The Smiley Smile Message Board

  C50 was a wonderful event in sum, but any thoughts as to why "Surf's Up", one of the crown jewels in The Beach Boys' catalog, was omitted from the setlist?

   1) Too obscure to the general public? Well, maybe, but we know C50 attracted the hardcore fans and many songs played on the tour ("Ballad of Ole Betsy", "All This Is That") are arguably less familiar.

   2) Too hard to play? Brian and his band did it justice on the SMILE tour circa 2004.

   3) Maybe group members (Brian and Mike) didn't want to play it. Why?


 

Supposedly, someone (I believe in Europe or Australia) later in the tour saw them do “Surf’s Up” during soundcheck with Scott Totten singing the lead and Al reprising his end vocal part from the original record.

Given the songs they did perform on the tour, I would imagine they just never fit it in. Had they done another leg, perhaps it would have been rotated in at some point.

We were all waiting for it, that's for sure.  I doubt there was one explicit reason why it wasn't perform.  Heck, it was a miracle they performed "Our Prayer" at all.  I'd guess no one wanted to rock the boat even further with yet another song that only half the band knew.  It's a monster song too so if they were going to learn it--it was going to be rehearsed properly at the start of the tour and it looked like they had their hands full already even without it.  

My guess is they have no idea how good or important some of their stuff is. Some of the Smile material might make Brian or Mike (or both) feel a bit uncomfortable but frankly they should both be above such things. Also, the Surf's Up album played a crucial role in initiating the group's 70s renaissance so I think it's a song almost as important as God Only Knows.

  I can appreciate all those reasons, but really, how many groups with a song like "Surf's Up" in their catalog would have played it so rarely in concert? It's insane if you think about it.

  "Surf's Up" was a semi-regular in their playlists 71-75 then disappeared forever. Consider of all the concertgoers that would have heard and loved it, 76 to the present day.

  The Beach Boys are dorks, LOL.

I believe Brian played it at that wrap party for Love & Mercy, but not sure if he sang it - could have been Paul Dano....

Surf's Up is the big one but you could certainly ask why they didn't play other songs from their catalog, Warmth of the Sun is the one that sticks out to me especially since Mike and Bruce have played it a good bit.

  Perhaps "Surf's Up" is like a fine wine to be savored on special occasions...like C50.

Carl would have been the best choice to sing the song, and he obviously wasn't there. Second best would be Brian, with Jeff's help, and Al helping at the coda. It would have made a great addition to the set. Jeff could have sung the whole thing himself, and it would have sounded good. But for the most part, the original Beach Boys sang all the leads.  I waited a long time for Darlin' to be included in the C50, I never saw it in Berkeley, but later on during the tour (Europe?) Darian finally did it.

  Exactly. Jeff doubling Brian would have been nice. Granted it is not an easy song to sing. I've tried to hit that note, but it never quite works, even in the shower!

When Brian and his band played Surf's Up during the SMiLE shows, Brian sang but a lower note whilst another band member handled that soaring vocal.

I have heard that Mike doesn't like this song being played live but I don't know whether or not that is true.

Darian sang it at the Philly show that I attended and that was in mid-June.

The simplest answer could be that the song got negotiated out of the setlist to accommodate something else. If the members all had ideas for what songs should be included, and based on what nearly every band goes through when preparing shows, Surf's Up may indeed have been on the table along with potentially dozens more, but got traded out (or negotiated out) for others based on members' requests or demands depending on the situation. It would be interesting to hear what some of those decisions were, meaning what songs could have been featured versus what the actual performances were.

The musicians were so good, and so qualified to play whatever came up, that the notion of anything being too difficult to pull off should be eliminated entirely. Remember these same musicians could on a whim and on short notice play and sing the entire Pet Sounds album live, in sequence. Try doing *that*.  :)

Mike was waiting for Van Dyke Parks to explain the lyrics. ;D

Years back I read an interview of some kind with Carl when he was asked about playing Surf's Up live again, and he said, yeah that would be great, I'd love to, but we would need all the instruments like the French horns to do it right - - - lo and behold, a few decades later Brian's band has a - - - - - -  French horn player, and the rest of the C50 ensemble was there to have pulled it off.  But, I think this song is so special it would almost have to have its own special spotlight in the set list. It might have been hard to find a place for it, set the right mood, right moment, etc. Not like dropping in "Car Crazy Cutie" or "Noble Surfer" (which would have been fine with me). I don't know, just random ideas here . . . . . sure would have great to hear it at C50, though.

Maybe Brian could have graciously asked Mike to sing lead on it.

Just be patient folks, they had to save at least one gem to draw people to the next reunion tour. Rehearsals start soon…














:(

I don't think it was necessarily something that was dropped from contention in the setlist early on. They were rehearsing it *late* in the tour, as I mentioned above. Why it never made it into the show, I don't know.

I remember thinking it was a little factoid from the tour that sort of slipped under the radar, that someone had caught a performance of "Surf's Up" during one of the VIP soundchecks. I think there may have been at least one other song they did in those soundchecks that never made it into the setlist, but I can't remember what it was.

Just consider that perhaps every song performed and in what order it was performed could have been up for negotiation even on a show-by-show basis. Meaning someone could say before soundcheck "hey, let's do *blank* tonight to open the show", and it would either be agreed or disagreed. And I'm sure each member had their own ideas of what to include.

Darlin' was off the setlist in April, May, the first half of June, much of July, and the first part of August. Wendy was also switched in and out. For me, it was a glaring omission when I saw them in early June. Can't have everything - the song selection was very good.

IIRC it was "Friends"

Nope, 'twas Surf's Up with Scott, just as stated earlier.

I never expected them to do it -- I don't think its one of Brian or Mike's favorites, regardless of its iconic status and obvious quality.

Here’s the post/thread about the show from the 50th tour that I was thinking of. It was a soundcheck in Oslo where, apparently, they rehearsed “Surf’s Up”, “The Warmth of the Sun”, and “I Can Hear Music.” Not sure who sang the latter two, although I would imagine perhaps Foskett on “Warmth” at least.

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php?action=printpage;topic=14417.0

So was Surf's Up played in its entirety during a rehearsal or during an actual show?  Where/when was it played either way?

Edit: So it was played during a soundcheck in Oslo, Norway, July 31, 2012.

Any other sightings?  Guess they figured the rehearsal didn't go that well for the song to include it in the set....

Definitely only during soundcheck. Not sure if this happened anywhere beyond the Oslo report.

My response was directed at the question which other song(s) was done at soundcheck but not performed. One of them was "Friends" iirc as stated above. Wasn't meaning that SU wasn't soundchecked

Now THAT'S something that hadn't crossed my mind . . . . .

+1, and graciously ask Al to take over at "...dove nested towers".  Woulda been nice

the band cannot fathom the gravitas of their own music. SU is a song so powerful and well composed that it should be a certainty on their setlist.

PS has SJB, WIBN and GOK
Smile has H&V, GV and SU

if any 6 songs better represent that era, their artistic pinnacle, then please submit them for my reading.

I remember before the BW w/ Jeff Beck tour, I read an interview with one of BW's band members.  He said that they wouldn't be playing Surf's Up. He said it was a hard song for Brian to sing.

So with the song being too hard for Brian to sing and (I'm just guessing) Mike wasn't pushing to get the song in the setlist, the idea of performing Surf's Up was probably short lived to nonexistent.

This is an interesting post.

They did play Surf`s Up on that tour but as a semi-instrumental version with Brian not singing the lead (in the clips I have seen anyway).

I can`t remember the last time that Brian did sing Surf`s Up in concert (maybe someone here can?) but it seems like a while ago.

Looks like the last Smile show was the last time it was played with him singing.

http://www.setlist.fm/stats/songs/the-beach-boys-3d6c17b.html?song=Surf's+Up

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Thanks.

I guess that confirms that it is probably is down to Brian (either finding it difficult to sing or not wanting to sing it) that it wasn`t performed.

How does it confirm that? That's a possible reason, but it doesn't rule out all other reasons.

I said it means it is probably down to Brian (or his people if you prefer).

As he wasn`t singing it in 2011 and before and he wasn`t singing it in 2013, I would still say that is the case.

I assumed that Brian just didn't feel like singing Surf's Up. In the 2012 RS interview, I believe Brian was asked if they were going to perform any Smile tracks and he said something like "Nah, we don't wanna do any of that stuff" and Mike then told Brian that they had to at least play Heroes and Villains (which they did, at least at the show I went to). I thought that Brian comment was very Brian-like if you know what I mean.  ;D  Surf's Up live in 2012 would have been cool though.

Word.  :rock

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It's interesting to read from the above posts that the four songs that were rehearsed during sound check but never performed were "Friends", "I can hear music", "surf's up", and "the warmth of the sun".

These were the only 4 songs on the "50 big ones" compilation that were not performed during the c50 tour. Cool to know that they were all considered. I imagine that "the warmth of the sun" may have been Scott as well, as he also sang lead on this with Mike & Bruce's Beach Boys last year, I believe (maybe it was early this year).

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Lyrics don't matter, only the way in which a collection of syllables associate phonetically and grammatically with melodic lines that soar over, under, and around the rhythmic devices they occupy in order to convey some abstract scene or emotion... Smile's main point. That being said, Surf's Up isn't Surf's Up without the tape delay, muted guitar, glockenspiel, and jewelry.

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"Ooooh," "bidow," and "wadoo" are not considered lyrics, you know...

 After a C50 gig, myself and a few others were having a beer in a pub with Nelson and Probyn. Someone asked Nelson why SU hadn't been played and his response was that it was now too difficult for Brian to sing. He also said something along the lines of no one else being able to sing it and were conscious not to give too many leads to non principles. Words to that effect anyway. It was 2.00 in the morning and a belly full of beer, but he definitely said  Brian could no longer do it

Surf's Up was a huge part of the Jeff Beck tour though.  They played it at every show with Our Prayer as an intro, but Brian didn't sing lead, Beck's guitar did the lead singing for him.  And it was pretty awesome.  Brian did however sing the "A children's song" coda.

Only a belly full?  And then some, I'll bet  ;D  Great info, man - Hope all is well - A

I bet Stamos could've done it  ;D