1978 on my site

[Ian]

Here is 1978 on my site (beachboysgigs.com).  As you can see you can see photos (usually from the show if available), reviews, etc. As always you can also look at previous years 1961-1977.  There is also a blog-under Additions (from the home page)-that lists updates to the book I did with Jon (I have worked on that up to 1974-there is more to do there).   Here is a link to 1978  www.beachboysgigs.com/1978-2/

[Rocker]

Just a couple of days ago I wondered if you update the site soon. Great job as usual! It reads as fascinating as a book.

[Ian]

Glad you enjoyed it

[Don Malcolm]

Ian--at a remove of 45+ years, it's easy to forget what a tumultuous year 1978 really was for the band. Some of that was captured in semi-real time by David Leaf in his first update to "the Myth" (as he likes to call it now), but your on-the-ground, almost-blow-by-blow chronicle captures it in (literally and figuratively) glorious-but-gory detail. A lot of suffering in the psyches of the Wilson brothers, who were all having problems with the "noose of success" that had tightened around each of them in similar but different ways.

The pictures you provide are also riveting, as we can see the tip of decline coming for both Brian and Dennis, despite the fact that in many of the photos they look better than one's memory of the time recalls. The newspaper quotes and insider commentaries from the road fill in further details, ranging from humorous to harrowing.

It's just a tremendous, unflinching portrait of a group literally trapped by the dark, lingering afterglow of their earlier success.

Major kudos for the dedication on display to grind through one of the most fraught periods in the band's history...

[adamghost]

Great stuff man.

[Ian]

Yeah I view 1977-78 as a real tragic time-Dennis and Brian with the right love and support could have really blossomed at that time but everything was at a knife’s edge and the lack of support at that time led them down a dark path. Certainly Dennis never came back and the Brian who came back in 1983 was a different man