Very sad and shocking news, indeed. How old was he?

Only 59. What a huge loss.

Well, I'll be hanging around MGM Grand on those days but I won't be paying $1700.

I don't know where you're getting $1700 from. Actual price: $6500! 

What show did Dave sing 'Don't Back Down'?

None of them.

[PUPPET SHOWANDBEACH BOYS]

PUPPET SHOW
AND
BEACH BOYS

Oh no. If I told them once, I told them a hundred times: Put Beach Boys first, and puppet show last!

Good luck getting theatrical distribution unless they have something mindbendingly incredible in the can! Unless they mean theatrical as in four walling two or three theaters for a weekend and sacrificing some chickens for good luck.

I'm guessing it would be more along the lines of the satellite broadcasts that movie theaters are booking to earn extra money. Generally, a company will beam out a concert film or opera or musical play to theaters for a showing at a specific date or time, and the theaters sell tickets as a special event.

For an example of what I'm talking about, check out the schedule for one of the big players here: http://www.fathomevents.com/upcoming/. Looks they have a Bon Jovi concert film next week, a bunch of opera broadcast live, a ballet, and even a Star Trek: TNG double episode thing with extra bits. Past concert events they've had included Coldplay, Peter Gabriel, The Rolling Stones, Chicago, Celine Dion, David Gilmour, etc. I think a Beach Boys reunion concert seems a natural fit for this type of release, because you get a chance to sell a reunion concert experience (where you're seeing the band play one night only with music played really loudly and surrounded by other like-minded people) all over again to those who didn't have a chance to see any of the actual reunion concerts.

If a BB concert film would be released this way, you wouldn't have a problem finding a theater showing it, as they cover nearly all markets. The only problem would be committing yourself to the one date and time that it's sent out. It's not unheard of for a band to release a concert film this way, but then release it to home video the next year, however.

So, it's still pure speculation on my part, but I would bet good money that if we see any other concert from this tour on film, it's going to be as this type of a digital broadcast event in movie theaters.

For this to be the penultimate actual "concert video" of the tour is pretty sad. I was hoping this was going to be the cheapie thing put out quickly for the holiday season.

I'd love it if it were the penultimate concert video release of this tour, because that would mean we were getting one more.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/penultimate

Clip from the new DVD?

Nope, that clip is not the Phoenix show. That clip was from the Hollywood Bowl. Mike and Bruce look like they were both wearing the same clothes (both shows were on Saturday!), but Al was in a white suit in Phoenix. Two other dead giveaways: Nicky Wonder's in that clip, and he was gone from the tour by Phoenix, and Gary Griffin's guesting on accordion back there between Scott and Darian.

Bought the download. For DIA, all the live shows I went to, the band came out and started kicking into the song as Foskett introduced the individual BB's.....That is not in this "live" version of DIA

They didn't start doing that intro until later in the tour. I'm not sure when they started, but I can definitely testify that they didn't have Jeff announcing the into at the opener in Tucson.

I liked it much better that way. Nothing against Jeff, but I think it's a much more effective show opener to just start hitting that beat, then have everyone walk on and start playing. That's how you announce your presence. You don't need to tell anyone you're from Hawthorne California, or that these are your names. You're the freaking Beach Boys. There's no better way to say "Hey we're here and we're going to give you a great time tonight" than to just start singing.

OK.  Thanks!  Now I have one more:

Who took over he organ for Scott on "Surfin' USA"?

I think it's Tim Bonhomme. He plays keyboards in Mike and Bruce band, and was touring with the reunion as the co-tour manager.

Kokomo.

Those aren't goosebumps. That's a rash.

Re: Tack piano

Here's a couple of quotes from that Joe Thomas interview at http://andrewromano.tumblr.com/joethomasbeachboys

"So this was done the only way Brian could do a record. We had a studio with an organ and vibes and a percussion tree and a tack piano flown in."

and

"I know that Mike has been supportive in the studio where he knows that Brian is going to pick whether it’s a flute or a oboe or a double bass or a tack piano that he could only hear at Ben Folds studio in Nashville. Brian is very specific about things like that. We found this tack piano at one studio in Nashville and that’s what Brian wanted to hear."

So, assuming that's all literal truth, it's Ben Folds' tack piano flown out from Nashville.

I can't believe they spelled Murry's name wrong. Nice photo of him, tho!

It's not just that, they also misspell "Tucson" (in the onscreen title at 00:27)

Back to the new video on youtube, looks like the bit of footage of "Isn't It Time" is from the 6/1 Berkeley show.

And the rest is from the opener in Tucson, FYI

Set list:


I too was at the Tucson show, and while that show was great, this one was just that much better. So many things have been added/changed since Tucson. Most of them little, but still makes it worth it to see another show.

Random comments:

Show was scheduled to start at 8:00, but didn't get going until about 8:20. Show ended around 11:30.

There were extra lights rigged to illuminate the audience the whole night for the filming, so it never really got dark. Some songs, the overhead lights were on full blast.

Someone evidently told Brian somewhere along the line that when the camera's on him, he needs to not look like a zombie. I noticed that in all the TV appearances on this tour that there would be times when he would get a closeup, then realize after a few seconds that a camera was there and flash a big smile. Since the cameras were all over the stage tonight, we got lost of those "Oh hey, the cameras on me, I better do something" moments from Brian. The presence of the cameras meant that for all of those who really keep track of how "animated" Brian is at a particular show, this was a pretty up night for him. Lots of smiles, hand gestures, and even looked like he's been working on some choreography for Sail On, Sailor. He really seems to enjoy singing that song.

Marcella seemed to just die. No audience response at all from what I could tell around me. I personally would have rather heard This Whole World again, but I can't say that would have gone over any better with this crowd.

The sound was muddy arena sound. It had been better outdoors in Tucson. Mike seemed like he wasn't speaking very clearly tonight, but I couldn't tell if that's because the sound was muddy or he was just mumbling. He did seem a tad bit more scatterbrained, and it seemed like his timing in his jokes or stories was off a bit.

Nicky Wonder's still MIA.

Bruce seems like he's adding even more electric piano to Disney Girls now than what he did in Tucson. Doesn't sound bad, it's just more prominent than before. And, it's his big solo; If he wants piano noodling before the chorus, he should have it.

Mike said they were doing 50 songs, and then Al mentioned it was the 50th show tonight, that he had counted them up. Of course this thread says 46th, but that's only counting public shows. If you included the Sirius show, the QVC show, the Good Morning America in the park concert, and one more (The Rolling Stone acoustic thing?), you'd get 50. I'll leave it to others to check Al's math there, or figure out which shows he's counting.

Now, I'm assuming Heroes and Villains followed Our Prayer?

Yep...but not seamlessly

No "Gee" in between?

Nope...there was no attempt to play them "together", they waited for the applause to die down and then counted in for Heroes...

That leads to my question: What was the audience response to "Our Prayer"? Is it like everyone in the audience is cheering "wow, I never thought I'd hear that", or is it more like "meh. I can't wait for them to play a few more covers"?

Tour Managers: Michael 'Swifty' Swift and Tim Bonhomme

Mike Swift has been audio tech/tour manager for the Beach Boys for quite a while it appears. From his twitter feed (@swiftyontour), he's been on the tour from the start and is still on it.

Tim Bonhomme is the keyboard player for the Mike and Bruce show. Is it possible that he's the missing tour manager? Like he started the tour but has since quit/been fired?

Was Nicky Wonder at this show or is he still MIA?

another thing I'm noticing, because I'm separating the tracks into single songs (and therefore listening to the few seconds in between each song multiple times), is that there's a lot of false starts. like, Cowsill I guess will do the count-in and then only like one person will come in so they do the count in again and that's when the song starts.

the band should be paying more attention!

Can you give some examples?

[this is not the way it sounded last night]

It's very curious.

Autotune is one of those things it is very hard to unhear. So once it's apparent that Brian's vocals are being processed, you can hear the effect everywhere. It's hard to listen objectively, in other words.

But none of the live audience reports from last night mention the tuning. And I can't believe that the critics, etc., in the audience were that unsophisticated. So the room itself, possibly the PA system or some other sound source, may have made it less apparent if you were actually there.

Brian has toured successfully for years. Why spring this crazy new thing on him during the highest profile string of shows he's had for awhile? Brian's also an incredibly inconsistent vocalist, so why would anyone think that live tuning would even work? If the tuning made Brian sound like an angel, that would be one thing. But at least in what I've heard, it doesn't do much of anything except make him sound strange when he's trying to hit a high note.

None of the people arranging this tour are dumb either. Say what you want about Mike, Melinda, et. al, but they are smart cookies. And they know when Brian sounds good and when he sounds bad. So why do this?

Something here doesn't add up.

I've got to echo this. I went to the show last night. I feel like I have a pretty good ear, and I can tell when auto tune is being overused or misbehaving, and I didn't hear anything like that last night. I got some sound files today that I'm listening to, and yes, some parts in Surfer Girl do sound suspect, but I am adamant when I say, this is not the way it sounded last night.

Brian sounded exactly like Brian last night, which is to say kind of bad. Let's face it, he's old, he ruined his voice with smoking and drugs, and his mental state over the years probably prevented him from putting the kind of work and practice necessary to keep his voice well. That said, I'm a huge fan, and I was there to see him. I listened intently to every note he sang that actually made it through the mix, and everything sounded exactly as I expected it to sound, without any signs of auto tune.

I was 25 feet away from Brian, and so maybe the overwhelming sound from the speakers above were hiding some things that did actually come out clearer in the back of the venue, or maybe I was just too excited last night to hear in very great detail. But maybe, just maybe, it's also possible that maybe a 64kbps AAC recording made through a little tiny crappy microphone just maybe isn't accurate enough to tell what was going on? Anyone who's trying to foment a ruckus here based just on hearing that recording ought to perhaps be quiet and reserve judgement until they can see the show for themselves or at least wait until some higher quality recordings appear.

[For those of you going to future Beach Boys shows (or any concerts):]

There's been a few comments here as to whether the venue was sold out or how full it was, so I thought I'd share my experiences from my viewpoint:


All the available seated tickets were actually sold out... for a while. The problem is that the theatre or the band or someone actually held back many many seats. I bought my tickets the second they went on sale, and only managed row FF, but I could see on the venue's web site that most of the seats in the front sections were marked as "Not Available" rather than being marked as "Sold".

I suspected these seats might become available later, so I checked periodically. Sure enough, some better seats became available about two weeks before showtime, but many more were still being held. The night before showtime, suddenly about 250 really great seats (some as good as 2nd or 3rd row) suddenly became available. Several of these were purchased over the night or the next day, but that was just too many to unload that quickly to a crowd that had already bought their tickets.

When I got to the venue at 45 minutes before showtime, there were still over 100 seats left unsold, all of which were better than the ones I bought at 10:01 the morning the day they went on sale. I walked up to the box office ready to pitch a fit, but they were extremely cool about refunding my original tickets and selling me a pair in the 5th row.

Even as of showtime, the same 100 tickets seemed to be still available when checking from my phone, and they were all clumped together in prime locations, too, which I'm sure looked bad to the band and the fans, especially to those fans like me who bought tickets right away and got crappy seats.

So, whether it was the band or the venue or the promoter responsible for holding so many back, they could have managed it better, either by holding less back, or returning them sooner, or at least sending out some sort of email/twitter/facebook blast to let people know when primo seats suddenly became available for sale the day of show.


For those of you going to future Beach Boys shows (or any concerts): If you're not happy with your tickets, or you didn't get tickets yet because you couldn't get good seats, check with the box office or the venue website frequently in the days before the show. It's not uncommon to have good seats get released like this. I've never seen quite this many get released and go unsold, but I've occasionally managed to get really great seats to a show that I wouldn't have gone to otherwise because I wouldn't have been able to get good seats otherwise.

From Probyn -- he and Mikey are actually sharing bass guitar duties.

They may be sharing, but from what I could see at last night's show, it's 90% Mikey on bass, 10% Probyn.

There's a *lot* of Brian leads, actually -- he does Little Girl I Once Knew as well as the other ones noted. Someone (Jeff or Cowsill or possibly both) has to cover for him on the first middle eight on Sail On Sailor when he completely forgets the words, but the rest of the lead is as good as I've heard him singing that song. (On Sail On Sailor you *can* hear the backing band singing). He's great on Heroes & Villains, too. This is a *really* good show...

Was John Cowsill singing? I had a great seat but still couldn't tell. There was no boom mike or anything, so he would have had to have a headset, but I couldn't see anything like that. I suppose with a 10 piece backing band, just about all of whom were singing, his voice isn't strictly needed.

As an aside, I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone hit the drums harder than John Cowsill at last night's show.

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/media/images/medium2/20120425114514854.jpg

Just wanted to mention to AGD that it appears Al is playing a Strat on the tour!  

Al was playing a blue Jaguar at the beginning of the show and many times throughout, but switched to the white Strat frequently. David Marks stayed on his blue Jaguar the entire time. Scott and Jeff switched probably every song, so I lost count of who was playing what there.

Mike & Bruce have played Tucson several times in recent years (Brian never)...

*koff* 2009 Fiesta Bowl Invitational show.

Andrew, I see your site lists the 2009 show in Tuscon (the town too tough to spell; US joke). However, the Fiesta Bowl is held in Phoenix, where, perhaps by coincidence, The Phoenician is located. Even though I'm 99.99% sure my original statement about Brian not playing here in Tucson is correct, I guess I'll only politely challenge your koff; not sure how to disprove it. I DO know I'd feel terrible if I missed a BW show in my own town.   

I'm just going to get a bit pedantic for a moment. The Phoenician, where Brian played, is actually in Scottsdale. And, the Fiesta Bowl is played at the University of Phoenix Stadium, which, despite its name, is actually in Glendale. For most of its life, the Fiesta Bowl was played at ASU Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe.

This is all in the Phoenix area, of course, and to most of us from Tucson, we don't care about the fine points. Anything in that God-forsaken concrete sprawl up north is all "Phoenix" to us.