The Smiley Smile Message Board

This is the first time I have seen  'Good Timin' from Knebworth. The copy here is raw and untouched yet sounds pretty good.  Brian's best vocal and keyboard of the gig IMO. Now wonder more why it was not on the release.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rf59cqgPGE

I think that Brian's vocal is EXACTLY why it wasn't included. His part adds nothing and makes it sound different than the album release version. In fact, he ruined the song for me with his vocal additions.

Fair enough. But was 'Sloop' or 'Surfer Girl' much better? I like the delivery myself and he looks more engaged for the new song than the oldies, as he still does now.

I actually like what he added to Good Timin', I sing it on the album cut when i listen to it

I think if Carl was still alive we wouldn't have had any of this concert released. This is the same guy who refused to allow Soulful Old Man Sunshine on the box set due to a flubbed line. Needless to say, Knebworth's much more catastrophic.

I kinda concur, I was just listening to the 'un-doctored' version, and without studio help, KTSA (his own track), isn't too great, backing vocal wise, they added more in the studio & the guitar solo sounds different to me...I could be wrong though.   :3d

I recall Brian's part on good timin from the (was it 1980?) show at the DC mall for July 4th.  The one that was shown on HBO.   I liked that and if Knebworth was similar, I'm sorry it wasn't released.   I think the people making the editing decisions are not making them for the hard core fans.  I'm bored with the knebbworth disc and I would probably watch more if the foda title track was included.

since we're on the subject of this concert, i have a question, and maybe only 'official' people know, but when doing the studio cleanup, did they also clean up the others left off the album (i.e. I write the Songs, Santa Ana Winds, In My Room, and Some of Your Love)

BTW, gave In My Room a listen, it's really not bad, just kinda awkward because it sounds like Bruce on lead, am I  correct? It's odd to my hears to hear him on early material that's less celebrated

I don't think Brian's vocal does much harm or good here. There are worse bits in the released album/video, and better. It's just ... more. Unfortunately no outtake is going to have a 1965 Brian or early '70s Dennis. 1980 is 1980, for better and worse.

The sweetening for Knebworth was done in early 1981 when it was considered for release as a video album. If I remember correctly, Bruce, as producer of the original recordings, produced the sweetening sessions as well. The entire concert was sweetened. The circulating copies of the unedited concert, however, come from two different sources - an unmixed soundboard that someone leaked a few years back, or the Capital Radio 1980 UK radio broadcast. Both of these are unsweetened. The Knebworth CD/DVD uses the 1981 sweetened recordings. Bruce made the final cuts - he did not want I Write The Songs on there as he felt it didn't fit, vetoed Good Timin' and In My Room due to Brian playing different songs on the piano during these performances, and Catch A Wave, Wouldn't It Be Nice, Santa Ana Winds, and Some Of Your Love were also cut due to technical problems and CD length.

The genius of the group, folks. The man can do no wrong. Right? Honestly, I am as much a Brianista as can be in a certain sense, but at the same time, this is the guy in whose hands the band should have been left. All would have been well, yes? The "key of BW" is funny on a certain level, but f***, it's sad.

Where does he play different on those songs? what's he playing?

Brian's playing something very different at the end of Good Timin', going into In My Room.

speaking of In my Room, is there some type of 80s synth or keyboards added to it around the end? it's kinda cheesy

They should make available a "for fans only" release of the complete unedited, unsweetened show.  Warts and all.  I like warts!

i wish i knew how to hear the whole show.

Everybody gets thrown off during the first verse, because Brian is playing something uptempo, during a ballad. He also plays a little bit of Rapsody in Blue at the very end of California Girls.

Oddly enough, the unsweetened version sounds MUCH better to me than the released version.

I think some more "sweetening" was done for its DVD release, due to the large amount of autotune on Mike's vocals.

It's sad how often autotune is applied to things nowadays when it's absolutely, 100% not necessary. Mike Love did not need autotune on his voice.

Michael's voice at Knebworth was nothing compared to the farce he gave us in 1981-82 when Carl was gone. Bar none, he was never more nasal than at that time.

Listen to 12/4/81 in San Carlos, CA for proof. I Get Around on there is embarrassing in the extreme. Even more than Brian pinching his nose while singing Sloop John B earlier that night.

Was he doing this to foda things up because he didn't really want to be there, or was it because his mood was "elevated" ?

To me, Brian seems very bored, and just doesn't want to be there. I can understand him "noodling around" between songs, but why he would continue during a good portion of In My Room, I have no idea.

Released as a non-existent 2CD set on the purely fictitious Stone Age label a few years ago. Not that I'd chose to own a copy even if it existed. Which it doesn't.

Well, I'd like to hear it.  (if it existed, which it doesn't)

Now what would this be from? Doco made during the Europe tour?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoX1SmknVDs

Meh - would have been very easy to just remove Brian's backup vocals, wouldn't it have? I can't see that as being the reason.

Just the same, it's his song - I like his extra contributions to the song, helps fill out some of that slightly dead space.

Yeah, I like Brian's 'call and answer' thing here too, I don't think that hurts the song.

I wish the Beach Boys would not mess with their history and just let people see them for what they were. They had nothing to be ashamed of at this show.

This sounds VERY interesting? Um....how might one not hear this?

It really does! I also don't want to hear this.  ::)