The Smiley Smile Message Board

nyradioarchive has the complete (?) radio broadcast of above mentioned show online to listen to. This includes the Beach Boys' performance that was/is available on Wolfgangsconcertvault plus an pre-show. interview with Bruce.

http://www.nyradioarchive.com/wnewfm.html


AIRCHECK: The Last Night of the Fillmore East [scoped]

contributed by Rob Frankel

WNEW-FM & WPLJ

June 27, 1971

Bill Graham wisely did not want to choose one radio station to present a live broadcast of the last concert at the Fillmore East to the detriment of another, so both WNEW-FM and WPLJ broadcast the event.

The acts included Albert King, J. Geils w/ guest John Lee Hooker, Edgar Winter's White Trash, Mountain and the Beach Boys. I believe the Allman Brothers and Country Joe McDonald also played that night, but either they weren't included in the broadcast or weren't included in this aircheck. The Allman Brothers set is included on several Allman Brothers CD releases.

Note that as usual, we had to scope the songs. This does kind of take the life out of them since we miss the extended solos and the emotional builds that progressive rock acts specialized in, but we can blame the DMCA for that.

Jocks heard include Scott Muni, Pete Fornatale, Dave Herman, Michael Cuscuna, Alison Steele, Mike Harrison, Howard Smith, Mike Klefner and Vin Scelsa

Radio stations today would not have the guts to spend three hours on a live broadcast, they certainly wouldn't share the show with another station in the same market and they wouldn't limit spots, as was done for this broadcast. They would also ramp up the formatics and marketing, but all of the air personalities in this broadcast are very low key and they barely interrupted the proceedings. And note that it's not "American Express presents..." or "Citibank presents..." or "Budweiser presents..." It's just the concert. I suppose many would claim that everyone involved was a lot less sophisticated about business in those days. I prefer to think that everyone was simply a lot classier and knew where to draw the commercial line.

Note Pete Fornatale's closing genius prediction about the potential future ability to purchase such a concert in some form of video. That wasn't so obvious back in 1971.






Also on that site is an interview with Brian by Pete Fornatale. Just scroll down.



This is a rebroadcast of a program originally broadcast on November 24, 1976. Pete was always a giant Beach Boy fan and this was a rare chance for him to interview Brian Wilson, who spent a lot of time hiding from the public.

Thanks for that, Rocker!  A great moment in the bands history!