The Smiley Smile Message Board

So, lost in all the talk of the drama of Mike/Bruce vs. the world, the box set date, Brian's health, etc., nobody's talking about the fact that it was confirmed that Capital will indeed release a live album.  I know we all assumed that it was going to happen, but isn't this (what Mike said about future albums - pretty sure I saw it in another thread) the first time it's been said by a Beach Boy.

I cannot tell you how excited this makes me. I hope they do a fairly comprehensive set and not cull it down to 25 songs or so....how about either one entire show or a compilation of all or close to all the 60+ songs played on the tour?  and an accompanying DVD would be great too. Call it "The Beach Boys: 60 for 50 In Concert" or something like that. 

I look forward to this almost as much as the box set. Almost.

What are thoughts from the board on the live album?

I think I'm the only person on the forum who doesn't really care about The Beach Boys as a live band very much at all (except for the early '70s obviously)...

Really?! Did you see any of the shows this year? If not, that's why...

Give us more live early 70s BBs with Blondie and Ricky ("Wild Honey!"), or Beachago.  Then a reunion gig LP.

I wasn't able to, and probably, yeah... :(

Ugh...I could definitely do without hearing Blondie Chaplin screeching through "Wild Honey."

Agreed give me the raw 1964 Sacramento tapes of the BBs kicking ass with Brian on Bass.

I'm sure a live album/video is in the works.  It just hasn't been officially announced yet.  Considering all the other BB releases coming out, I wouldn't be surprised if this thing ends up coming out next year. 

I would buy a "Blondie Chaplin Reimagines Brian Wilson" album and listen to it 17 times every day.

Honestly, I was at a show this year, and it was one of the best I've ever been to......however I don't really care for a live album to be released. I'd much prefer that they get the box set out as soon as they can, along with the release of the remasters for the other albums that aren't be included in the first round.

But if they had to, I'd prefer a live album that included a lot of stuff that maybe hasn't been played by the guys as much as other stuff has. So for instance, a solid live album would include stuff like "This Whole World", "Good Timin'", "Marcella", "It's OK", etc. A DVD would honestly be preferable, but I suppose if they do put out a live album, I will likely buy it as long as they make at least somewhat appealing to a fan like myself.

I'm not excited about the live album, either - dvd would be preferrable, but if they get around to some archive releases someday, would love to hear some vintage live stuff. Even from the 80's. Anything that has Carl on it is worth buying.

I hope they put "California Dreamin" on there even though it was dropped from the setlist, Brian rocked that vocal, especially the shouty bit.

So long as Joe Thomas isn't producing...



Which is about as likely as Bruce voting for Obama  :(

Yeah. I'm a tad bit concerned about the mix / autotune factor.

If they apply some very subtle pitch correction here and there, and lay low on the extra effects (drum processing, vocal delay, etc), it could be pretty awesome.

Who knows though, they autotuned the crap out of McCartney's last live release.

I look forward to hearing the studio version of Isn't It Time with added reverb and crowd sounds. Again.

I am hoping for a compilation that has all of the songs that were played live.  I realize that is pretty unlikely though.

I'd really love a live album from this tour; I guess I just share everone's concerns about pitch-correction or re-recording parts to make them "perfect". I'd rather have fewer songs if it meant hearing the actual performances.

If there is a live jeff or DVD from this tour, it'll be the first BBs release i won't buy. I just don't care.

And this coming from a person who bought (new) Stars n Stripes (CD and DVD), Summer in Paradise, Brian Wilson on Tour, even the Brian Wilson Tribute DVD with David Crosby and Paul Simon. I bought the Knebworth CD and DVD, but i rarely listen to or watch them.

With live music i don't just want a recreation of the album tracks, i want something more. Something about the live experience should add to the music, rather than applauding the way the people in front of you sounds just like they do on the record.

I will happily buy boxed sets, downloads, whatever, of unreleased studio material, but live? Not from the BBs.

I feel this way about their early live material (it sounds virtually the same as the studio recordings - only with thousands of screaming girls in the background). However, the Live At Knebworth album gives their songs a whole new dimension...It's like hearing AC/DC take on a slew of Beach Boys songs.

This will (probably) be the last Beach Boys Live album ever released . Please Capital, do it right. Two or three CD's. 50 songs for 50 years. Maybe every song played on the tour?

The tour was so great and successful I can see a 'Legacy" box set featuring CD's and DVDs of the show(s). An updated tour program with recent tour photos. Rehearsal material. Reproduction tickets and passes. There has got to be a bunch of behind-the-scenes stuff. Another box set? Why not! For those of you who couldn't make it to the shows, they were fantastic!

Yeah, I'm hoping for a bunch of early, mid and late 1970's concert releases. They need to start a download service if they can't release the shows in wide distribution.

Thank you Beach Boys and Capital Records!  :)

I'm looking forward to the live album. I hope we'll get the complete Chicago '65 show too soon. And some more Blondie/Ricky live performances

To me, this is a no-brainer. It should be a 2 CD set. The first CD would contain all of songs performed during the first part of the concert, and the second CD would contain all of the songs from the second half of the show. Two CDs would also alllow room for the in-between song patter, including all of Mike Love's one liners!

However, I doubt we'll get 2 CD's. They'll cram as many songs on an 80 minute CD as possible, with little or no talking in between songs. BTW, I hope Joe Thomas IS involved with the live CD. Everytime Joe is involved or co-producing, Brian and the other Beach Boys sound good. And, I don't think Brian's vocals were especially strong on the reunion tour. Some vocals such as "This Whole World", "You're So Good To Me", "Sail On Sailor", and his part on "Add Some Music" were a bit shouty. They could use some tweaking. 

You are Joe Thomas and I claim my five pounds.

I would go for the 2 cd set with every song played on the tour.  get the best performances of each song and put them all on one package in a sequence close to where they were in the performance.  I'll buy it.  damn the price, just do it RIGHT!

I'd rather hear BW sound like he did on TLOS or BWPS for the live album. Minor tuning.. no heavy autotune throughout the performances like on the TWGMTR album.

No, seriously, hypehat. I was at one show and saw many of the YouTube videos. While I loved Brian's 100% attendance and participation during the reunion, I was not overly impressed with his vocals. Brian's vocals on the Gershwin and Disney albums were improved, mainly due to his reverting to a somewhat tender voice. Other than that Rolling Stone acoustic performance, I didn't hear that tender voice. And, on some of the upbeat songs, the shoutiness was back, mainly because his 2012 voice is no longer suited to 1964-70 songs such as "You're So Good To Me" , "Do You Wanna Dance", and "This Whole World".

But what would auto-tuning achieve? The main problem with them doing it on the early dates was that, because Brian's vocals were shakey (that's just BW live, as you well know), the software threw the pitch everywhere. Whoever's producing might have the dedication to sift through every single Brian vocal and fix each little fluctuation that Brian does when going for Heroes & Villains, but if they can't do it for singles (see Isn't It Time, Brian's lead jumps all over the shop) it doesn't look good.

I would rather they just accept it's essentially unfixable, but it's also not broke.

Actually, that's what I'm hoping for, to meticulously go over every note. That's their job in preparing a live album. Hey, how many songs or notes are we talking about anyway? But, I'm not as opposed to auto-tuning as most, as long as it's done "right", whatever that means. Somebody mentioned McCartney's recent Live In New York CD. Yeah, you can tell it was worked on - Paul ain't THAT good anymore vocally - but I enjoy it nevertheless. I stopped trying to figure out which vocal was corrected...

If it ever existed in the first place, what would be wrong with the notion of releasing a live album "warts and all"? Or else do what bands like Pearl Jam have done for years and make entire live shows from previous tours available to buy officially as full concerts, rather than compilations and cut-and-paste affairs from many shows.

Just an informal poll - would most fans want that "warts and all" option over a sterilized "live" compilation which has been extensively fixed and doctored, and may have songs pulled from a dozen different shows or even individual songs comped from several performances in order to find the best one?

Ultimately it doesn't matter if people get enjoyment from listening, but it's just out of curiosity to find out whether people prefer the sterilized and perfected live compilations over full shows.

It's possible, but no one in the Beach Boys/Brian camp seems interested in making a vocal sound good anymore. Too much money? I don't know. Whatever the case, they just throw an autotune filter over the entire vocal and somehow always deem it appropriate and well-done when it ain't.

Both would be cool. Give the casual fan the doctored, ideal listening experience that gives the best representations from the tour and sell manufactured-as-needed CDs of individual shows for the people who went to them.

I don't think they'd ever go with the latter option, though.

I'd be all for comping performances, especially for BW. I'd just want them to use Melodyne carefully and not make any pitch correction obvious, leaving things like slides between notes in tact. Honestly it doesn't even take that long to do. I could knock out a solid melodyne'd lead in 30 minutes.

That's ^^ exactly what I want. From 1976 onward, we've lived with Brian's vocals keeping his various songs from reaching their full potential. If, on this live album, that can be prevented tastefully, I'm all for it.

30 minutes is too long for these folks given the sound of some recent things.

Paul Simon just released a live album from his last tour this week...2 CDs and 1 DVD of the concert performance.  They removed the three/four cover songs Paul performed in the show.  The bummer was that the companion DVD was in stereo--no 5.1 mix.  Shame because it was shot absolutely beautifully.  Impeccable cinematography. 

The Beach Boys can easily release a 2 CD live set.  Will they, though?   It's possible.  They had a massive  live set on this tour.  I can't see them knowingly playing it down by shrinking it down to just 1 CD.

It really can be man. If I could get my hands on, for instance, BW's raw verse vocal from "Isn't It Time", I could show with a simple A/B comparison how much more integrity could be left in the performance with some more careful vocal editing. If I had the opportunity to tune the vocals for the live album..  I'd not only get the job done better, but it would cost them way less money than what they would have to pay in studio time / engineering fees to edit vocals at Ocean Way. 35 / hr. Think about it Capitol. First song's on me. You don't like it, you stick with Joe "zero-retune" Thomas ;)

I liked Brian's voice on the NPR show - thought it sounded better than Mike's!  I hope the tracklist is more adventurous than the NPR show, however.

"Sail on sailor" from the NPR recording sounds terrible. His (Brian's) voice is so heavily autotuned.

I hope we'll get some good versions of Marcella and This Whole World on the CD

Yes! I agree...Marcella kicked major a$$ when I saw them in June.

I'd expect that we'd get a good portion of the obscure songs especially it is Brian who sings lead on most of them ("Marcella" "You're So Good To Me" "I Just Wasn't Made For These Times" "This Whole World" etc).  In order for Brian's presence to be made on this live album (and DVD) they'd need to have some of the obscurer songs included.  Otherwise, it's just 2 hours of Brian in the background doing background vocals and playing piano.  Not exactly a selling point for a live album or DVD...

Agree re Brian vox.
Agree re method of tuning if tuning is to be done.
Strongly disagree, based on TWGMTR, that Joe T. is the man for the job.

I'll do it for $25/hr.  ;)  Doubt that the PTB are too anxious to give the gig to guys hanging out on BBs message boards, though.  :)

This guy!

Oh yeah, it's a long shot but what the hell.  I wouldn't be surprised if our collective bitching about BW's live autotune prompted them to kill it a few shows in. "The majors are watching".

Indeed they are!

The bitching about auto-tune (smetimes by people who didn't have a clue but were just jumping on the band wagon) was reflected in some of the reviews by writers who read these boards and also wouldn't have a clue what auto-tune was.

I'm with you on that. I enjoyed BWs vocals a lot on this tour. Some of the rockier songs sounded good, imo, but the real highlight at the show for me, as far as his vocals go, was "please let me wonder." He sounded so great on that.

I am farily excited by this.

I would like to see a 2CD /3LP set lasting over two hours running through the majority of the songs they've played on this tour. Probably culled from several performances to give us the best performances and best variety of material.

A live DVD or Blu-Ray should be different, maybe one complete concert to give the impression of being there for those who can't make a gig or as a memory for those who did.

my .02

Small problem...  A full concert the length of the Sydney one is actually slightly too long for two CDs!

Cheers,
Jon Blum

Sort of like the planned Single LP In Concert as it exists. ( but then, I suppose all the warts would have been removed before release)

The only BB live recording better than the raw 1964 Sacramento tapes is -IMHO- the 1964 Sydney recording of "What'd I Say". I hope they include that in the coming box set. Their TAMI show performance also exceeded Sacramento, but the recording is drowned in audience screaming.

From the current tour I'd prefer a DVD rather than a CD or double CD.

Going from the bootlegs I think the Sacramento '64 are great and the original "Beach Boys' Concert" album doesn't come near the excitement the shows had.
And yes, "What'd I say" is awesome. There's also the '64 swedish radio broadcast which features a live version of "Louie, Louie". One or two discs of great early live performances (the striped-shirt years) wuld be cool. Chicago '65... bring it on !