This place is crazy toxic, from top to bottom, over a long period of time

And let me guess...it would be less toxic if negativity and criticism directed at Mike Love would be censored and scrubbed off the board?

This notion that this forum is "toxic" has been tried and failed - especially since the efforts to f*** this place over flopped miserably, mostly due to the massive egos and ineptness of the people who tried. But knowing in which circles and what specific people use the word "toxic" in similar ways, not just about this place but the people here too...they should look in the mirror before labeling something or someone toxic.

Want examples of the real toxicity that infected this place? The cup runneth over with 'em...

...Well, all I'm going to say is, postings like this -- and the next half dozen or so variations on "How dare you say this place is toxic!  F*** off!" -- don't give me much of a sense that the place has really chilled out, and that's why I check in so rarely these days.

Sorry,
Jon Blum

I don’t think any tracks from the Gershwin record were performed aside from the full album shows, and none of the Disney songs were performed.

FWIW, there were a few shows in Australia where they did a Gershwin mini-set -- four songs IIRC, but I can only specifically remember "Rhapsody" (*breathtaking* with the full band acapella) and "They Can't Take That Away From Me".  I think they did a few other shows with those up over!

Far as I'm aware, he's never done the Disney album.

Cheers,
Jon Blum

Trump said after the election that same sex marriage is settled and he's fine with that.  I don't think he would say something like that *after* the election if he felt otherwise. 

Trump will say whatever whim strikes him at any given moment.  After the election, he said he wasn't going to try to prosecute Hillary Clinton after all; then he threatened to prosecute her again when she supported the Michigan recount.  You might as well expect consistency from Brian Wilson over whether he burned the Smile tapes!

Cheers,
Jon Blum

Please give some evidence to support your assertions of stripping away of rights.

Just for starters... Pence's record of opposition to gay rights as a member of Congress, is sure to be a threat to any member of the LGBT community. That should outrage anyone, regardless of gender or sexual orientation. Trump appointing Bannon, who freely publicly refers to lesbians as "dykes"? I could give many, many more examples...

Care to defend those I just mentioned?

Mike Love should not rope the brand name in to be associated with that garbage.

I love how there have been tumbleweeds as a response to this.

And while we're at it:  http://www.politifact.com/new-york/statements/2016/aug/14/sean-patrick-maloney/donald-trump-against-same-sex-marriage/

A fact-checked collection of quotes saying that Trump opposes the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage and wants to leave it up to the individual states.

He may of course completely flip-flop on this, but he's repeatedly opposed gay marriage across fifteen years.

Of course, in a Beach Boys context, this wouldn't necessarily be a dealbreaker for Mike supporting Trump or not; after years of their own various contradictory interview comments, I figure none of the boys expect there to be any connection between what someone says and what they actually end up doing.  :-)

Cheers,
Jon Blum

How about a Beach Boys with Jeff Foskett and David Marks?

Or with various members of California Saga?

Cheers,
Jon Blum

I was hoping for Matt Jardine...

Cheers,
Jon Blum

After Strathmore Hall, I think I have a new favourite Brian Wilson show ever -- and I wasn't even there!

I got my parents tickets for my mom's 75th birthday.  My parents are basically the same generation as the Boys themselves -- they've always been a part of their world, it's down to their copies of "Endless Summer" and "Pet Sounds" that I first discovered them.  But the only previous time they got to see Brian in concert was on the Jeff Beck tour, which was a bit more than half a concert...  though what a half-concert that was.  I told that story here at the time...  it was a week after my grandmother's funeral, my wife and I were still in town and found out that Brian was playing, we figured it would be good for the whole family to go...  and that proved to be the catharsis my mom needed.  It was "Sloop John B" that did it -- it reminded her of going sailing with her parents when she was young, and how good her mother was to her but now she was gone and she just wanted to go home...  but by the end of the song she was smiling and applauding and adoring the whole concert.  The music got her through.

It's now one of our most treasured family memories.  So when Brian was back in town near her birthday... I figured they deserved a full concert without the Jeff Beck breaks.  I couldn't make it home from Australia for this, so it'd have to be just the two of them.  I got them tickets the day they went on sale...  but technical difficulties at my end meant that they ended up with nosebleed seats.  Bugger.

Anyway, I told one of the bandmembers the story and asked if maybe they could arrange for "Sloop John B" to be dedicated to my mom, or whether it would be possible to find them better seats.  And they said sorry, the show was sold out...  but there were still places available at the soundcheck...

Long story short -- we got my parents the full soundcheck experience!  Photos, autographs, the lot.  They didn't just get the concert, they got to see the band working up close, with Darian and Al going over which lines of a song went to who (Mom said Al still got it wrong in the show itself!), and the meet-and-greet.  All the extras my wife and I have never actually been able to justify for ourselves, we were able to get for them.  Dad was thrilled, and Mom, well, I think now she wants to adopt most of the bandmembers!

Pretty much since the show ended she's been sending dozens of photos, and email after email of notes and memories from the show.  There's something weirdly joyful about seeing a 75-year-old woman end up typing almost in txtspeak because she's still in fangirl mode:

"Drummer is AMAZING- guess I’m over using the word!
Paul GREAT!
Probyn super talent- wow all those instruments- Paul announced he learned French horn for this concert!
Darian has tall hair- aside from TALENT!!"

It's icing on the cake that, according to all reports, this was an especially good show.  But rather than feeling jealous that I missed it, I'm just basking in the sheer brilliance of Mom and Dad's reflected glow.  By this point, I've seen Brian and company eleven or twelve times over the years (...My God, I've lost count!); I've seen them ranging from an off night to absolutely transcendent.  It gets easy for us fans to take their tremendously high baseline for granted.  And their last trip to Sydney was, for me, a bit of a bum note -- the first show was fairly rough (understandably, it was their third show in four nights with an international hop in between), we missed meeting the bandmembers at the fan gathering between the shows, I wasn't able to get a last-minute ticket to the second show, and the night was marred by some assholier-than-thou fan behavior of the sort I'm only used to reading online rather than experiencing in person.  So there was a part of me that was worrying that those bad vibrations could possibly be my last experience of a Brian Wilson show.

But now?  Seeing the show without seeing it, through the fresh eyes of my mother...  a woman who would never describe herself as a die-hard fan, but still knew almost every song they played, and has been enjoying them for as long as Brian's been writing and playing them...  suddenly I knew all over again just how good this band is. 

So what if I didn't see this show?  I've seen so many great shows with these guys that I can construct pretty much the whole thing note-for-note in my head.  The music is woven through my memories; as the man himself sang at one of the Gershwin shows we were lucky enough to see, they can't take that away from me.  And my mom, untainted by fan overthinking, just got all of her good memories in one hit.

But possibly the best memory I have now is a photo I literally never imagined existing:



("Unexpected additions to the lineup for next year's Beach Boys tour, Phyllis and Sam Blum attribute their joining Wilson's re-formed group to the fact that Sam has been proudly rocking the Mike Love 'do for longer than Love has...")

Anyway -- tremendous thanks to everyone in the band for all your help, in making my mom's birthday present more spectacular than she ever imagined!

Cheers,
Jon Blum

By complete chance, I randomly just happened to notice that this garbage article is now trending on the main page of Yahoo:



How does that even happen?

For what it's worth, "trending" articles are usually skewed towards things in your search history.  Me, I just did a completely clean search on yahoo.com and yahoo.co.uk (which I never use, so no history), and there wasn't any sign of that article.

Cheers,
Jon Blum

Your first line is on-topic, everything else is not. So yeah, everything else I would say needs to be taken to the Sandbox.

I'd just like to say, to any mods that are listening, that I'd like to see much more of this attitude taken when it comes to the moderation.

There's a whole subforum for political bickering, personal bickering, and other such things which have lost their connection to the Beach Boys.  Please, be much quicker to move things there.  It'll improve the atmosphere of the board no end.

And if anyone complains that "moving posts to a section of the forum where they're NOT ACTUALLY OFF-TOPIC" is offensive and tantamount to censorship -- the lady doth take offense too much, methinks.

Cheers,
Jon Blum

Am I correct in understanding that SIP itself was the only original -- i.e, not a cover or a remake of their own song -- from the album ever to be played live?

Cheers,
Jon Blum

And what does Donald Trump "perform"?

...Donald Trump.

Regards,
Jon Blum

The bit I can't figure out is how Mike Love, an apparently sincere environmentalist since before it was trendy, could back a guy who dismisses global warming and supports environmentally disastrous drilling and pipeline projects.

Regards,
Jon Blum

The leaving before the last song thing is something Brian has been doing for years. I always assumed, while stilted, he's doing the same thing George Harrison did at the "Concert for Bangla Desh." He's leaving for slight dramatic effect and letting the band play out. Many leaders of bands have done this over the years.

The leaving before the band finishes, Brian's done sometimes for years.  The hurrying back out on stage again before they even finish introducing him, seems to be new at some shows this time around.  It's the combination of the two, plus the awkwardness of his movement as he goes (I really hope his back's not playing up again) which makes it look less like Ringo Starr following up doing jumping-jacks during his finale by breezing offstage, and more like a guy who just wants to get through the rest of the show as quick as he can.

This doesn't mean Brian should retire from the road.  None of us should quit our jobs just because we have a few off days either.  But I don't think any of us should really deny, Brian does have off days sometimes.

Cheers,
Jon Blum

Yes that is true C-Man! I know you'd come to the rescue!

We really need two categories -- "the actual band plus extra musicians" vs. "extra musicians *in place of* the boys themselves"...

Cheers,
Jon Blum

Uh... I never mentioned Alan. I doubt he'd be happy even if you managed to reanimate Carl & Dennis especially for him. Not the epitome of a happy camper...

Just out of curiosity, I'm wondering if we've got any examples of Al vocally holding a grudge in (say) the past decade.  In other words, ones which *fans* haven't held intently for at least as long...

Cheers,
Jon Blum

The same goes for Mike and Bruce--yeah, they need to do the big hits, but when I look at BB setlists from '64 or '65, they weren't doing stuff like '409' or 'Surfin' Safari,' so it's a bit hard for me to grasp how those songs have become essential more than 50 years later. 

In a nutshell?  "Endless Summer" and "Spirit Of America".  :-)

Cheers,
Jon Blum

I'd like to see the setlists get even longer than that. The UK Pet Sounds tours in 2002 regularly topped fifty songs, and that was without Al or Blondie to take up the slack.

But then, remember that a lot of their regular songs are half as long as something like "Funky Pretty" or the Cantina version of "Heroes"!

Cheers,
Jon Blum

So yeah, let's lobby for a few solo spots for Al and Blondie. For that matter, they could have the entire band, sans Brian, come out and do a mini Al/Blondie set of less Brian-centric songs. "Lookin' at Tomorrow", etc.

Outstanding notion !

I remember at one point years ago thinking that you could do a Wondermints / other-band-members-solo-stuff set, either as a lead-off to the second set to give Brian a break, or even with the band getting to be their own opening act.  Giving Al, Blondie, and/or David the slots would probably be more effective, though.  :-)

Cheers,
Jon Blum

Also, Alan and Blondie are great singers/musicians, but neither added much to the show.

I can't really agree with that -- I think they're each serving an important role in the band as it stands.  Al handling the likes of "Little Deuce Coupe" gives Brian a break while still keeping that authentic Beach Boy sound.  And Blondie?  He's really stretching the band this time around -- it's the contrast between cutting loose on an authentic "In Concert" arrangement of "Funky Pretty", almost back-to-back with the complete "Pet Sounds", which really drives home how damn talented they are.

Cheers,
Jon Blum

Then whoever put that schedule together needs a good talking to, as does whoever in Brian's organisation agreed to it.

That said, it seems the original report was broadly accurate, although l'd agree that it's unlikely the band were as bad as claimed (fwiw I've only once seen them truly poor, in 2005).

FWIW, the band certainly didn't put in a bad show overall by any means on Tuesday -- it's just, there were some noticeable fumbles, of a sort I'd literally never heard from them before.  (I dunno *what* happened in "Our Prayer", but it really jarred both me and my wife.)

Also for what it's worth, I spoke to a bunch of people after the show tonight who were at both Tuesday's and tonight's, and they all confirmed that tonight's was much better.  Brian was more on form, and apparently they'd made some adjustments to the sound mix too.  So unlike the guy at the Herald, I certainly wouldn't write off the tour based on one off night!

Cheers,
Jon Blum

I disagree with Jonathan with extreme prejudice. And I have two spares and you aint getting one!

Thanks for that.  Having finally confirmed I have the cash, I've been trying all morning to get even a single SRO ticket, and they're completely sold out.  So, it looks like this is it.  Love and mercy to you.

BTW, if you're thinking I said that because I was bashing Brian, you couldn't be farther from the truth.  I have *been* there -- psychedelic with exhaustion, dead on my feet, just trying to get through the rest of the day.  I have nothing but sympathy for the man.

Regards,
Jon Blum

The #1 aspect of the review that lends an air of a lack of credibility to me is not that he didn't like the show, but rather than he contends that in 2004 Brian sounded markedly better.

I was there at the show on the 29th.  I don't think he's wrong on that -- Brian *was* in better voice in 2004 than the other night.

I'm just not generalizing out to his entire touring career from one really rough show.

The thing is, night before last, Brian was in really bad form for much of the show -- clipping lines, bellowing them, rushing or hesitating, going off-pitch or just not singing bits.  He got markedly better as he went along (starting around side 2 of "Pet Sounds" -- there was a really sweet bit where he harmonized with Al on "this is the worst trip I've ever been on"), but it was still easily the most haphazard performance I've seen from him (out of about a dozen shows).  It wasn't just the singing -- his stage banter was minimal even by Brian standards.  Then he tried to introduce "my very good friend...  I've forgotten his name."  (Blondie.)  And he was in full I-just-wanna-get-this-show-over-with mode.  He got up before the end of "Good Vibrations" and headed offstage with the urgency of a man headed for the bathroom.  Then he came out halfway through Paul's spiel introducing him for the encore.  He had the out-of-sync sluggish reactions of a man trying to get through things when he's *exhausted*.

And you know what?  I'm sure he *was* exhausted.  The band played Auckland on the 26th, flew to another country in a different timezone on the 27th, played Bluesfest on the 28th, flew down to Sydney on the morning of the 29th, checked in, then pretty much went straight to soundcheck to play that night.  No rest day.  Yesterday was their first actual day off.

At 73?  No wonder you'd be wiped.  My dad's four years older than Brian, and I couldn't imagine putting him through that.  And that's without even taking into account Brian's assorted medications.  (When Kate and I go Up Over, there's a whole rigamarole surrounding adjusting the timing of various meds which make her drowsy, so that she doesn't miss a dose as she crosses all the timezones or end up taking them in the morning rather than the evening -- it can knock her off balance for days.)

Hell, I don't think Brian was even the only one having a lousy day.  The band managed to stuff up *Our Prayer* -- how is that even possible?  But there were a bunch of off-key notes coming out, and I don't think it was just Brian.

So basically, yeah, I can believe that the reviewer thought Brian was shot.  I just don't agree that this is normal for him.  I've seen the man's performances get steadily *better* performances from 2000 onwards, all the way to the Jeff Beck shows in 2013.  This was a stumble.  An obvious one, and a sign of issues they'll have to watch out for on their touring schedule even more from here on out, but not the new baseline.

And now I'm desperately trying to scrape together the money for a ticket for tonight, because I don't want that to be my last memory of seeing Brian.

Cheers,
Jon Blum

Thanks for the confirmation. Was "Then I Kissed Her" performed? Someone removed that song from the 9/29 setlist on the setlist.fm website.

No "Then I Kissed Her" on March 29, sorry!

Cheers,
Jon Blum

The setlist posted on the bw.com site:

This was the Opera House setlist on the 29th as well, with one addition!  Darian pulled out "Darlin'" -- either before or after "One Kind Of Love", my notes aren't clear.

Still no Leaving This Town.

Cheers,
Jon Blum

Any setlists from the last two nights? Anyone there?

I'll try to post my thoughts from the first night at the Opera House later today in the main tour thread!  In brief:  Brian had an off night, the band pulled together around him, but the sound mix up in the rafters of the Opera House still sounded wonky...

Cheers,
Jon Blum