New Tidbit on the Televised Beach Boys Tribute Concert

[Shady]

[Robbie Mac]

So this is in s few hours. The big question, will Brian be there?

I'll be following the various social media platforms for updates

Brian, Mike, Al, Dave, and Bruce are all there.

[Robbie Mac]

[GoodVibrations33]

Video proof!!

https://www.reddit.com/r/thebeachboys/comments/10xizrm/all_of_the_boys_together_once_again/

[Lonely Summer]

So it appears this is like a Kennedy Center Honors show. The honored guests sit in the balcony and watch younger acts do their songs.  I wonder if they will at least be interviewed? You know Mike will want to talk up his touring band; Al will mention the 225th reissue of Postcard; and Brian will talk about food. "I love food".

[MyDrKnowsItKeepsMeCalm]

Hey, that's great! The five of them have only been together maybe once or twice since the 2012 tour, correct?

[Shady]

This is great!!

Hey, that's great! The five of them have only been together maybe once or twice since the 2012 tour, correct?

Once from what I recall

[Pretty Funky]

Hardly formal clothing. All dressed in pretty standard performance attire for them. Hmmm?

[Bud Shaver]

Brian looks like he has lost some weight

[Pretty Funky]

God Only Knows


https://youtu.be/jPTQJdIcAPk

[Needleinthehay]

All the performances are https://www.setlist.fm/venue/dolby-theatre-los-angeles-ca-usa-23d5a8f7.html

Doesn’t show what song they all played but shows all the performers, weezer ended up doing California girls.
Really good list of a listers. Really suprised at fall out boy lol doing do you wanna dance

[Tony S]

Nice to see all five of them together without the pressure of having to perform too. Just sitting there taking it all in. I will say from the picture they do look a bit uncomfortable and even a little bit sad especially by the seating arrangement. Looks like very little interaction amongst the camps but who knows. Bottom line they all showed up and it was good to see that

[Awesoman]

Looking forward to seeing this concert and hope it's entertaining.  To see perhaps my all-time favorite band (besides the Beatles) receive such a high-profile concert is a delight even if I'm at best indifferent to most of the performers.

As to the discussion of having Paul McCartney potentially attend a tribute show like this, while it would have been cool for him to participate (especially if this concert had been held 15-20 years ago when his voice was in great form), it's perfectly fine that he wasn't involved.  He doesn't need to be.  He's demonstrated over the years of his love and respect towards the band and doesn't have to keep proving it at this point. 

I also wanted to add my appreciation that this concert celebrates the band itself, and is not just yet another singular focus of Brian's accomplishments alone...as significant as they may be.  The whole band deserves credit for their overall contributions as spotty as some of them have been here and there.

[HeyJude]

It's undeniably heartening to see all of them together. And yes, there's also some sadness as well. I won't dwell on it too much here, but obviously there's the feeling of missed opportunities of the last 11 years (or more). Also, while we only have a few grainy stills and grainy video bits of the guys up there together, there is a sense of unease or kind of muted emotions. But we'll need to see more and see/hear more reports to know how much of that was actually present. I think Mike usually seems more muted when he's not like *the* guy, like when it's just he and Bruce at an event.

And, I think seeing Brian here could easily elicit all kinds of responses and feelings. It's a good sign that he's there. Does he seem in good shape? I mean, not particularly I guess? But I suppose on par with recent photos and those 2022 dates. Some or all of what we see may just be par for the course, or a result of just the scattered nature of the few pics we have so far. Is it possible all of the other guys might be a bit sad or humbled to see Brian in rougher shape than back in 2018 at that SiriusXM thing? Quite possibly. Is there still stuff between Al and Mike? Maybe. Is there a clear obvious logic and politics to the seating order, with the two "camps" seated opposite each other and everybody's favorite middleman David Marks in the middle? Probably.

If I had to guess, there was a lot of rigamarole involved in how to have any or all of the guys there. My guess is that a performance from Brian was probably firmly off the table, so then it becomes an issue of it being weird to have a 4/5 reunion *performance* (and even weirder if Brian is in attendance but not performing), so then it becomes an issue about whether to have any or all of the guys simply in attendance. Would it have been weird to have some but not all of them simply in the audience? Sorta, but I guess less so than if only some of them actually performed together.

So, having all of them seated together simply observing was probably the best case scenario.

As for the artists; I've watched a bunch of the performances on YouTube. I guess it's about what I would have expected? It's for prime time on network TV, so it's going to be mostly the recognizable hits. And that unfortunately hampers a lot of the artists, because I think a lot of these singers and bands could find *much* better fits for themselves than doing like "Fun Fun Fun" or "I Get Around" or "California Girls." I haven't seen anything that blew me away. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that Puth guy has *live autotune* turned up to 11.

Beach Boys songs are often quite difficult to cover, because you either have to have a *very good* group vocal ensemble, or you end up with a weird stripped-down arrangement. Not that a stripped-down arrangement can't work as well if done creatively.

I was not surprised but still disappointed with the John Stamos narration/intros. I'm not trying to bust on the guy; he *read* the lines just fine. No issue with Stamos (assuming he didn't write the lines). But whomever wrote those lines, it's like they used an AI to say the same cliched stuff we've heard forever. Sun, surf, cars, innocence, good times, etc.

But I haven't heard anything particularly ear-catching so far. Beck singing "Sloop John B?" It's somehow just really boring. I suppose the Norah Jones "Warmth of the Sun" was interesting to hear in that jazz lounge arrangement, even if I can't *not* fall asleep listening to her perform. The bands doing the up tempo stuff mostly sounded like dorks.

I should say that for the most part everybody sounded solid in terms of not like singing off-key or biffing performance elements. I mean, Weezer was hitting those notes on "California Girls." But it all felt kind of perfunctory.

In a stop-the-presses moment, Pentatonix did a non-Christmas song. But the music stands suggest they didn't have a ton of time to grasp or rehearse "Heroes and Villains." They sounded okay, but I was surprised it was a little more lacking than I would have thought. I think, while their a cappella format seems an easy and obvious fit for BB material, and especially H&V, they actually don't have enough voices to do it. They've got the percussion guy and the lead guy, leaving only three-part harmony for all of the other parts of the song. But at least it was interesting I guess.

I haven't watched all of the songs of course, only some were up on YouTube as of last night.

Curious to hear more reports from the show. From a production point of view it looks like everything was pulled together and not like extra shambolic or anything.

[HeyJude]

Extra dork awards go to the Struts guy, who kind of came across like a bad Mick Jagger impersonator, and that Charlie Puth guy for seemingly not actually playing his piano and whatever the f*** it was he was wearing. And what sounded like autotune.

[Alex]

It's not everyday that "respectable" artists share a bill with radio country acts and top 40 pap.

[HeyJude]

Setlist.fm seems to only have the show logged under each performer, but this is what they show for the song lineup (certainly not in this order):

Beck - Sloop John B
Brandi Carlile - In My Room
Brandi Carlile & John Legend - God Only Knows
Weezer - California Girls
Fall Out Boy - Do You Wanna Dance
John Legend - Sail on Sailor
Lady A - Surfer Girl
St. Vincent - You Still Believe In Me
Hanson - Barbara Ann
Charlie Puth - Wouldn't It Be Nice
Norah Jones - The Warmth of the Sun
Little Big Town - Help Me Rhonda
Take 6 & Michael McDonald - Don't Worry Baby
My Morning Jacket - I Get Around
LeAnn Rimes - Caroline, No
Pentatonix - Heroes and Villains
Luke Spiller & Taylor Momsen - Surfin' USA, Fun Fun Fun
Andy Grammer - Darlin'
Beck & Jim James - Good Vibrations
Mumford & Sons - I Know There's An Answer
Foster the People - Do It Again

I added a few from YouTube that aren't on setlist.fm yet. Could be more stuff missing, or incomplete details still.

[MyDrKnowsItKeepsMeCalm]

John Legend doing Sail on Sailor. Nice!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCOAHG5Njnc

[MyDrKnowsItKeepsMeCalm]

Pentatonix on Heroes and Villains -- pretty cool to my ears.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9ddcHu4hfQ

[Rocker]

Nice to see the Boys together. And imo it's probably for the better that they didn't perform. I guess those days are over.

[HeyJude]

I’m surprised there are fans on social media asking why Blondie and Ricky weren’t at this thing. I mean, I’m not saying I would be *opposed* to them appearing, but I can’t fathom why anybody would have expected it. Blondie and Ricky have *never* been featured at any band events of this sort, whether tribute shows, anniversary shows, etc. The band just released a big boxed set that prominently features Blondie and Ricky and properly contextualizes their place in the band’s history.

Barring “Sail on Sailor”, nothing at the show focused on the Blondie/Ricky era. If it was a “Tribute to So Tough and Holland”, then I’d say it would make sense to have Blondie and Ricky there. But I think most of us just feel like, yeah, that’s the core five up there in the balcony. Again, I’d love to see Blondie and Ricky also appear with the guys; I wouldn’t have balked at all at seeing all seven up there. But I don’t feel it’s like a slight that Blondie and Ricky aren’t there.

Also, I think fans scoffing at their exclusion seem to not understand the band/corporate/interpersonal politics that *still* permeate everything these guys do, even in a situation like this when it’s mostly outside producers putting on the show, and even with Iconic owning a majority stake in the band. Even then, there’s still politics and I think adding Blondie and Ricky would complicate things (to say nothing of whether they would even want to show; Ricky seems pretty low key when it comes to BB stuff especially.)

[juggler]

I'd bet my last dollar that if someone had asked members of this forum to assign seats to the five based on public knowledge of cordial interpersonal relationships (or lack thereof), 98% of us would probably have come up with precisely the same Brian, Al, David, Bruce, Mike lineup that happened. 

[HeyJude]

Just like the infamous "striped shirts" debate on the SiriusXM thing from 2018, there are all sorts of interpretations of that seating arrangement, from the very cynical to the pragmatic to the optimistic. But sure, it makes sense. The more pragmatic/optimistic interpretation would be that since Al has been with Brian more in recent years, he's more familiar with Brian's situation/needs, and Brian is more comfortable with him. The cynical reading of course is that they keep Brian and Mike as far away from each other as possible (and then Al and Mike the next farthest away from each other as possible, etc.).

I suspect they of course all talked/met up for at least some amount of time before and/or after the show. I think the degree to which anybody conversed with Brian would depend a lot on precisely how he's doing these days, and we still don't know exactly. That he showed up is certainly a better sign than *not* showing up.

[HeyJude]

I'm always curious how the song selection happens, whether it's the producers or the artists. I'm sure it's some of both in most cases.

But it's worth noting that, as far as I can tell, "Kokomo" was NOT performed. Did that even cross Mike's mind? Does he care? All relatively interesting questions.

[HeyJude]

While the overall slant of the song selections is not surprising at all, I guess I'm a tiny bit surprised there wasn't *something* a bit more out of the ordinary. This was all "Sounds of Summer" selections plus a couple "Pet Sounds" tracks. The only even slightly arguably "obscure" song was "I Know There's An Answer." But I can't not be a bit disappointed that after years of PS and Smile boxed sets, and other stuff honing in other eras, we still get "Barbara Ann" and "Do You Wanna Dance."