The Smiley Smile Message Board

Interesting footage that I've never seen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2zFZlyjnBw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2zFZlyjnBw)

Proof that the hippies really DID dig the Boys again by this time, after having banished them to the "square, has-beens" wasteland for a good four years or so. I think the beards helped!

It's very interesting trying to wrap my head around watching this. The footage is phenomenal and I'm so glad it exists.

C-man, I'd say your statement is only partly right! :) I think a good amount of hippies were still trying their best to give the band the cold shoulder at this time. But the camera can see it changing a bit in front of us, too. It's a transitional period that got documented.

Watching the crowd react to the band is also really a trip, it almost seems like more members of the crowd "want" to dance around and enjoy the music, but perhaps some of them think they are too cool for school and wind up looking a bit standoffish.

But nevertheless some other people are dancing (it would appear to be a relatively small amount of the crowd), and that almost gives "permission" for other hipsters in the crowd to start bopping their heads and outwardly enjoy the music as well.

Around this time period, I think some young people were second-guessing what was socially acceptable to like and enjoy. I mean, I'm sure people had their tastes legitimately change anyway, and some people just didn't really dig The BBs anymore...but there was also a secondary matter of how much some people were willing to outwardly show they were enjoying music (being performed by musicians who for the last several years had largely been thought of by the hipster elite as being "squares") in the event that showing enjoyment would cause some sort of social repercussions in their elite social group.

From a social perspective and trying to understand "The BBs are unhip and very uncool" wilderness years mentality, and how that perception wound up changing and turning around, this is truly an invaluable historical document. It's almost like you can begin to see the cracks in that perception here. Also this is particularly interesting because this wasn't a "Beach Boys show", it was a festival with multiple bands, so you're seeing the reaction of many people who are just seeing the band inadvertently, who likely didn't go there for the specific reason to see The BBs play.

I posted this a while back in the media-section, while I was looking for more on the May Day show.


(https://aadl.org/sites/default/files/aa_sun/aa_sun_19710507_p002-001.jpg)


I saw some recollections online about people who went there. The Boys seemed to have made an impression, even though they weren't what the people came out for in the first place.

Jack Rieley was right!

The Beach Boys are Freeks now!

My earliest memories of The Beach Boys are hearing my sister (ten years older than me) spinning her 45 of "California Girls" and "Let Him Run Wild" on one of those cheap portable record players in our garage. My next memory of The Beach Boys was seeing them on TV a few years later, with my sister and our mom (had to be the 1971 "Good Vibrations From Central Park" special aired a few months after this May Day event). I recall my sister saying, "Remember when The Beach Boys were clean-cut and wore white tennis shoes? Now they're hippies!"  :)

Seeing a group of hippies with their arms draped over each others' shoulders, kick-dancing chorus-line style to "Wouldn't It Be Nice" at an anti-war rally is so cool...and reminds me of how, twenty years later, I was close to the stage for a Beach Boys show at a state fair, and saw a group of 16-year old or so girls doing the exact same thing to the same song, speaks volumes of the timelessness and universal appeal of this music...! :)

Wow…I think what makes this special is seeing Dennis on drums right before his hand incident.  I was lucky to see them play in Central Park that same year which was a PBS special and videos of the 30 minute PBS special are available.  I was 13 and it was my first concert.  I have listened to them everyday since and I’m now 63.  It would be great to see this concert in full.  I’m sure professional video exists as displayed here.  Although I was blown away at Central Park, I always thought having Dennis on the drums gave the band completeness.  This video would of the May 1 concert would fulfill my wildest dreams.  I would love to show my kids what I experienced in 1971 so they could understand my obsession.  They only know the BB on video from later concert videos and mtv of Kokomo.