Love You, easy. If Smile didn't exist, it would be Smiley Smile! But Smile did exist, and all the truly otherworldly, astonishing compositions on that record exist in versions that are, for me at least, both more interesting and more beautiful. What I love most about the album is the strange and consistent mood it sets (though even that is thrown off by good vibrations, which is the best song on the album by a landslide, but also obviously doesn't belong). I really, really love Smiley, but...

Love You is sue generis. There's nothing else like it in music. There will never be anything else like it in music.

+1 

I thought I was on track to score in the teens but I got 70%! Almost all lucky guesswork though. Yeah, that's tough!

Thanks for bumping this thread! I started it to try and inject some life into this forum... and, boy, was it a success! Some really great posts there. 

This thread is super and I've thoroughly enjoyed it since you started it.   I keep confusing it with the "SMILE was ready in 1967" thread though!

Oh man. I really wish this had been filmed properly. Still, very cool!

Cool!

I told them going in they were in for a bunch of deep cuts including most of an album they’ve never heard. I was worried the Love You section would lose them and instead it was met with the opposite response! They were completely into it and one of them said it was his favorite part of the show and he’s been listening to the album since the show. What a testament to the concert!

Your pre-show coaching may have helped -- they didn't spend the whole 30 minutes hoping that Kokomo was the next song.   Still, that is awesome!

I caught the Mike/Bruce BBs show at NYC's Town Hall in June, which took place right after Brian's passing. (Meant to write up a full review for the board, but it's been a slammin' summer and just never got to it.)

I'll go against the obvious grain -- I thought it was a great show, and I've always been more in Brian's camp than Mike's. The energy level was VERY high from start to finish -- that was my takeaway re the rationale for the band member replacements, but who knows the full story -- and theatrical touches like the videos playing in the background had been freshened up pretty dramatically. Mike's voice was definitely subdued and he seemed more frail than in past years, which was concerning, but he didn't sound hoarse even several hours in and there were moments when that familiar nasal vocal cut through reassuringly. Bruce actually sounded great, possibly his best of the various BBs shows I've seen since 2013. Not a Stamos fan, but he was fine, and I found his antics less distracting than at some past shows. Setlist was safe and familiar but enjoyable.

Hope whatever Mike's issue is, he gets the treatment and healing he needs. And agree with Julia, I'd catch them sooner than later if you are able.

Al is fantastic! If anything, sometimes I like his current slightly more "bronze" voice even more than his young voice.
Matt's falsetto is unbelievably pure and sweet, but it can also soar when needed.
The lead vocals parts are assigned perfectly, with Darian handling the "grittier", more "R&B" parts, Gary handling the more humorous parts, etc.
The band, as has been said, is both very tight, in the good way, and very loose, in the good way. The way they are obviously having fun together is really heartwarming. Debbie!
Also heartwarming is seeing (and hearing) a fully packed and quite lively audience!
An astounding H & V immediately followed by the astounding Love You suite is simply the stuff of dreams. Whoever said that Brian "lost it" after the "demise" of SMiLE? Really?
All in all, it's the best imaginable tribute to Brian Wilson, the man who made nearly all this wonderful music, and made all this possible. The GOAT of music.  

To give credit where it's due: I reposted the link posted by Jake Altmayer, who recorded the video, in the Endless Harmony board. And I know how it's difficult, and tiresome, make these audience recordings. Thanks Jake!

All well said. Hearing the Love You arrangements played so astonishingly well feels like taking a trip with Brian at his most creative, almost like being inside his head. It's a lovely tribute to him.

I keep noticing great little touches. The way they drop out all the instruments at the end of Honkin' Down the Highway! Awesome.

I can see why Johnny Carson is a highlight each night. Wow. Great fun.

From their new Des Plains gig:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UNAiIbwrG48&pp=0gcJCRsBo7VqN5tD

Everyone both on and off stage seems to have a great time !  Also I noticed that Paul Von Mertens resumed his awesome baritone sax counterpoint on Fun, Fun, Fun.

Fantastic. Thanks for this!

Thanks for the fab review. I'm jealous of you all who have seen the current show! These setlists are a dream. Really hope they circle back to the NYC area soon.

Fascinating. Great writing, Julia! 👏

Agree with both the positive and negative comments in this thread. I actually grudgingly kinda like Kokomo, if you promise not to tell.

At the 2012 BBs reunion show, stranger than fiction but I remember seeing a lot of *young* women in the audience going completely nuts for this song in particular.

Apparently, the word is out about how fun the "Love You" setlist and Pet Sounds Band shows have been.

The three November Phoenix shows' public on sale was yesterday at 10 AM local.  27 hours later, two of the three have sold out the approximately 300 seat theater and the Saturday show has just two single seats remaining.

Congratulations to Al and the band!

That is great!

I just spent some enjoyable time going through the early pages of this thread which were about Al's 2018 tour. There's a nice symmetry in that back then we were all desperate for him to add some deep cuts, and now in 2025 he's added the whole freakin' Love You album! 

Second point - Most people who have worked with Brian up to his final albums have said there is a vast difference between "everyday Brian" and "studio Brian", in focus, behavior, and interactions with others. "Studio Brian" was focused, demanding, very business-like, and able to create musical ideas literally on the spot which no one else would have thought to do. For proof, you'll have to rely on eyewitness accounts from those who were there for the more modern examples, short of any videos that exist from sessions since "studio chatter" and talkback recordings no longer are done as they were in the 60's. For audio proof, go back to any if not all sessions that are available officially and not from the 60's Capitol era (and even the Hite Morgan stuff I guess).

Is there any audio from those 60's sessions where Brian sounds anything less than the guy in control and running the proceedings with confidence? Working with the finest available musicians in LA, there was young Brian Wilson directing them through take after take, eventually getting them to a result that even the seasoned pros like Kessel and Kaye and Tedesco would occasionally snicker at or say it wouldn't work during the process, only to hear the results when it all came together and understand where this kid was coming from and how unique and advanced his ideas on harmony and arrangement could be. 

The audio from those 60's sessions, yes even the infamous Help Me Rhonda tape with a drunk Murry barking at him over the talkback, show a young guy full of ideas, confidence, and the ability to get things done in often stressful situations.

I'd ask how many of you out there have been faced with a situation like that, where you have a roomful of top-notch musicians, cynical ones at that, waiting for direction on what to play and how to play it from *you* on the floor or in a control booth over a talkback mic. It's a daunting situation that needs someone able to rise to the occasion and make often magic things happen in a studio.

Brian, or I'll say "studio Brian", rose to the occasion enough times that we can now hear and study his body of work, created in those studios under those situations.

If there is any doubt about his abilities, mentally or whatever, it didn't go into the studio and affect his ability to make classic and timeless records.

But again that's the point to consider looking at "studio Brian" versus "everyday Brian".

And I'll end that point with an anecdote about my time living in Boston, and spending time on Harvard's campus area and around MIT. Around those areas you'll find a concentration of some brilliant individuals and thinkers, in many fields. But I'll just say it wasn't uncommon to see professors and visiting artists-in-residence riding old beat up bicycles, wearing ratty clothes and blazers with holes in them, mismatched socks and clothing, and generally looking unkempt, while having a mindful of thoughts and theories that the average person could not begin to comprehend. So their "daily life" was lacking in some areas of human behavior and interaction, but their professional lives were running on levels many stages beyond the average human's thoughts and knowledge. As soon as they were in their wheelhouse, in their comfort zone, they were untouchable. But outside of that realm, where they owned the rooms or labs or whatever, society would consider them lacking some of the basic human traits that are considered "normal".

Food for thought.

All this is fascinating and just wanted to single it out. Really nice writing.

The painful part is that it seems like in 1967, Brian had a real crisis of confidence (for myriad overlapping reasons) and that in-charge version of him began to recede.

We know that Brian was involved in (say) the various 1967-1970 albums even if he was no longer the most public persona of the band. Are there stories of 1967-1970 Brian commanding a room (or more specifically, a Beach Boys recording session) quite like this?

She's Got Rhythm  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxXeTA2-bxs

I missed this She's Got Rhythm clip. Wow, this is insane! I doubt the late '70s BBs would have sounded this good doing it live.

I appreciate Love You so much more now after hearing it's live performance. The vocals here, as well as the musicians, are incredible. And not only is Darian amazing, I think Rob does a great job too. Both of them blend perfectly with the Great Matt Jardine, who always brings his A game, and of course, Al. Would love to hear/see Sweet Sunday Kinda Love, if it's available.

I captured exactly 37 seconds.... You can get an idea, anyway!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poUqtZI-yhg

All three of these songs are just so outrageously good!

And LOL at Al fumbling the lyrics to Ding Dang. Come on Al, there's only one verse! 

Here's a super fun Come Go With Me from Al and the band (not my video, just ran across it) --

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dMgEJ2Zb74

Thanks so much for the clips, guys. I echo everything that's been said. This is amazing!!

It must be said too, the Love You music is very "Brian" music. Zany and fun, full of emotion and quirky little surprises.


Setlist from the 7/18 Cohasset MA show:

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/al-jardine/2025/south-shore-music-circus-cohasset-ma-5b59778c.html

Oh yes, this is beautiful. All the feels. Thanks for sharing.

Really cool!

Yes:

https://youtu.be/ZuCFr4Kf6ww?feature=shared

So good! 

Oh yep, I remember this post too and it's excellent. I loved the turn of phrase of H&V "consuming" other songs (enough so that last year I spent a good deal of time searching the forum trying to find this exact post, and finally dug it up).