, of course, More Than a Feeling, played not as an encore but at the set’s mid-point, Don’t Look Back and Peace of Mind.

But when Boston’s new co-lead singer Michael Sweet, who was plucked from the Christian hard rock band Stryper for this summer tour, introduced the chiming Hitch a Ride as a song ”Boston hasn’t played in 20 years” and then asked if there were any fans 20-years-old or younger in the house, several hands shot upward. These included two brothers who had floor seats and who clearly were indoctrinated by their parents in the heady highs of Boston music because one of them, in particular, looked near rapture when the still mesmerizing guitar-organ festival that is Foreplay/Long Time closed the main set. The teen sang along to every word of the first encore tune, Smokin’, while someone else took the Bicentennial-year song’s lyrics at face value to light up a doobie as the tell-tale smell of a ’70s rock concert sailed through the air.

‘Oooo, are you feelin’ satisfied,” Boston’s other new lead singer Tommy DeCarlo sang from a 1978 cut. Can we give him a “Hell, yeah?”

Later, DeCarlo hoisted a cloth on stage marked with the words, ”Boston Fans Rock,” and his uplifting story attests to that adage.

DeCarlo, who is on-leave from his day job as a credit manager for a North Carolina Home Depot, happened into the vocalist slot for his favorite band when he posted a song on his MySpace page he had written in tribute to Brad Delp, the original Boston singer who committed suicide in 2007. Scholz was tipped to the 43-year-old newcomer, who had never performed professionally, and was struck by DeCarlo’s familiar vocal timbre. He hired him for this tour.

It proved a good choice. DeCarlo did his idol, Delp, proud on numbers like Feelin’ Satisfied and Sweet also approximated Delp’s high tenor money shots on Amanda, Something About You and Peace of Mind. To Be a Man, a lesser track from Boston’s 1986 LP, Third Stage, was dedicated to the late singer. (The superior hit A Man I’ll Never Be, sadly missing from the setlist, would have been even more appropriate). Scholz said, “You don’t see him on stage but we feel he’s been with us on this whole tour.”

However, to quote from another Boston favorite that closed the show, Party, this wasn’t going to be a wake. The upbeat pace of escapist rockers never flagged. Even the relatively new 2002 opener, I Had a Good Time, had the chugging flavor of a vintage Boston rocker.

Best yet, M.I.T. engineering grad Scholz, a boyish 61 who has the same feathered hair and lanky basketball-toned frame he sported when the record-setting Boston came out in 1976 (albeit he wore a knee brace on stage), continues to prove Boston is the ultimate garage band — and dispels that bogus ”corporate rock” tag that has always unfairly dogged this band.

Dissatisfied with the sound of conventional electric guitars, organs and amplification, Scholz, without major-label support, developed and built his own musical equipment to give Boston its distinctive sound. The process is evolving because the crystalline, full-bodied, near three-dimensional fidelity Boston achieved on the Hard Rock stage seemed peerless and gave this nostalgic material remarkable presence.

”If we come back, will you come?” Sweet asked at the concert’s conclusion.

Certainly. We’re powerless to resist. Boston’s hot-wired in our DNA.