The Smiley Smile Message Board

Just been posted on Brian's Facebook page:


Brian with the one and only Conan O'Brien :rock:
(http://oi57.tinypic.com/afbk9e.jpg)

Brian with Flaming Lips genius Wayne Coyne :brian:
(http://oi59.tinypic.com/2vuh3q8.jpg)


Brian looks f*cking great! :-D






I heard Brian played/closed the Fest with "My Sweet Lord" - can anyone confirm?

Confirmed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evVTvTrcXCo

My my my. So good...



EDIT: I had quite a miserable day, came home, and saw this. Made my day. Brian Wilson in 2014, rocking "My Sweet Lord".. All I can think of right now is: I know what I'm thankful for. :)

There is a method to my madness: The board's design won't allow merging individual posts into another thread or topic, so I copied and pasted the comments from a few of us who were already discussing the George Fest show from Sunday. That was in the Brian/Al/Saturday topic, but since this one started let's make this the place for the George Fest discussions. Definitely worth its own thread!

Where was Mike singing Pisces brothers? >:D

Not surprised to see Conan there, and notice he was also on stage in the video. I was also thinking it would have been cool to have Brian on Conan's show last week as he did a string of four shows with musicians covering and paying tribute to George Harrison's music. Those performers included Beck, Paul Simon, Dhani Harrison, and Norah Jones. All of these clips are available to watch on Conan's YouTube and website.

It would have been cool to have Brian involved in that week of tributes too!

Yeah, I was thinking the same when catching up on last week's Coco.

Ann Wilson looks really good there, BTW.

My first thought, also. :D

You know, I hate to say this because I really appreciate all Jeff did to help Brian launch his solo career and get back in the game: but, losing his "crutch" might not have been the worst thing to happen to him. He seems confident and engaged, and he's sounding good!

Two Wilsons front and center onstage! Was Nancy there as well?

Brian sounds very cool!

And btw, I don*'t know if I ever mentioned that before but don't Al and Darian together sound like heaven? It's not necessarily as obvious on this video but in general... wow!

Overall a great performance even though it started to break down after the first couple of minutes, you can tell Brian was really into it.  The impassioned way he sings "Mmmmm my lord" just makes me smile so much.  I hope an official recording of this concert comes out.

Apart from Brian's performance, this was a really freakin' good show from the clips I've been watching on YouTube. If I said both Conan O'Brien and Weird Al kicked serious rock and roll ass on their versions of "Old Brown Shoe" and "What Is Life" respectively, would you believe me? Watch the videos! Some really cool stuff happening last night on that stage. It was great to see Brian, Al, and Darian involved as they were.

Was that Dhani Harrison standing behind Brian playing acoustic?

A little closer and in classy black&white: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6V6sdDTjZk 8)

That's Jimmy Vivino right behind Brian.  If you mean the cat in the blue shirt behind Ann, that's Alex Levy.  He does look a lot like Dhani.  Dhani did do a number on Conan leading up to George Fest, "Let it Down" - it's on the Team Coco channel.  Haven't found a clip of his performance yet, but he must have played something.

Brian looks great here! Nice haircut. Also you can tell he's just really into that type of song. Probably would be a good idea to add He Come Down/That Same Song/Path of Life to his setlist. :-D

Really cool performance.

George was a great guy, he went far too soon.

From what I've seen so far on YouTube, Dhani took the lead on "Savoy Truffle", which was always one of my favorite tunes of his Dad's Beatles output because it rocks like a mofo, and Dhani rocked like a mofo on it last night! The one issue I had was the horns were mixed *way* too low, as they're a major part of the original track.

I'll be going through more clips as they become available, but to hear Dhani in full effect check out Savoy Truffle. It can be something to hear how much his voice can sound like his Dad on certain phrases, besides the obvious physical resemblance.

And "Let It Down" from Conan's tribute week was a highlight, that was an awesome performance.

Note too that the backing band was amazing, as they backed Weird Al on "What Is Life", they were rocking out with full abandon, it was pretty cool. Jimmy Vivino for those who don't know was a session guy who was the guitarist in Conan's original band led by Max Weinberg, then when Conan left NYC for LA, and Max left too, Jimmy took over.

He's a perfect choice to play a gig like this, as I said on Facebook sharing a few of these clips the man probably has every guitar note ever played by the Beatles memorized and in his arsenal. Notice on Conan's cover of "Old Brown Shoe", Vivino nails George's original solo, which is a bit quirky to play. He was also a member of the "Fab Faux", alongside fellow Beatle freak, late night house band musician, and incredible motherf*cker of a session player, bassist Will Lee. The Fab Faux is perhaps THE BEST Beatle tribute band in the business, bar none, and they go for authenticity and respect for the music versus wearing costumes and wigs to get the look.

If you want to hear top-notch musicians playing the Beatles tunes to a "T", check out the "Fab Faux".

I hear the raindrops of Diamond Head (the instrumental) at 1:25...anyone else hear that?

Ahhhh! I see! Thanks!

Who's the guy in drag( with the long dark hair) to Brian's right?

I KNEW I recognized that sound. Done it myself a few times.

I have to say, Brian hit some of the most off notes I've ever heard him hit in that clip.  But when he got into it?  There was real enthusiasm in the way he was improvising around the melody -- singing just for the sake of singing.  Great to hear...

Cheers,
Jon Blum

I don't know what you're getting on with that "man in drag" crap.  That's Ann Wilson, the lead singer of Heart and I think she looks great, especially for a woman her age.

Ann looks great and she sounds even better than she looks.

Ann is kicking serious ass these days! She looks fantastic and the current Heart lineup really rocks! The stuff they're doing is pretty damn agressive.

Watching the "My Sweet Lord" vid: am I the only one who wishes they just had Al sing the lead? ..... I agree Brian sounds good (at first) ..... but AL JARDINE is standing right there! One of the best, STILL, one of the best voices in music history!

Naw, Brian owned this. His vocal isn't perfect, but man he went all in.

Yes at over 5 minutes there was room for Al to come in. Not what the musical director wanted perhaps.

I'm with you. Brian wasn't 100% on pitch, but I vastly prefer him singing with feeling than 'Robo-Brian'.

In the eye of the beholder, I guess. Perhaps it's the bag lady dress that threw me ( think I saw her walking down the street today)

I agree that Brian went all in. It's not a criticizm of Brian, but rather, AL is standing right there: let him have a verse ...... You know he would have killed it!

Actually at 2.56 it looks like he wants Al to sing.

You're so right about this Guitarfool. When I was working in New York in the late 90s, I had the opportunity to both hang out and jam with Will over a few days in the studio as he was working with my friend Delmar Brown. We all had such a blast. Will steered us into Beatles territory, and we played many songs from their catalog.

It's great to see Brian in a setting like this. I know it's been quite a while now, but I'm still stunned and thankful for how far Brian has come back. I thought for sure for a period of time that we would lose him. Amazing, really.

Watched it for like the 20th time...listening to it on good quality headphones...I LOVE when Brian starts playing around with it on the 2nd half, esp. the 'my my my' parts... the guy's still got it.

Does anyone know if George was ever quoted on the topic of Brian, or Pet Sounds? John and Paul are often cited, but does the quiet Beatle live up to his name on this one? :-X

Yeah, Weird Al's cover of "What Is Life" blew me away.  That's the only other time I've heard him do a serious cover - he often does "Radio, Radio" if something in his concerts goes wrong.

 That was charming & rocking all the same. Something was wrong with the flow of the melody, as if they wanted to finish it halfway, then someone invisibly gave a sign to continue. The slide guitar was kinda out of sync with other instruments during solo, as well as some guests were repeating "Hallelujah" where they should've been "hare krishna". But this is a minor complaint, nothing to do with Brian, who sang it amazingly. Always loved the song, very cool that he was honored to cover one of George's smash hits (unlike "Wanderlust" on Paul's tribute). Nice adlibbing on "my, my".

Haven't heard the rest of the fest.

I’ve never been able to find many examples of George discussing Brian or the BB’s, or even uttering either name.

There is a segment in the “Beatles Anthology” documentary where Paul, George, and Ringo are being interviewed as a group, and they are discussing  “Paperback Writer” (and trying to perform the song live). George mentions they were “trying to compete” with the Beach Boys and “Pet Sounds.” But, and this is just my reading, I’ve always read George’s comment as more of a case of following Paul’s lead on the topic. I don’t think George was heavy into the BB’s back in 1966. I think he was doing what sometimes happens in group interviews (especially the slightly awkward group interviews they did for “Anthology”); he was essentially answering the question for Paul, almost making the comment as if it’s a question. George makes the comment almost the same way an interviewer would bring the topic up to Paul, as if “so Paul, you recorded “Paperback Writer”, and back then you were trying to compete with the Beach Boys and Pet Sounds.”

I still love that story Al told about “apologizing” about Mike to George and Ringo at the R&R Hall of Fame ceremony.

I wasn't familiar with that, so I googled & read it. Now I love it too.   ^-^

The quote, for those of you wondering:

"Dazed and horrified, Al walked up to where George Harrison and Ringo Starr were sitting. “I said, ‘Geez, guys, I really want to apologize for that speech. My partner is not feeling well.’ Then Ringo put his head on my shoulder and said, ‘It’s okay, we love you guys.’ George’s classic remark was, ‘I guess Mike didn’t listen to the Maharishi, did he?’ Then he put his head on my shoulder, too, and it was really quite sweet.”"

How dare George! Mike is his "Pisces Brother"!

:lol

Well, that explains why Mike wasn't at Concert for George.