In Memory of ML Procise
I am sad to announce that BOSTON lost a valued long time member of our extended family this week, our good friend ML Procise. As our front of house mixer, he took on responsibility for BOSTON’s live sound in 1987 for what became our biggest tour ever.
But he was much more than a great live sound technician, ML was a presence that commanded automatic respect and admiration without any pretense. Always leading with a friendly smile, his good natured jovial persona brought an overpowering warmth whenever he entered the room. To every one who knew him he was just “ML,” the initials needing no further explanation or introduction, he was the one and only.
ML enjoyed life, and one of things he enjoyed was basketball, or just “ball” in ML lexicon. At my introduction to ML back in 1987 when he was pitching his company’s sound system to me, one of the first things he said was that he knew someone who claimed he had played ball with me. I answered that it was doubtful. Not one to mince words ML added, “He says you’re a ball hog,” at which point I had to admit that he undoubtedly must have played ball with me after all. We hired the sound system and ML twenty-eight years ago, and I have been thankful ever since for the many ways knowing ML enriched my life and the lives of those connected with BOSTON. Thank you ML, you will be missed.
~Tom Scholz
Behind the scenes the musicians and crew members worked very hard to pull off the performances and fine-tune the sound every night, but once on stage, we had as much fun at the shows as the audience did. The players and technicians with BOSTON made the show look effortless, but trust me, it’s a lot harder than they made it look! As I took the stage for the last show in Tokyo with Gary, Tommy, Tracy, Kimberley and Jeff, I realized how lucky I was to be surrounded by people who are both friends and such excellent players, performing with all this equipment so expertly assembled and operated night after night. As icing on the cake, near the end of the night Siobhan Magnus [American Idol season 9 finalist] took the stage and nailed the lead vocal for “Walk On.” Even after a difficult day traveling and scrambling to get ready for a show, stepping onto the stage with these exceptional performers to play for the best fans in the world was an incredible rush – the day’s problems were instantly erased and life was very good!
Each individual show was the culmination of endless hours of effort on the part of three dozen people organizing, rehearsing, problem solving, and just plain working long and hard. I’m proud to have been on stage, and behind the scenes, with every one of these dedicated professionals who made our tour such a great success. This was the largest number of shows for a single BOSTON tour in 35 years, but the tour was so exciting, we are already looking forward to bringing BOSTON to even more cities.
Flying an old single-engine plane to 60 different US destinations with my wife Kim, and friend and fellow pilot Henry Lingley: Because my back won’t put up with long bus rides, pressing my 34-year old, 4-seat plane into service seemed like a feasible way for me to get from show to show. But flying this beautiful old bird is nothing like riding in the back of one of those ubiquitous multi million dollar business jet at mach .8!
Traveling long distances in a light plane is a bit slower than modern day jets, but thanks to this sweet ride we saw volcanic mountains and glacial lakes in the Cascades from just a few hundred yards, had an amazing low altitude ride back thru the mountains in a winding a canyon, flew over towering massive cumulus, through countless other amazing cloud scenes, and got inside quite a few bumpy ones we couldn’t avoid. All in all, we crossed over the Rocky Mountain chain and flew coast to coast 4 times. Of course tour routing being as it is, none of this was accomplished in a straight line, as we zig zagged back and forth we lost count of how many times we crossed the Mississippi.
Sixty-eight concerts in the USA, Canada and Japan with sun, rain, wind, friends, relatives, a bunch of terrific bands and memories we’ll never forget! Like the show in Bangor where Tom had his guitar done up with a checkerboard motif as an homage to Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick. Or the thunderstorm in Cleveland when the power went out for a couple of seconds but the band played on. Or the show where there were so many bugs in the air that I may have swallowed one while singing and thereby lost my vegetarian status for the day.
What a terrific crew we’ve had working with us! 24 guys and 5 women that became our immediate family for five months. They put in long days, every day, to get the audio, lights and video set up and working perfectly whether it was in the L.A. Forum or the infield at the South Dakota State Fair.
