The Smiley Smile Message Board

This exceeded my expectations and was excellent in places: Darlin', I'm So Young, When I Grow Up and Good Vibrations were 10/10 performances. Using Carl and Dennis vocal tracks for GOK and DYWD was just the correct side of tasteful, although I can see why it might not be to everyone's liking. I thought the "bottom end" sounded great, augmented by the baritone sax (Randy Leago, an excellent addition) and keyboards. The Four Freshmen tribute is clearly sincere, and authenticated by Brian Eichenberger's presence (who was a latter-day member of that group). Eichenberger also did the I'm So Young vocal. Foskett did the Brian lead vocals to the excellent standard you'd expect. Ballad of Ole' Betsy was a surprise.

Downsides: Xmas segment was far too long: Little Saint Nick would have sufficed. Pisces Brothers exploits George's memory to Mike's benefit (has the painting ever been produced?). The scarves and the water may be for a good cause but seem to be self-promotion, and were undermined by a tasteless joke about sending the water to Flint (yes, really). Kokomo, whilst an understandable inclusion, is sh*t, a disgrace to put it alongside Brian's greats. Summer In Paradise was a better song than Kokomo but still inappropriate.

Setliist was a shortened version of this 5/11 sets (e.g. there was only one set and the Pet Sounds songs were narrowed down to the usual three; there were no Surf City and Rock and Roll Music unless I overlooked them):

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-beach-boys/2016/the-capitol-center-for-the-arts-concord-nh-73fad659.html

I actually keep hoping for a Mike and Bruce December show in my area one year so I can hear all those Christmas songs. 

The audience was stunned during that medley: what the f*** is this sh*t? Back projection showed cartoon penguins pulling sleighs and whatnot.

Sounds like when I saw them in Baltimore in February, and the audience was a little miffed by All This is That. 

The Beach Boys Christmas Album is pretty well known, so I'm surprised the songs would get that kind of reaction at a December concert. 

Which XMas songs did they do?

As for the Flint joke, it's Mike being an asshole, plain and simple. I read a review of a previous show where he did the joke, so now we know he builds tasteless jokes into the setlist. They're planned and scripted

He can give all the interviews he wants and claim he's "misunderstood" or has a "sardonic" sense of humor or whatever. But sorry, it's on Mike at this point that people think he's the biggest asshole of the classic rock era.

White Christmas, Man With All The Toys, I'll Be Home For Christmas. I might have misjudged the atmosphere because I'm a Brit and those songs (except the first) mean nothing to me, but I did feel the audience was waiting for it to end so they could get back to songs they recognized as BB originals. There are plenty of actual Xmas concerts one can attend. OTOH maybe it's a BB tradition to include four of the Christmas Album songs in December concerts?

I don't know how far back, but I know that, over the last three or four years, Mike and Bruce have been known to do as many as seven Xmas songs in their sets.

Maybe Mike can add some Hurricane Katrina jokes while he's at it. You know, in order to mix things up a bit. What a tool.

I see Mike is being a great brand ambassador again. ::)

Well, the ass part of ambassador is correct at least.

Maybe Noven Jaisi did that back projection film... :lol

Did the cartoon look like it used anything from this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6U2ubpBd28 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6U2ubpBd28)

I'd say missed opportunity: Bring Dean back, have Bruce fire up the ol' DX-7 and 808, and revisit this classic from the Radio Shack era. Enhanced, of course, by Noven Jaisi editing the original film with the cartoon penguins pulling a sleigh:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RryIroTqs-k (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RryIroTqs-k)

Pure gold.

 :lol

That backing track though :'(

For a song called 'Jingle Bell Rock' done for a TV movie called 'Scrooge's Rock and Roll Christmas' this track is laughingly void of anything to do with rock.

Kinda like Rock and Roll Music on 15BOs.

R&R Music from 15BOs has a guitar playing a heavy riff (at 1:30 for a specific example and especially around 1:55 - but it plays all through the song), saxophones, real kick ass drums, etc. This 'Jingle Bell Rock' cover has the most artificial backing track I've ever heard (save 'Santa's Goin to Kokomo'). No comparison.

To be fair, I think both songs are just shells compared to the originals. 

The single mix of RARM really shows that stuff buried in the mix.

Agreed. R&R Music has always been far from a favorite for me...there are much much better songs on 15 BOs.

I like it as a live number.  But, never been a fan of the studio version. 

Remember when the water was bad in Mexico and the jobs were in Flint MI?  Well, as a matter of fact, I do.....

Would a potential Standing Rock joke by Mike told at a BB show bother you? Just curious. I happen to think it's bad taste to make jokey stage banter out of tragedies. Call me crazy.

I remember when I saw The Cult in concert in 2007.  The show was in downtown Baltimore, and Ian Astbury joked that "you got some scary looking neighborhoods here."  Most of the audience laughed. 

While I'm not offended by a joke like that, as long as the joke isn't in really poor taste, in this day and age with smart phones recording everything, I think it's better practice to say away.  It doesn't take much at all for an offbeat remark to be captured on a phone, and turned into something bigger than it really needs to be. 

True dat.

Let me give you some context. I live in Michigan. I work for an institution that is deeply entrenched in Flint and helping the residents to deal with the water crisis. My job brings me to Flint frequently--I know many people directly effected by this disaster.

I attended a concert in Michigan earlier this year where Mike gave his water charity spiel. This is how I described it then:

"One more thing I forgot to mention, Mike had some sort of blue scarf on stage that was apparently made in India. He talked about it for a couple of minutes (made a Steven Tyler joke), mentioned they were for sale at the merch table with 100% of proceeds going to clean water efforts. He made a joke about bringing the initiative to Flint."

The stage banter went on a little longer than necessary, but, unless the "joke" changed a lot since then, he essentially said that the proceeds from the sale of the scarves went for drinking water in Africa, though maybe it should be going to Flint. I didn't find it demeaning or disrespectful, more of a commentary on the fact that clean, safe drinking water shouldn't be in question for citizens in the United States in 2016.

Again, maybe he has changed the "joke" to be offensive. The "joke" received some groans from the audience, but more of a knowing, why is it even a question of clean drinking water, in the USA, in 2016.

There are a lot of things to criticize Mike about, but this seems a little overblown.

That's the "joke" I remember as well in Cincinnati.  I'm not sure how any offense could be taken unless, like you said, he changed the joke.

I'm sure seeing or hearing the tone of the Flint comment would help. If he made the comment and then followed it up with "am I right? What a sad situation!" or something like that, something to give the comment context, then that would help.

But the thing is, if he's lamenting the unfortunate situation, it's a rather listless, useless way of doing it; expressing outrage about a situation by mentioning how the charity he *is* raising money for is going to get the money instead.

If he was using it as a segue to raise awareness or money or something for Flint, perhaps there wouldn't be any room to think he's just making a ham-fisted joke. But just off handedly making the comment, while perhaps not intended as a tasteless joke, comes across as a "why bother making the quick sardonic comment if you're not trying to do anything about it?" sort of moment. I'm not even saying Mike should have to do anything about it. But then just leave it alone.

Mike has *never* been good with making these sorts of comments/references. He almost always comes across a smug a-hole, whether he intends to or not or whether it's deserved or not.

That he apparently has *rehearsed* this bit and uses it over and over seems even more puzzling.

It's not a huge deal; we don't need to be fake outraged by it or anything. I'm not outraged. But it's not 100% innocuous either. It's just a sensibility with subject matter that I think is off, and Mike does this from time to time. I felt a similar way when he was doing a George Harrison tribute back-to-back with a Carl tribute as if it was a "Lung Cancer" mini-set, as he specifically (at least at some shows) mentioned they both died of lung cancer. There's nothing inaccurate about it, and I'm sure Mike is nothing but saddened at their demise, but it's a weird and in my opinion tasteless context to put tributes into. As with most things Mike does, if you see or hear or read it and think "what's wrong with that?", then it's unlikely anybody else will sway your opinion.

I agree. Sad part is, there are people who wouldn't find it offensive, but make a joke about the fucking police and then they  WOULD find it offensive.


Not only do I *not* find that offensive, I would actually agree with that. It's been FAR TOO FUCKING LONG....that sh*t needs to be fixed ASAP.

I can only speak for the concert I was at, but the comment with regard to Flint really didn't need context in Michigan (and it's kind of sad to think that it would need context anywhere else in the USA). I know most of the country has largely forgotten about the situation, but it's kind of the elephant in the room when you're talking about clean water in Michigan. *Maybe* it plays different elsewhere, but I appreciate the fact that Mike is actually reminding people.

Sorry if it feels like I'm turning it around on everyone else, but this is something I've been aware of since October 2015 (although there were signs before that). I know people are always looking for a way to swipe at Mike, I just don't see this as being particularly offensive, quite the opposite, really. It almost feels like, "how dare you remind us of Flint, wasn't that taken care of months ago?"

Wish i could see a Beach boys concert inDecember so Ican hear the Christmas songs live!

Earlier in this thread, the question was asked about whether the crowd should expect Christmas songs. 

I just saw on advertisement on Facebook (can't remember if it was The Beach Boys or Mike's page) that billed December shows as "50 Years of Good Vibrations, Christmas, and Hits."