I really enjoyed 1976, as it was the first time I saw The Beach Boys live. A quick note regarding the show in Peoria on August 9, 1976... which I attended. I loved John Amberg's remembrances of that concert. John is an old college and radio buddy of mine from our SIU-Carbondale days. A quick correction. Bruce Johnston was not present at the 8/9/1976 performance.
In 2012, on the occasion of the release of THAT'S WHY GOD MADE THE RADIO, I wrote an article about the Beach Boys for a journalist friend's blog, focusing on the magic summer of 1976. The full article is here, with photos:
https://robinchapmannews.blogspot.com/2012/06/endless-summers-with-beach-boys.html#moreBut here are my memories of that particular show:
All over the world people who have never even been to the beach, have their own special year that marks their perfect Beach Boys summer.
These are the times when each of us has discovered the freedom of the open road (or at least borrowed the family car); days of freedom--maybe at the beach, or in my case, a Midwestern lake; nights at the drive-in (movies AND burgers); our first (or second) high school love; and, most of all, the music of the Beach Boys, which seems to underscore just about every activity and emotion we experienced.
For some, it was the summer of 1965, when "California Girls" was on the radio, network TV shows went color, gas was cheap, and that war in Vietnam was just about to heat up. The Beach Boys were young and fresh and innocent. And so were we--though after that war, none of us would ever be the same, even those of us too young to fight. We watched our brothers and sisters and cousins and fathers go off to a conflict nothing like what we saw in our favorite war movies and come back--if they were lucky enough to come back--changed forever. It was a time that changed the Beach Boys, too, as they began to go through, what Van Dyke Parks called their own “fire,” with drugs, the aborted "Smile"project, Brian’s partial withdrawal from the band and the fear that they were no longer relevant for their audience. Some thought they had become, in Beach Boy Bruce Johnston’s words, “surfing Doris Days…”
For some of us, we jump ahead twenty three years to 1988. Thanks to their real talent and a Tom Cruise movie called Cocktail, the Beach Boys were back with a number one hit called “Kokomo,” which was all over MTV.
But for the long time fan, like me, the greatest Beach Boys summer was 1976, as the gas crisis hit (even though I could still fill up the family 1970 Kingswood Estate Station Wagon for twenty bucks a tank). That was the summer "Saturday Night Live" kicked into high gear with an NBC TV Special about the Beach Boys.
At the time, the Boys had been at it for fifteen years and, some thought, they looked it. But the girls still liked Dennis; Mike was funny and cool; Al was mellow and cool; Carl was just so cool; and, gee, Brian was back!
It was comeback time for the band; we’d worn out our eight-tracks of those eternal "Endless Summer" and "Spirit of America" albums just in time for a brand new hit record by the Boys, produced by Brian Wilson, called "15 Big Ones."
So, my buddies Doug Workman, Dave Garriott, and I each bought copies of that album and I made a cassette tape and we cruised all over the roads of Decatur, Illinois that summer in Dave’s convertible 1968 Camaro, singing along to the Boys new radio hits: "It’s OK"; Chuck Berry’s “Rock & Roll Music”; and a couple of great sing-alongs called “Back Home” and “Palisades Park.”
We turned north one summer night in July, headed for Peoria and an outdoor concert featuring the Beach Boys! We sang along to that new album, and when we turned it off, more Beach Boys hits blasted through the AM radio courtesy of the Big 89, WLS, from Chicago: "Surfin’ USA”; “Fun Fun Fun”; "Help Me Rhonda"; and (Dave’s favorite) “Do It Again.”
Sometime in the early evening, as the free-spirit warmth of that 1970s sun began to set, the Beach Boys took the stage. Backed by a band equal to any on the road in those days, they exploded through a two-hour set of their biggest and their newest hits.
We laughed at every bad joke from Mike and sang along with every song. And Mike, whirling like Mick Jagger, with a little help from drummer Dennis Wilson, whipped us into a rock and roll frenzy with the hits… "Help Me Rhonda"… "I Get Around"… "Good Vibrations"… "Barbara Ann"… "Fun Fun Fun."
And, as teenagers with hormones raging, we all got big damned lumps in our throats during those beautiful ballads like "In My Room" and "Surfer Girl" because we all had girls we had crushes on (or at least high hopes for).
This was back in the day when lyrics like this meant something to a teenager: “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could wake-up/In the morning when the day is new… And after having spent the day together/Hold each other close the whole night through.”
When you’re young and in love those words mean so much to you, especially when tied to a Brian Wilson melody.
Maybe when you’re old and in love, too.
And then it was all over. Dave and Doug and I looked at each other on that sweltering 1976 summer night, sweat cooling, thanks to a surprise breeze, and all we could talk about were the Beach Boys. And California. Definitely California. We were all gonna move to Los Angeles. The summer after graduation. We’d live out there and hang with the Beach Boys.
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