The Smiley Smile Message Board

Hello everybody !

I´ve got a live video from this show, wich I like very much because it shows all 6 Beach Boys, playing a lot from the LOVE YOU album. But the picture quality is very poor. Does anybody have a good copy and would sell it - in the best case transferred on DVD ?

I really would aprecciate it.

I know what show you're talking about but it wasn't at Catter's inauguration, just the night of.  The idea of the band playing Love You songs at a Presidential inauguration is a surreal thought though.

He sits behind his microphone
Jim-my Car-ter

Anyway, it was given to me under that name.

I'm presuming this is the circulating Largo, MD January 1977 video. As I recall, the band did two nights at the venue on January 20 and 21.

Both shows were captured onto videotape by the in-house video system.

Only one of the two shows "circulates", and I believe it's the second night's show. This has been making the rounds for decades as I recall, sometimes in full and sometimes if not usually edited and starting about seven songs into the show (most likely to account at some point for someone trying to fit as much as possible onto a VHS tape).

As the story goes as far as I can recall, the January 21 video master is kind of wonky and/or slightly damaged, which is one of the reasons the extant copies floating around don't look or sound that great (being copied a million times in the VHS dub era probably accounts for wonky quality as well). I recall that a bit of the January 21st show is also seen in the Brian Wilson "A&E Biography" special in a cutaway shot; it looks better than most copies floating around but still looks a bit wonky.

I believe you can see a bit of the uncirculated January 20th show in "Endless Harmony" (Brian is wearing a different shirt/sweater or whatever it is). I presume BRI has the videotape of both shows in their vaults. I think there are several shows from this general era that BRI has that probably are impossible to release in full given either wonky video quality, wonky audio quality (in cases where they didn't also capture the show on multi-track audio), or just strange "unreleasable" aspects of the show (e.g. on the 1/21 Largo show, Brian sounds pretty hoarse and at one point infamously has an altercation with his microphone stand when he can't get it adjusted properly and starts yelling at it, plus Carl appears to have a pretty intense buzz going on, not as bad as the Australia '78 shows, but he's still noticeably buzzed).

The circulating Largo show is certainly a fascinating video; I certainly hope maybe BRI might release one or both Largo shows on some sort of large DVD concert boxed set. But it's doubtful unfortunately.

"Portrait of a Legend", hosted by James Darren, features some of the January 21, 1977 Largo footage. The "Portrait..." footage looks relatively clean compared to other circulating versions. Snippets include:

Good Vibrations -  Largo audio and video
Rock and Roll Music - Largo audio and video
Sloop John B - Largo audio and video

However, some of the Largo video snippets were married to audio from other live performances. For example:

California Girls, Largo vision, Live in London audio
Good Vibrations (again), Largo vision, In Concert audio

All 6? As in Bruce or Dave? Nope. Billy Hinsche, sure.

You´re right. Of course Bruce is not with them. All Wilsons on board, that´s what I had in mind. Thanks.

I can't remember where, but I read that the first(non circulating) show was MUCH better. I hope it gets released some day.