The Smiley Smile Message Board

I've trying to find a BBs concert video clip that I remembered seeing on YouTube a couple of years back. I've searched and searched on YouTube but can't find it any more. (I know, I should've saved the link.)  I wish that I could be more specific, but all I remember is that is was a late '70s concert, the song being played was a fast one, and it was a nighttime performance.

What I do remember - and the reason I want to see the video again - is that Brian was playing bass (on the right side of the stage) and was totally going wild on this song.  He was rolling his body around superfast, either like he was trying to be funny or he was feeling no pain.  It was a really wacky sight, and I've never seen Brian do anything like that in any other BBs concert footage I've come across.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? If so, what particular year/venue/song would this be? Did I imagine this video? Hallucinate it?

That would be a version of Roller Skating Child from 1978-ish. It's not there anymore.

From Hawaii 1978, I think.

Yes that clip exists, I think I have it somewhere on my computer, if I find it I will put in on youtube again.

Edit: Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1EPXBQV3yM

It doesn't look to me like Brian rocking out but more like either a soned or sick guy. Very sad either way.
BTW Are they really playing "Roller skating child"? Video and sound are not in sync...

The way Brian was doing "the hula hoop", I assume(d) that he was gesturing to the "round and round and round we go..." part of "Roller Skating Child". This was the precursor to the later hand gestures of the solo years! :)

While you're right, Brian was probably stoned, this was the part of Brian that the group was hoping to see emerge; maybe not the gyrating, but at least being into the music. It beats the statue behind the piano Brian...

I think SJS is right that it's specifically intended to go along with the "round and around and around" part, as both times, that's when he does it, acts relatively normal between. And because I lazily only half read his post, I almost just posted "Kind of a sweatier, drugged precursor to his awkward, illustrative hand signals in modern concerts," before realizing he basically said the same thing...

However, I disagree that it beats those modern hand signals. It really creeps me out to see anyone in as bad of shape as he was (and sometimes some of the others were) then. This reminds me--although it's less disturbing--of the clip on youtube from the same era, when Brian and Mike get into it and Brian just has a fit on stage. Terrible.

Is it possible that Brian wasn't on anything, and that is the way he reacted to playing the music/playing bass when he was straight - AND - the the Brian who sat dazed and still behind the piano, without barely uttering a syllable during the entire concert, was the Brian under the influence?

Possible, sure. Likely, no.

And it isn't whether he's on drugs that really bothers me much. It's the torment, at least in the scene I referenced (as opposed to some innocent air-hulahooping).

EDIT: And to be clear, the current Brian is obviously, absolutely and openly under the influence. We know he is on a drug regimen for his various mental illnesses. So it is without question that he is under the influence. But unless Dr. Landy has risen from the grave, been reincarnated or there is some similarly ambitious and eager-to-medicate replacement, it seems safe to assume it is better for him to be under this current influence than above it.

Possibly, because he IS playing the bass, and nobody is shadowing him like today. I would think Brian had to be a little "straighter" to play bass than to play some unheard chords on a piano. You gotta admit, didn't it make you smile a little (and I don't mean laughing at him) when you saw his entusiasm during "Roller Skating Child", than say, the statue Brian behind the Baby Grand? Did you see the way Al and Mike were looking over at Brian? Damn, they'd given anything to have an engaged Brian. Still would, actually... :police:

I don't know that it takes much more to sort-of play an unheard bass than it does to not play an unheard piano. I don't know that I'd ever put money on BW's instrument being relied upon from his 70s return to the stage onward. Seems there was always at least one other person available to do the parts when he did other parts, or nothing at all--just like now.

As for smiling, some of the modern-day BW concerts have brought pretty sincere smiles to my face whether he played a note on the keyboard, or not; whether he sat stony most of the show or not. That aspect of it all has never bothered me and still doesn't.

I wasn't referring to the modern-day solo Brian; I was referring to those late 70's concerts. I remember being a lot younger, paying a lot of money for tickets, travelling miles and miles, getting my hopes up high, and sitting (or standing) there, watching Brian sit motionless behind a piano, singing the first verse to "Sloop John B", the bridge to "Surfer Girl", and leaving the stage before the end of "Fun, Fun, Fun" (the last song). Yeah, that bothered me. I was happy and thrilled to SEE him, but walked away to my car disappointed. Yeah, it bothered me.

If I would've seen ANY enthusiasm shown, I would've been happy. Back then, I wouldn't have been thinking, "Look at Brian, he's stoned!" No, I would've been jumping up and down (literally) and thinking, "Yeah, Brian's really into that Love You song!" But, then again, I was naive....

Gotcha. Having been aged 0-3.5 for those late-70s shows, I can't quite say what my reaction would have been, had I been there, either way. Probably something like "waaah, I pooped my pants!"

 :lol

 :lol nice

he either got his hands on some coke, or he was in a rare, good place and not conflicted mentally..

this is by far the most disturbing clip of the beach boys.. from the largo shows in 77: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIgyeJQ6peA

it all happens at the start of back home.. brian and mike have a shouting match while al tries to keep the audience clean, then afterwards brian throws his bass at mike and staggers back to the piano.  ladies and gentlemen the one and only, the five and only.. beach boys

Mike and Brian weren't arguing; that was just Mike trying to get a stoned Brian psyched up for "Back Home". While there is a report or two about Mike being frustrated with the latter-day Brian on stage, for the most part they - all of them - kissed his ass. It must've been a barrel of laughs being onstage with the Wilson's in the late 1970's... ::)

I think Sheriff John Stone is right:

Brian was just into it and having fun for once!

All this conventional wisdom we have regarding the Beach Boys is really just a bunch of guys n gals compressing 40+ years of experience into different camps of thought and opinion. No one point of view is entierly correct. If Brian "hated touring and being on stage" there were also times he had fun and perhaps loved it.

I think you're exactly right about that last part, and it's why talking about so limited a subject can get old: you just hear these recycled stereotypes or the same bickered arguments.