The Smiley Smile Message Board

Just a thread for speculation and "what-if"ing...

Imagine the BBs had gone through with Monterey.  What would have been a good setlist for that show? I'm not sure how many of the tunes from Smiley Smile the BBs were prepared to do live, but I can't imagine it would've been hard to pull together something like "With Me Tonight".  I do think the Lei'd In Hawaii approach would have worked very well (organ, quiet vibe, etc).  Maybe something like the following:

Heroes And Villains
Getting Hungry
The Letter
California Girls
God Only Knows
Sloop John B
With Me Tonight
Wouldn't It Be Nice
Surfer Girl
Good Vibrations 

Thoughts?

I wouldn't be surprised if the setlist was similar to their sets that they played on the small European tour in May of '67. As Heroes and Villains wasn't out at the time of Monterey, I doubt it would have been played.

Honestly, the set might have looked like this. In no particular order -

Help Me Rhonda
I Get Around
Good Vibrations
Sloop John B.
Wouldn't It Be Nice
God Only Knows
California Girls
Surfer Girl
The Letter
Surfin' Safari/Fun Fun Fun/Little Deuce Coupe/Shut Down/Surfin' USA
You're So Good To Me

Keep in mind, major guessing is going on here. Up to and including Surfer Girl, I'd say those were givens. After that it's mere speculation. Unless there was a finished Smile at the time of Monterey, I don't believe any of the songs would have been played, if only for the mere fact that they were all incomplete.

Seems to me I saw "Vegetables" included on some Monterey setlist. Dunno if it was in an article I read or what, but I did think it woulda been weird for them to do that one.

Monterey Pop was June 16-18th...Smiley Smile was recorded in June/July(?). 

Well, remember a version of Vegetables was written & recorded earlier, during the Smile sessions. Plus, just because it wasn't released yet doesn't mean they couldn't have played it prior to release. The Beach Boys did that a few times, you know.

Maybe I dreamt it, I don't know.

"The Letter" by the Box Tops wasn't appearing on the surveys or radio playlists until August 1967, maybe appearing only as a "HitBound" new showing as early as the last week in July 1967 - and Monterey Pop happened in mid-June 1967, so I don't think that tune could be included. The reason why I think the BB's did it in Hawaii is because the timing of those shows the last week of August '67 coincided with "The Letter" becoming the number one record on LA radio. They were playing the current number one hit record in their show...as their own current single Heroes was hovering between #30 and #10, depending on the market. I think its best showing overall was in the Boston area, if I remember...

I'm guessing whatever setlist they had performed on the tour most current to June 1967 would have been done at Monterey. However...my own opinion...if they would have done anything as laid-back as they would soon do in Hawaii, i think Brian was right in thinking they would have gotten blown off the stage that weekend. I also don't think Heroes would have been performed as it had not been released, and the most current song they'd be able to pull off would have been Good Vibrations. Nothing else was ready.

It was the Beach Boys' touring sound system which was used at Monterey, yet Wally Heider himself can be seen in the film trying to rescue his microphones as chaos is happening on the stage.

After a little snooping, found a set list from May 2, 67':

1. Help Me Rhonda
2. I Get Around
3. Surfer Girl
4. You're So Good To Me
5. God Only Knows
6. Sloop John B
7. Do You Wanna Dance
8. Then I Kissed Her
9. California Girls
10. Wouldn't It Be Nice
11. Good Vibrations
12. Barbara Ann

I agree, if they were self conscious about some of the older stuff they could have dipped into the newest material.  Better to play something unfamiliar and "edgy" than something familiar and "square". 

I wonder if the grungier sound of Smiley is in some ways a reaction to Monterey?       

They coulda played "Heroes & Villains" at that point too, Menace. Some of those songs in that list would not have attracted the "hip" crowd in '67, eh?

i think a simple/Smiley approach would be best...imagine being at that concert, high on whatever and just hearing those voices...that would be the most astonishing thing, the vocals.

It might be overstating the immediate influence of the Monterey festival *at that time in history* to suggest it had that much of an influence on Smiley Smile or too much of anything else, except among those who were in the audience. The concert itself was only heard by the audience that was there in person, and it would remain that way until at least the film and other recordings would circulate. Everything else was word-of-mouth, or partial news and fanzine reports which gave the public their impressions of what actually happened at the festival, short of any broadcast, simulcast, or recording of the show. Jimi Hendrix probably won more non-musician fans in the immediate sense from touring with The Monkees than he had from his Monterey performance, which again only those who were there (like Micky Dolenz) had seen until the film was released in late 1968.

I think the wider influence of the show was from the film, and sometimes the festival itself gets credited with more influence than it actually had on a wide audience at the time it happened. Only the people there heard it firsthand until the film and soundtrack - it reminds me of the millions of folks who claim to have been at Woodstock when in reality they probably confused seeing the movie with being there.

That was the concern, from what I understand.  Then again, The Association performed at Monterey Pop (even did "Windy" I think!) and there were no hipster riots.  :p

good vibrations
wouldnt it be nice
god only knows
vege-tables
wind chimes
cabin essence
surf's up
heroes and villains
sloop john b

Who cares if those hipster merdaholes would have dug the boys or not?

If Mamma's & The Pappas were considered hip, The Beach Boys had nothing to worry about.

I personally wish they'd played it just so we'd have some great footage of the performance!

Also, we might have gotten to see oldsurferdude get tackled by security while trying to get at Mike onstage!

The Boys were invited because they did what they did and so what they did was what was expected. They weren't invited because they were unhip.

This is what they should have done:

Heroes and Villains
California Girls
Do You Like Worms
Wouldn't It Be Nice
Sloop John B
God Only Knows
I Get Around
Child is Father of the Man
Surf's Up

Encore:
Help Me Rhonda
Mrs. O'Leary's Cow
Good Vibrations

They should have just done all covers, just some classics with GV and/or Heroes as an encore

Third time I've made this observation over the years:  Walk out on stage like you own the place, which by rights you do, rip off a fired-up intro to Fun Fun Fun and blast the crowd out of the park with an all-hit set and a couple of newbies tossed in. To heck with the hipsters.

A "clean" Lei'd in Hawaii would've been cool. Maybe add I Get Around or something from SmileySmile, Vegetables for example

Works for me  8)

With Brian on bass, they could rock hard like they did in 1964 in Sacramento.

And remember they had at Monterey some of the core Wrecking Crew members as the house band. How great to have the Beach Boys self-contained band augmented by Hal Blaine, Joe Osborn, Larry Knechtel, etc. The best of both worlds, several incarnations of Brian's studio bands on one stage. Consider the possibilities of that.

I can see why Brian Dropped out of Montery,just think about it,most of the bands who played it were Hard rock guitar bands and Folk singers who played either loud or songs with messages (politics etc) i think that the Beach boys would have been considered to "pop rock" for hte crowd if they sung songs like "fun fun fun" or whatever,maybe a couple songs off of "pet sounds" ,if it had been a year or two later and they done songs from "wild honey" or "friends" then I can picture a setlist that may have gone over with the crowd also notice I left off "the letter" just because it may have been considered "ripping off" another recent artists of that time but I put in the "older" folky remakes from people of the past ..something like this
1.Good Vibrations (of course,but the weird version they did on the tv)
2.Heroes and villians
3.wonderful or surfs up (because of the psychodelic lyrics)
4.cottenfieds (their "folk song")
5.sloop john b (another "Folk song")
6.I'm getting hungry (r&b sounding)
7.caroline no or wouldn't it be nice
8.Blue birds over the mountain
9.the welfare song
10.riot in cell block #9

No surfing or car songs ..

Too bad they didn't get invited to Woodstock.  They might have done well even with a surf set list.  Didn't the campy fifties style act Sha Na Na play Woodstock and people seemed to like them?  Grateful Dead fans also liked the Beach Boys when they did some shows together.

In the alternate reality where Smile was realeased in early '67 they played the following:   :3d
 
Our Prayer
Heroes And Villains
California Girls
Wouldn't It Be Nice
God Only Knows
Surfer Girl
Sloop John B
Help Me Rhonda
I Get Around
Good Vibrations
Barbara Ann

^ I agree, though just to keep this scenario realistic I'd replace "Our Prayer" with "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring".

I wanted to repost this to remind people reading that the song "The Letter" could not have been a part of anything real or imaginary at Monterey Pop because that record had not been released at the time of Monterey Pop.

Wikipedia has a partial set list for all three days of the Monterey Pop Festival, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monterey_Pop_Festival_(Set_List).  The Beach Boys would have fit right in without having to change their act.  There were pop acts on the bill that were even softer than the Beach Boys.  The Association, Lou Rawls, Johnny Rivers, Mamas & Papas, Scott McKenzie, and Simon and Garfunkel were among the acts, none of whom were harder or hipper than the Beach Boys.  Johnny Rivers even performed "Help Me, Rhonda" in his set.  The best day for them to go on would have been the first day, since the softer acts were mostly playing then.  The final night was Jimi Hendrix, but the Mamas and the Papas went on after Jimi to close the show.

I don't know if this has already been discussed somewhere, but what if Beach Boys would have made it to Monterey? Everything else would have been the same: Smile is delayed and scrapped, Baldwin-heavy Smiley Smile is recorded... Would one festival appearance really made any difference? Monterey no-show is always mentioned as one of their greatest failures, but was it really that significant? Sounds kinda weird. The Doors turned down Woodstock, and it didn't affect their career one bit.

I agree that it may have made no difference one way or the other if the Beach Boys appeared at the festival.  The acts that benefited from it the most were somewhat unknown in the United States, Jimi Hendrix and The Who.  I don't think it made any difference at all for acts that were already established, such as the Byrds. 

Interesting thread.  Here's my imaginary take on Monterey Pop.  Of course, this assumes that a full-on finished SMiLE is released in March or April 1967.

This is an interesting time for the Beach Boys.  SMiLE comes out and the Beatles still got nothin', at least not for another couple months when Sergeant Pepper is released.  But, like Pet Sounds, the album is quite the departure from their pre-1966 work, and so the band is still in the weird transition period between the Hits Surf Group they were and the Intellectual, deep, Generation Defining Band they would become.    The band appears at Monterey in outfits looking similar to the SMiLE album jacket...no striped shirts here.  BW (1967 version)  is here too; the stakes are high.  The band saunters out on stage, backed by a cadre of Wrecking Crew musicians brought from Los Angeles.

The Setlist:
1) Our Prayer/Gee
2) Heroes and Villains [full SMiLE version]
3) Sloop John B
4) Wouldn't It Be Nice
5) I Get Around
6) California Girls
7) God Only Knows
8) Surf's Up
9) Mrs. O'Leary's Cow [Dennis lights a fire on stage during this one]
10) Blue Hawaii
11) Our Prayer Outro/Good Vibrations
12) Surfin' USA [encore]
13) Fun Fun Fun [2nd Encore]

I think Smiley woulda tanked anyway even if they did perform (it woulda reached higher perhaps). If Smile had been released then a whole other thing woulda happened (as has been discussed many times). The Mamas & The Papas started fading in popularity after Monterey Pop.

I'm not sure Smile would have been a hit had they released it in 1966/67 or had performed it at Monterey, but that's a can of worms and most Brian Wilson and even some non-Briancentric Beach Boys fans wouldn't agree. The Smile album has no real rock tracks on it that feature heavy electric guitars.  That's one thing that Sgt. Pepper had over Smile, the hard rock guitars that were much more popular among large segments of fans back then.  The Beatles always had harder rocking, electric guitar-driven tracks among the light pop numbers on their albums, so they had that to appeal to the rock crowd that were embracing folks like Jimi Hendrix and the Who.  Hard rock seemed to be where it was at in 1967 at least as far as the Fillmore West types and the new Rolling Stone magazine.

Well, yeaaah... But really, Sgt. Pepper's isn't really that hard rocking. Only the title track and it's reprise are proper guitar rock, and even they are kind of ironic "show numbers". Sgt. Pepper's is rooted in music hall / variety show type thing. Indian flavors, old-time jazz and some light psychedelia... Something for everyone. "Good Morning Good Morning" kind of rocks, but even it isn't exactly face-melting guitarfest.

I think Smile had a chance, but the long delay killed the hype and momentum. Only Beatles (and Dylan) could afford so long pauses between albums back then, I guess.

Well, yeaaah... But really, Sgt. Pepper's isn't that hard rocking. Only the title track and it's reprise are proper guitar rock, and even they are kind of ironic "show numbers". Sgt. Pepper's is rooted in music hall / variety show type thing. Indian flavors, old-time jazz and some light psychedelia... Something for everyone. "Good Morning Good Morning" kind of rocks, but even it isn't exactly face-melting guitarfest.

I think Smile had a chance, but the long delay killed the hype and momentum. Only Beatles (and Dylan) could afford so long pauses between albums back then, I guess.
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Well, yeaaah... But really, Sgt. Pepper's isn't that hard rocking. Only the title track and it's reprise are proper guitar rock, and even they are kind of ironic "show numbers". Sgt. Pepper's is rooted in music hall / variety show type thing. Indian flavors, old-time jazz and some light psychedelia... Something for everyone. "Good Morning Good Morning" kind of rocks, but even it isn't exactly face-melting guitarfest.

I think Smile had a chance, but the long delay killed the hype and momentum. Only Beatles (and Dylan) could afford so long pauses between albums back then, I guess.

Just a few random thoughts for the conversation:

Monterey Pop became the stuff of legend after the show itself, which is usually the case. Having a great film tightly edited by D.A. Pennebaker helped solidify the legendary status of the event and tell perhaps a bigger story than what actually happened over a few full days of events. The weekend was a big deal, but remember there was no instant media in June 1967 - apart from local radio, the Monterey Pop festival story would be spread through fanzines and most important through the film documentary.

I ask this: How many average folks have actually seen or heard more than *one song* from any given artist's performance at the festival? We know the Who smash-up routine, we've seen California Dreamin, we've seen Janis singing her knockout song - yet even that was somewhat contrived and controlled because they didn't capture her original performance, which was apparently even more electric and intense, so they staged it again and re-filmed it.

It's a filmmaker controlling what we see as reality - How good were the rest of the songs? Was it one highlight out of ten lesser songs, or was it an electric set from start to finish, like Jimi Hendrix whose full set can be seen on video? How did the crowd react at that moment? A filmmaker can take a reaction shot, positive or negative, from any given moment over the course of the event, edit that onto any given performance clip, and completely change the perception of that event. Powerful.

I also think the media played up certain elements of the actual staging of this event, especially the notion that some music writers still promote, how it was the death knell of the Los Angeles studio based bands, and how the blues-rock "edgier" San Francisco vibe would soon rule the day. Like it was a throwdown during the festival - "There's a new sheriff in town!" kind of thing...it just wasn't so.

Look at the bands featured, and how many of them were a major part of the whole LA-Sunset Strip scene. It was just a music festival, a weekend of music where fans could come to hear a lot of good bands play. We see only a fraction of what happened, we know only what some of the participants and journalists who like to tell stories of the event will tell us - filtered through their own bias, of course.

Put the Beach Boys into this mix, and imagine they had actually taken the stage. The closest comparison we can actually hear might be the Hawaii shows, as many others have mentioned. Subtract the Smiley Smile material, and take *that* setlist and that sound. The real speculation happens when you consider a majority of the Monterey "house band" had played on Brian's studio sessions and knew the songs, would they have been the musicians? Or would it have been the Hawaii core band of only Beach Boys?

Look at the Los Angeles-based bands surrounding the Beach Boys on the festival lineup - these were their peers, these were people who interacted and walked the same paths as Brian and the Boys, bands who knew them, respected Brian's work, and in the case of even The Who, bands who were actual fans of the Beach Boys' music!

I would agree that if the Beach Boys had taken the stage and done a typical routine with stage banter, striped shirts, and all of that not even considering the music itself, it probably would *not* have gone over too well that weekend. That stage bit worked for a different fan base than would have been there in summer 1967.

The issue with The Beach Boys and Monterey Pop might be their collective ignorance of how much respect they actually did have not only among other bands but also among fans who were at Monterey Pop. I have to think there were other, more private reasons why they didn't perform apart from a fear of getting rejected or booed while doing a set, or whatever else was listed.

It's a shame the timing was what it was, because June 1967 wasn't necessarily a banner month for the band, in retrospect. They seemed to be existing in their own bubble at that time, in the wake of Smile.

The fact that Micky Dolenz and Brian Jones were there and not hiding in some kind of VIP section shows there was a music industry slant to the crowd.  So, yeah, I think the Beach Boys would have had a friendlier audience at Monterey there than some Beach Boys' bios have implied.  Though I do think they would have avoided playing with the house band if at all possible because of all the flak the Monkees got for not playing their own instruments.  It was apparently a big deal during that time.  The Beach Boys weren't that bad.  They were no worse at playing their instruments than Big Brother and the Holding Company (I speak of the band itself, not Janis Joplin). 

I'm one of those who think far too much is made of the BB's non appearance at Monterey. For the most part, my favorite acts of the era were not there. Where were the Kinks? Paul Revere and the Raiders? The Lovin' Spoonful? The Beatles? Bob Dylan? Maybe the BB's should have played, Dennis could've destroyed his drum set, Carl could've set his guitar on fire/smashed it to pieces, Mike could've done a stage dive into the crowd of hippies....and Al? Bruce? I guess they'd just play on, ala Entwhistle, oblivious to it all.

I wasn't even born in their heyday, but I've understood that normal rules didn't apply to Beatles and Dylan. They were universally loved and respected regardless of what they did, and unlike the BB's (and all the other acts of the time), they didn't have to play the pop game. Beatles took almost a year long break before Sgt. Peppers. Same with Dylan after Blonde on Blonde. And what about universally panned Magical Mystery Tour TV special? It didn't affect their popularity one bit.

This was slightly off-topic, but point is that it's useless to compare "what the Beatles did" with "what the Beach Boys did", as the Beatles were in a league in their own. But yeah, I agree that the signifigance of Monterey no-show has been greatly exeggerated.

But... IF they had been there, they probably would have been included in D. A. Pennebaker's film, which came out in 1968 (a very bad year for the boys). Would THAT have changed anything? What do you think? A slot in a movie that made the festival legendary. I think it could have helped them during their wilderness years.