THE ULTRASONIC ROCK ORCHESTRA
The Wilbur Theatre, Boston, MA

The Noise - Boston

There are few local rock acts that you’ll shell out $25-35 to see, so it’s a breath of crescent-fresh air to see the URO packing the 1,200-seat Wilbur Theatre this time around. Arguably the best cover band ever, this extravaganza is comprised of a 7-piece band and roughly 18 singers, they cover venerated megahits by rock’s pantheon of gods—Queen, Bowie, The Who, The Beatles, and a bit of Jesus Christ Superstar with a closely-related original mini-opera for good measure (it’s complicated). The level of talent on display is immense—the URO makes use of every musician and vocalist present to capture the most complex of these classic songs live (Queen themselves pressed play the in the middle of “Bohemian Rhapsody”), and their newfound budget has allowed for a blazing light show that quite frankly makes you wistful for the days of LSD. A few silly moments onstage and a few hundred too many repetitions of the word “rock” can’t spoil the mood tonight. Only in retrospect do I realize that the lighting truss above the stage is in a distinctive “I O I” shape—but I doubt the crowd, from 5-year old kids experiencing these songs for the first time right up to the grandparents in attendance, would deny that this is indeed Rock 101.