The Smiley Smile Message Board

I find it interesting how the Beach Boys were still a huge draw in Europe, but not so much in the US. But I was wondering if there were cities within the US that continued to support them. Obviously not on the east coast, but I heard a live show in Seattle and it sounded like a pretty good audeince.

What was the extent of their popularity decline in this period, anyway? Aside from the stories I've heard of cancelled shows due to not enough sold tickets and shows to half-full (if that) venues as well as poor (in the U.S. at least) album sales, how hard was it for the BBs exactly? Were they actually hurting for money, for instance, or did they get enough from song royalties due to their extensively popular back catalogue to be more than just "comfortable"?

Just look at their chart placings.

1966 - Pet Sounds #10 and Best Of Vol 1 went gold.
1967 - Smiley Smile (Smiley smile for foda's sake!!!!) reached #42 and Wild Honey (the homemade 26 minute masterpiece) made, what #24?
1968 - Friends album #126.
1969 - 20/20 #68
1970 - Sunflower #151.

You know Murry was comfortable due to the song royalties.
While they were on a decline, they might not have lost as much popularity, had they not tried to tour with Sexy Sadie

They toured with Susan Atkins? No wonder all their fans fu*ked off.  :lol

I don't think that counts because people who went to a Beach Boys concert probably also were fans or at least interested in them. One has to concentrate on ticket sales, magazine articles, etc

It's really strange that they were as big as anyone in the UK but the US didn't notice or didn't want to

Not after November 1969.  ;D

Well, I also heard the one in Syracuse University? (boot entitled Its About Time) where the audience was fairly quiet. Of course it may have helped in the Seattle show since Brian was there.

I was at the November 1971 show at Georgetown University in DC and it was sold out and well appreciated by the crowd.  Jack Reilly came out before the show and asked the crowd not to call out songs until the end because the set list was already determined.  Somebody kept calling out "Don't Back Down!" during the second half anyway (there was an intermission). Dennis played drums during the encore.  The ads in the papers (obviously a Reilly concoction) stated "They've changed more than you".  I kept one of those ads for a while but it's long gone. There was applause when they mentioned their "new" album Surf's Up, which I was happy about, it wasn't getting any airplay.  The next time they showed up in my area was in April 1972 at the U. of Maryland, one of Bruce's last shows, and the crowd was larger.  I went to every show regionally (probably 15 shows) that I could get to after that up to but not including the Beachago circus.  The only one not well attended was the 2nd of 2 shows at Constitution Hall in DC in November 1972 (the first one appeared to be a near sellout, I was at both).  That 2nd show was great- Mike called everyone down to the front and they rocked to their most rabid DC fans for 2 hours- they did River Song and We Got Love- Mike had his maharaja outfit on for Jumpin' Jack Flash.  I stopped going to their shows 1974-1977 because they were monstrous again and played mostly hits.  Once Brian started touring in 1977 I went regularly, but it was sometimes painful to see him- he was very nervous. The last time I eagerly went to a Beach Boys show was in summer 1983 when they were doing shows after sporting events.  Mine was a soccer game at the famous RFK stadium in DC.  It was the last time I saw Dennis.  Brian was newly slimmed down and had a lot of energy- standing up and pounding the keys, playing tambourine, even waltzing with Dennis during the encore.  I only saw them one more time after that- in 1991 and they had dancing girls through the whole show- the crowd loved it but it seemed forced to me.  I've only seen Brian shows since then.

Those are some great recollections, gxios. Thanks for sharing.

Yours is a similar experience to mine, and I agree with Smile Holland...Whom I don't remember is Jack Reilly; I just wanted the Boys out there, rocking out!  The College Tour was a great one, I thought, to get out the more progressive stuff, especially, since the topic here are the 1968-1972 years and which bridged high school, where they appeared in a more general setting, like a sports arena or concert hall. 

Was it tacky to announce to a crowd that no requests would be honored?  Probably.  Especially, if you were looking to rebuild your popularity. 

Boston College hosted them in 1972, and it was a great show!

But, I think the difference, as between the UK and the US, is more reflective of what was going on in those years.  We had a lot of racial strife, war protests over Vietnam, and Watergate, and it was a more emotionally intense and stressful time in the US.   

People may have thought that they could not afford the luxury of this music, or felt too guilty to allow themselves a  place to have some fun.  After the Vietnam War was over, and the troops came home, there was a great resurgence, and partly, because they felt they could finally relax and have some Fun, Fun Fun!   ;)

 

Sure, whatever. Why let the band play what they want, when you obviously know better what they should be playing. 
 What's tacky is yelling out for songs you want to hear while the band is playing something that maybe you  don't like , but the person in the next row is dying to hear. 
tacky is yelling out songs anyway,when you've been told the band already has a set list,and so please wait til the end/encore to yell out your favorites.

bgas - Point well taken.  And it is tacky to yell out songs while the band is in the middle of another one.  There is plenty of "dead air time" or  banter-time when a request or two might be taken.  And, I just reread that Jack said to hold the requests till the end.  My bad for not reading more carefully.  Mea culpa!  I do like your icon!   ;)

It was likely that they were a more intellectual crowd since it was on campus and more likely to listen to the newer stuff, but people who did not have familiarity with the more obscure stuff like Smiley, Friends, Sunflower and 20/20 or Surfs Up (from 1971) might be more inclined to listen and not get up and walk out when they didn't know the newer music.  (Again, mea culpa.)   

Yes it is...I'm reminded of the story of Roger Waters' reaction to a fan asking repeatedly for "Careful with that Axe Eugene".

REally?  I hadn't heard, can you repeat it?

He went over to him and spit on him. Allegedly, that was the inspiration for The Wall.

In the live show at Syracuse in 1971, a fan requests Surf City. And Mike responds by saying well, maybe we can get Jan and Dean out here to do it for you. That always cracked me up.

Ah the irony in that just about ten years later, I found myself asking "Why are they playing Jan & Dean songs when there's plenty of other Beach Boys songs they could do instead!"  Thankfully, I was never withness to "Duke of Earl" and all that stuff.

Proof positive that Roger Waters is , was and shall always be a dick.

Quite...there is tacky, and then there is quite disgusting lol.

"Oh, for f***'s sake, stop letting off fireworks and shouting and screaming! I'm trying to sing a song! I mean, I don't care! You don't wanna hear it, you know...? f*** you. I'm sure there's a lot of people here who DO want to hear it! So why don't you just be quiet? And if you want to let your fireworks off, go outside and let them off out there. But if you want to shout and scream go and do it out there. I'm trying to sing a song that some people want to listen to. I want to listen to it!"

Every Pink Floyd fan knows that quote verbatim...I've seen it many a time as a signature on Floyd forums!  :lol

Fans can be extremely annoying sometimes, but Spitting on a fan is as low as performer can go because fans support them by buying tickets and albums. I may resent Mike Love sometimes with his stage act and personality causing problems over the years, but Roger Waters makes Mike's issues look like child's play.

Performers hating on their fans is by no means a rare occurrence. GG Allin made it a point to do whatever he wished to himself AND his audience. Suicide made their reputation by assaulting their audiences with noise and then verbally berating them; in some cases frontman Alan Vega got into brawls with the audience. Throbbing Gristle were also known to hate their audiences as well. Marilyn Manson was known to threaten to beat up fans who came onstage. I'd say spitting on a fan is pretty tame.

I guess i take back what i said about spitting being as low as a perfomer can go to hate on the fans ;D

Search out some Suicide or Throbbing Gristle live material from 1976-77 just to see how far the hatred went. :)

People went to see GG Allin and they perfectly knew what to expect, in fact I think they would've been disappointed if he didn't do what he was known for. That's the difference I think.

That's also true. Suicide and Throbbing Gristle are a better example of an audience's unexpected reaction to their music. Try and find the Suicide 23 Minutes Over Brussels flexi (now commonly on CD); they opened for Elvis Costello and 30 seconds into their set they were being booed mercilessly. The show ended with Alan Vega fighting with the crowd after insulting them left and right. Elvis Costello then played for 20 minutes as retaliation and then the crowd rioted.

All this talk about bands vs. the audience makes think about the beach boys dealing with fans. I think of Brian's really tame incident where he told the audience to cool it with the screaming during God Only Knows at the Lei'd in Hawaii show.

Who was it that shot a machine gun loaded with blanks into the audience?

Oh man, 23 Minutes Over Brussels is something else.

Oh yeah...Suicide are among the most underrated live bands. You really don't know what kind of Suicide you'll see/hear. Sometimes Alan's in a "good mood" and sometimes he's absolutely on the edge. Especially in 1978 when they would play their tune Harlem...cold open with nothing but Alan screaming at the top of his lungs.

I've got a bootleg dvd of a Nirvana show in Argentina. Kurt's pissed off because the audience booed the opening band off stage, so he gets his revenge by playing the intro to 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' several times throughout the set, but never actually playing the song, and by throwing in several feedback jams. The audience didn't deserve better, so I thought that was really cool.

I'm listening to Lookin down the Coast right now, and when I read this, I was thinking of Alan Jardine  =^*^=

I saw a documentary on George Lucas' impact on American culture. American Graffiti came out in '73. Curious if you remember that movie having that kind of impact for you guys.

The thing about AMERICAN GRAFFITI is that it was intended to be nostalgic for an era merely a decade earlier, but what must have seemed like a lifetime in those years. The film is about the last moments before massive changes occur in American culture. When you learn at the end that one of the main characters was later killed in Vietnam, seconds before "All Summer Long" plays under the end credits, the idyllic romance the film has set up is destroyed. GRAFFITI (along with HAPPY DAYS and GREASE) were huge parts of America's retro love of all things 50s (even though GRAFFITI takes place in '62) and I believe that environment really helped make ENDLESS SUMMER a huge seller.

By the way, I love how Paul LeMat's character in GRAFFITI views the Beach Boys (at that point, the new up-and-coming band) as inauthentic since he is old enough to have loved Buddy Holly a few years earlier and has interest in moving on in his life.