Brian Wilson, Hollywood Bowl, Friday September 12 show,

Brian continues to surprise with this show at the Hollywood Bowl.  Based on the set list from the Oakland show of a week before, I expected to hear the usual set of BB classics as the opener, then a full rendition of TLOS.  For whatever reason, that was not to be the case. 

The show started at 8:30 with a performance by the LA Philharmonic Orchestra.  Brian came on at 9:00, and opened the show with “Forever She’ll Be My Surfer Girl”.  I did not take notes on the set list so this is coming from memory.  The first set also included, I believe, “Lucky Old Sun”, “Going Home”, “Midnight’s Another Day” and “Can’t Wait Too Long” and concluded with “God Only Knows”.  Brian was in good spirits and generally more animated than usual.  He also took a shot at some humor, dedicating the “Row Your Boat” sing-along to his ex-wife and sister-in-law, the “Row-vels.”  The first set was very short, only 20 minutes long.  The orchestra backed up the band for the first set.   

After a 20 minute intermission, the band returned without the orchestra and launched into the usual BB classics.  He did perform “Our Prayer” and the “cantina” version of H & V from Smile.  Somewhere in the middle of the set Brian got up and walked off stage.  At first everyone though this was another planned break (but the band never moved), but Taylor Mills ran across the stage and brought him back.  I guess is Brian’s way of going into the encores, but it looked very odd, more like he just wandered off the stage.  The show ended at about 10:30 with “Southern California” as the closing song.

The show was not a sell out, 10K plus, the Bowl has a capacity of 17K.  Considering the nightmare of So Cal traffic on Friday evenings I can see why many opted for the weekend shows.

I will admit I was rather disappointed in this show, as I fully expected to hear “TLOS” performed in its entirety, which I thought was the point of this tour.  Also, it was a very short show, only about 70 minutes total.  The music itself was excellent as always, it just seems there should have been a bit more of it.  I have checked to local papers but I haven’t seen any reviews of the two weekend shows to find out if this was the set list for all three performances or not.  Again, this was not a bad show but delivered less than I expected.

I have the SMiLE DVD, it was indeed a freebie from the newspaper to help promote the Smile shows.  A friend in the UK kindly sent it to me.  It's mostly interviews, BB background information and such, no real music. 

I think Busy Doin' Nothing's post sums up the book and it's purpose perfectly.  Not much about the music, but an amazing (and sometimes frightening) look at what life inside of the Beach Boys is all about.

Take David Leaf's Beach Boys book and the Gaines book, mix them together, and you get a pretty good overview of the music and realities of the band.

Hi guys, my first reply on this board.

Most overrated:  Love You.  It has a quirky charm about it, but ultimately it's the work of a very ill man being forced to do something he really didn't want to do and it shows.

Most Underrated.  The Beach Boys (1985).  The production may be a bit sterile at times, but I think this album has the band making solid, comtemporary music with a minumum of weak or embarrassing moments (i.e., no "Johnny Carson" or Tree songs) to make you ask, "What were they thinking?"