The Smiley Smile Message Board

You can look at all the 1974 listings with photos, ads, etc at my website Beachboysgigs.com. Here is the link: https://www.beachboysgigs.com/1974-2/

By the way you can look at the years 1962-1974 (By the way I have continued to tweak those years-with more photos/listings). You can also view a blog (under updates) of shows discovered since The Beach Boys in Concert book came out in 2013 (that is complete up to around 1973).

Well according to Ian's 1974 account, I've seen Joe Walsh (James Gang with the BBs in the ATL) one more time than I thought I had! I'm going to have to dig through my archives and see if I can find the ad for that show.

No…Joe had left the band by then…but they hobbled on without him with diminished success

I would love to know what CSNY's reaction was. First your promoter has to convince you to let a band you don't want to be part of the program open for you and then during that one hour you let them have you get regularly (according to the reviews) put in your place... :lol
Did they even share the stage for a couple of numbers near the end of the day? And whose guitar is Al playing on the picture from July 31st? Haven't seen him or Carl with that one before.

I am not aware of the BBs being onstage during CSNY’s sets-most likely they split as soon as their set ended

That looks like one of Carl's usual Epiphone 12-string electrics, the Casino/335 style body with who knows what neck at that point since they tended to break and be replaced. It looks like the photo colors got washed out a bit, so the upper horn near the neck shows that it's a sunburst finish and the lower body appears to be in black and white due to the film. Maybe Ed Roach can shed some light on why the colors got washed out like that?

It looks like the standard Epiphone 12-string (or Gibson, whatever year and incarnation it was/is) that the band had in its guitar arsenal for years. especially looking at the trapeze tailpiece. But Carl's 12-strings would go through neck changes so it's hard to tell from that shot. I could be wrong.

It struck me how many great artists of the late 60's and 70's the band was opening for in '74. Steely Dan really stood out: As something of a collector of Steely Dan soundboard recordings from '74 (which is the only year they toured until the 90's), The Dan was simply amazing on this tour, as on fire as a live band could be. I've never heard a bad tape of a '74 Dan live show. The musicianship was off the charts, and you get to hear Jeff Porcaro and Jim Hodder on dual drum kits, Skunk Baxter and Denny Dias just tearing it up on guitar, and the whole band as a live band was pretty much one of the best touring bands of that era. Plus, the live sound was terrific according to the tapes and people involved, where they had Dinky Dawson running the mix (and Dawson's tapes from the board are what has leaked out.)  I would love to hear about any interactions they had because unless I'm just not remembering, I never heard Becker and Fagen talk about playing bills with the Boys, and vice versa the Boys talking about playing with the Dan.

Any doubts, just listen to a live tape of Bodhisattva, including the one officially released on the old Steely Dan box set. It's face melting good.

As far as CSNY...from the shows I've heard and from Neil's book, that specific '74 CSNY tour was something of a mess, or an outright clusterf*ck if it could be called that. And yes, the egos were pretty out of control at that point, and unless I'm mistaking the years, Neil eventually left the tour with no notice after getting fed up with it. Again for more info check Neil's book. But if the Boys as a pretty finely tuned road machine at that point may have stolen the show, it's no surprise. And as Crosby, Nash, and Young were admitted and pretty vocal fans of the band and the Boys' music, I'm actually surprised to hear they didn't want the Boys on the bill.

Interesting to learn that Carl did not get along with (and was outright hostile to) Ron Altbach.

Re: the CSNY tour-Neil finished that tour -having sort of high jacked it to his own ends (he got CSNY to mostly perform new tunes that he had written including Revolution Blues, which Crosby objected to). The tour you are thinking of is the 1976 Stills-Young tour -Neil and Stills had a dispute and Neil split in the middle of it.  Re: Altbach-he told me in my interview that Carl was really mad at Mike because he had intruded in what Carl saw as his domain-running the band of musicians-Mike was trying to replace partying rockers with fellow teetotaling meditators

Thanks!
Al should've teamed up with John Fogerty as California's Famous Flanell Factory.

Ian, I just want to thank you for doing these. I find them massively informative and interesting to read.

Yes, I got the two confused! I did get out Neil's book after writing that just to get some more info. That '74 tour which the BB's were on for some stops was both the largest tour of its kind at the time and a disaster in many ways, which is why it got the nickname "The Doom Tour". I believe it was the highest grossing tour in rock up to that point.

From that book, I did want to offer one nuance on what you said: Neil didn't necessarily hijack the tour, but he was the only one who had new material to bring to the table and actually play for crowds. CSN was only doing their old stuff, like a hits package, because they had no workable new material, whereas Neil had a backlog that was ready to go. That sounds like a familiar story, right? Again according to the book, they did a lot to keep Neil around on that tour (and around CSN in general) but Neil pretty much kept to himself and even traveled on his own motorhome, not with the other guys. But they seemed to need him more than he needed CSN.

Revolution Blues was Neil taking on a Manson inspired narrator character, talking about killing rock stars, and Crosby played guitar on a studio track but didn't want that kind of vibe to go out to the fans, which was his objection. This is the same Crosby whose paranoia (amplified to the Nth degree after the Manson family murders) led him to rarely go anywhere without packing a loaded pistol despite his hippie persona.

It's worth noting that The Beach Boys on that Doom Tour were part of a rotating cast of other major acts playing with CSNY, like The Band, Joni, and Santana, so it was a pretty high profile gig despite the issues with the actual shows. I'll have to check reports on some of the other shows with those other support acts to see if they too stole the show from CSNY...because CSNY was not in good form on those tour dates. 

It still intrigues me why they balked at having the Beach Boys on the same bill, again as I already said because Young, Crosby, and Nash were pretty vocal fans and supporters of the Boys and their music, and both Crosby and Young had quite a few prominent friends in their inner circles who were also in Brian's inner circle, as well as at least knowing and socializing with other band members. There has to be a more simple reason why they initially objected to bringing along the Beach Boys for the handful of shows they played.

Side note: Tapes and video of this '74 Doom Tour do exist, including the July 9 Seattle opener which exists in full...3 and a half hours worth, and that's just the CSNY set. So while it's not all bad, better if you're a CSNY or Neil fan, imagine sitting through 3 and a half hours of CSNY after the Beach Boys. Crazy to have sets last that long.