The Smiley Smile Message Board

I am sure this topic has been brought up before, but after recently watching some clips of Knebworth 1980 and the Washington July 4 show of 1980 I have been thinking.

IMO on the Knebworth show Dennis looked really good...somewhat hoarse on You Are So Beautiful, but overall energetic and engaged. Fewer than 3 weeks later after getting a haircut and having his beard shaved he looked really bad. His timing seemed way off and the look in his eye was really concerning. Throughout the show Carl seemed to be glancing back at Dennis with looks like Billy Hinsche described in Endless Harmony.

So between June 21 and July 4, was there someting that happened to his health. I looked theough Jon's books and Badman's as well but can't find anything.

Coulda been f***ed up on heroin or pills. Or booze. All of those things coulda just put him in bad shape.

Dennis may have been the same 3 weeks earlier. Years ago on the ego board I seem to remember prior to Knebworth being released Bruce saying a lot of work would have to be done on the concert footage itself and some speculated it was the way Dennis 'looked'. This wasn't denied by Bruce.

One song, I can't recall which, Dennis is drumming with dry hair to begin with, then wet with perspiration , then back to dry again, which I always put down to him not looking too good at some points and some doctoring work done.

Knebworth was freezing cold ("Too cold to whistle") and Dennis was bearded with long hair and wearing a sweater, so (other than any substance related issues) he was probably pretty comfortable and able to give the show his all. There were some sloppiness issues, sure, but this is rock n roll and a lot of it seemed to have to do with Dennis being in a good mood and goofing off with Mike Meros rather than being physically off.... There's the biffed ending on Rock N Roll Music (Dennis tries to end the song too early) but that's the kind of thing I've seen countless times with bands..... The D.C show looks hot and uncomfortable all and all. Carl biffs a lyric and looks pissed, Bruce gets up to cheerlead and gets back to his keyboard too late and Mike looks like his pants are cutting off his circulation. Aside from the timing issues here and there, Dennis seems to be more practiced than at Knebworth, so I chalk it up to mood, temperature, if anything.

Just my two cents.

 :lol Thanks, that just makes me laugh.

Seriously, I think Dennis shaving was the main thing. The beard two weeks earlier covered a lot of that up.

It is kind of amusing to watch and listen to Dennis's performance at Knebworth. His drumming starts off solidly enough but by the end of the concert is bloody awful.

Funny, I always thought Dennis looked better at Washington D.C. than Knebworth, apart from what seems to be a bruise or a cut on his cheek just below the eye socket. I think the beard made him look older. I remember the first time I saw Dennis singing YASB on the Knebworth dvd, I remarked to my father that he looked like a homeless man. I've always wondered if anything happened backstage at Knebworth. Dennis gets really close to Mike during Surfer Girl, and Mike seems to get more and more uncomfortable as the song went on.  ;D Maybe it was just some light hearted goofing off. Still, I can't help wondering how Dennis and Mike were with each other after the show.

Mike and Carl do look rather pissed off during the D.C. show. At the start of Good Timin' Mike isn't even on stage, and slowly strolls out right before verses. Carl seems bad at Brian for some reason during that song, and seems to get mad when Dennis leaves the drums during the sing along to Good Vibrations.

Huh, I always found Dennis and Mike buddying around during Surfer Girl in the Knebworth video to be a really sweet moment.

I also think Dennis is winding Mike up.

I always wondered about that part of Surfer Girl from Knebworth. Part of me saw some nostalgic happiness in Mike's eyes, the other part saw a nervous kind of what the heck are you doing? look.

Interesting topic...Dennis' drastic change in appearance between these two shows has always baffled me. Aside from the shaved face and trimmed hair, he physically does not look like the same person. He seems a lot more loose at the Knebworth show, yet very tense and uncomfortable in DC. It's just my opinion, but I'd bet that he got a bit tuned up when he left the stage mid-concert in Knebworth, which helped him seem even more loose on stage (unfortunately his playing does suffer for it). But that was Dennis. I just couldn't get that same vibe from him at all in the DC show. Even the video of his pre-concert interview shows him to be unfocused and uncomfortable. Perhaps he was chewed out for his clowning around in Knebworth and was on strict watch in DC, so he couldn't rely on the booze that day to help keep him loose? Who really knows.

Go a few months later to the Mike Douglass show in Hawaii, and he appears to be a completely different person yet again. Shorter hair, but with a beard...actually seems more youthful here. His playing was really on for this performance too, one of my favorite performances of his during this period. His playing almost had a swing feel to it, and it was really tight. I love the loud, thunderous booming sound of that kit as well!

Glad to see that I am not the only one infatuated with the many different looks of Dennis.

As scraggly as it was, I think in later years the beard covered a multitude of sins.

I agree that Dennis looked better, played better, and was more comfortable and happy in general during the Knebworth concert, high as a kite...but still happening as an entity. The DC show does expose years of damage under that hair and beard that we hadn't seen until then, but even more so Dennis looks stiff and unable to muster the power he generated at Knebworth. He looks strung out, and beaten down...and to me DC '80 is the real beginning of the end for him. I know Bruce has commented how "terrible" Dennis looked at Knebworth, but I think he looked cool as hell...its really the last classic Dennis performance, wild, erratic, but really the only thing that gives the BB's any legitimate rock and roll balls. By DC the balls were drained...so to speak, and the tennis shorts and polo shirts took over.

Someone somewhere had intimated to me that Dennis had briefly sobered up to join the band for Knebworth and fell off the wagon shortly thereafter.  Whether that's true or not, that would explain the difference.

Is it just me or does EVERYONE look pissed, uncomfortable and "off" at the DC show?

Mike's baseball cap also hides a multitude of sins

I've always enjoyed this show. But it is very clear that there is turmoil going on, and I think everyone has at least one or two uncomfortable moments. Someone could create a whole series of screen caps of uncomfortable faces from this show. The thing is, they knew it too. They knew that 500000 people were watching, plus the millions watching on hbo. So even knowing that they had to put their best concert face on, there were moments that they couldn't help it.

As we related in the book, prior to the DC  show a reporter caught up with Dennis backstage and boy did he look stoned!  The clip is on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjnuj22Wunw

I thought Dennis played pretty spot on at DC. The worst thing about this show is Mike was going through a MEGA nasal period at the time.

Since this thread brought up the DC concert I decided to watch a bit of it. I actually think it's a pretty great performance. There was still a lot of energy. Songs still sounded fresh.

And then I decided to click on the link to them playing Seattle in 1983. Ugh. Horrible. Mike's emceeing is horrendous, the band had no energy, they were now at the point where they were doing two Jan & Dean covers. And they didn't even acknowledge them as Jan & Dean songs, therefore perpetuating the myth that those are Beach Boys songs, and also squeezing out other deserving songs from the setlist cuz they had to play those songs. The only decent surprise was "You're So Good To Me."

But yeah, a total low point for the group. And this is while Dennis was still with them. To think that this was just the beginning of an even further descent in self parody. The eighties really stunk for The Beach Boys creatively, for the most part.

Dennis rocks on that DC show! He might not be in the best shape of his life, but he's giving it all he's got.

 My brother, a drummer didn't care much for the Beach Boys (he was into heavy metal) so I used to show him things like the DC Concert!  That's when he started to appreciate them more and really likes Dennis and his drumming.  He's left handed so actually enjoys getting the chance to play a right handed kit the way Dennis played his, with the high hat left hand and snare right hand.  I love Dennis throwing the sticks away and pulling out another set, or chatting to someone when a song starts then when he's ready comes in right on the beat.  A 'pounder' and a real rock n roller in every sense of the word.

I think it was just the lack of beard and daylight.

With all this talk, I decided to not only watch the DC show again but to also color correct it and finally put it on a DVD with song chapters.  I can't see any huge difference in Dennis's general state of being, aside from the fact that he was probably just more f*cked up than usual that day.  His playing is a bit sloppy at times and he apparently dropped (or threw) a good number of sticks but I see it more of an off day, rather than any big drop off between the two shows.

However, since we're discussing the DC show (at least somewhat) I have a couple of questions:  1) Did Billy play at that show?  I certainly don't see him but I definitely hear some audible piano (among other places, just after "And the beach was the place to go" in "Do It Again").  Aside from Brian and Bruce, Meros is the only keyboardist shown and most of the sounds coming from him were organ and synthesizers.  Now he could easily have had one of those synths set to the piano patch but it's strange that it comes in so clearly right there.  As usual Brian and Bruce's keyboards are barely in the mix, as shiown by Mike's "mini solo" in "Help Me, Rhonda" not being heard, and being up on the high keys, you would figure that frequency would cut right through (like the part I'm talking about in "Do It Again".  The only other thing I can think it might be is post-show sweetening which is highly possible, especially considering how on those back ups sound in "Do It Again" but if that was the case, you'd think they would have cleaned up the overall mix because it's pretty muddy.

2.  Who else (besides Al) was covering the falsetto in those days.  You can see that Al's doing the high parts in stuff like "Catch A Wave" and it looks like Bruce is doing the "wee-oohs" in"Be True To Your School" but neither of them is doing the falsetto in "I Get Around".  The video doesn't give you a clear shot of what part Carl is singing in that song but I don't ever remember him doing it before.  More post-production sweetening?

Another thing this video made me think of is how at the time I was disappointed to see the band had become an overblown "act" like the Bee Gees with a full scale backing band, etc.  But of course in hindsight, I see that this show was incredible streamlined for them.  No additional guitarists and Carl playing all the solos; ONE additional keyboardist!  I guess I just figured the percussionist was unnecessary and Bruce or Brian (who's story I didn't really know back then) would have been more productive playing bass.  Funny that I owned (and loved) In Concert but didn't realize how big the band from THAT era was.

Finally, what an editing nightmare!  Does anyone remember the blipverts from Max Headroom?!   :ahh

1. No Billy at this show. I see Bruce rockin' out to that piano part in DIA, so perhaps he's playing it. Actually, Bruce can be heard playing some tatsy keyboard at the end of Catch A Wave.

2. Bobby Figueroa is most likely providing the falsetto part in IGA. He certainly sang the part during the Mike Douglas show in Hawaii later that year.

When was the last time they had so few backup musicians? The Whisky gig? Big Sur?

IMHO, the editing isn't nearly as bad as the 25th anniversary show  :o

Thanks for the info.  The more I watched the more I thought that it might actually be Bruce's electric piano.

And yeah.  That 25th Anniversary show is an absolute MESS!  "Naked" Brian walking across the stage out of nowhere, and whatever the Hell happens with the key change in "Sufer Girl" to name just TWO that made the final cut!  :lol   Still, you'd figure HBO would have had some decent people on staff.  It's like they wanted to show everything at once! :o

...Except Brian, that is! :)

The July 4th, '80 show was overdubbed/sweetened in the studio before the edited version ran on HBO. This was mentioned as far back as SU (the book).

Somewhere...I have a VHS tape that I made of the show off of HBO with my very first Panasonic VHS VCR when they re-ran it a couple of years later. Remember those ol' electronic dinosaurs (wired remote!)...lol? :)

Indeed I do! :old

 :lol

Does a version of the 1980 DC show without any overdubs circulate? You can tell that the drums are overdubbed, because they're louder than any other instrument. I wonder if Dennis even plays on the overdubbed tracks? There's a clip of the DC show on the American Band documentary, and the audio doesn't even match up with the footage.  ;D

As an FM broadcast, yes. Video-wise, possibly :-\

Is there much of a noticeable difference between the "raw" broadcast, and the overdubbed HBO special?

All I have is a fairly lousy sounding audience recording of the unedited show -- not the one that apparently ran in DC on the FM and in NYC on the AM. I'd reckon that those "pro recordings" would probably be a better frame of reference if anyone has them.


I will say this much though: It truly is a "sound to behold" when Brian suddenly becomes audible on "Wouldn't It Be Nice," as the song starts to progress along, for that '80 show.  :'(