I'll be honest, This whole thing makes no sense to me. I guess I don't follow the ins and outs of Beach Boys and Beach Boys adjacent backing groups. Can somebody spell this out for me? Mike is taking advice from John Stamos on how to run his group?

Yes.

If you take even a cursory glance at how Mike interacts with Stamos versus how he interacts with almost anybody else, you can see that for whatever reason, he is literally a thousand times more happy and literally glowing when he's around Stamos. Look at him at a gig or in an interview with Stamos versus, say, Mike's demeanor during the 50th anniversary sitting next to Brian and Al for interviews.

As someone said many years ago, I personally have little doubt that Mike would boot his own kid off the tour if he could replace him with Stamos full time. Yes, Mike is truly *that* enamored with Stamos.

I literally cannot think of a time where I've seen or heard Mike happier than he is when he's around John Stamos. It's like every type of interaction/relationship rolled into one. They've got a dudebro friendship going on, they've got a mutual celebrity fistbump thing going on, and they both act towards the other as a kind of sycophantic fanboy. Mike literally namedrops Stamos at concerts and has for years, even when Stamos is not at the gig. Like, Mike is a guy who has co-written, sung, and performed literally some of the universally-recognized greatest music of all time. He's met, known, and performed alongside countless luminaries. Yet, what he wants everybody to know is that he's best friends with John Stamos.

Yeah, I think when one doesn't want to (or can't, perhaps due to NDAs) really give a long detailed interview about everything, this is about the best way to get the main gist of what went down across (meaning addressing whether it was voluntary or not) and letting people have a bit of insight into the current feelings about the situation.

As I've said before, as we all know, the gig is never a permanent one. Anybody who joins surely knows that. There's only one guy left in the backing band who played with Al and Carl (and he joined only shortly before Al and Carl left) and five guys who joined post-50th anniversary.

We don't have a great deal of detailed insight into how and why most backing members have come and gone. I'm sure this is a mixture of lack of interest from those who would conduct interviews, and also NDAs in some cases possibly as some have alluded to over the years.

Based on what we know, I think it's safe to say the vast majority of departures have not been voluntary. We have a few who have gone on record for interviews describing to some degree their departures (Foskett's first departure in 1990, Ernie Knapp, I think one if not several members have described an apparent short-term purge of members around 1977 of non-TM-practicing members, and a few other stories over the years).

I think it's also fair to say that dropping Cowsill and Totten is one of the more surprising and headscratch-inducing moves of the last couple decades, and probably the most so of the post-Al/Carl era of Mike's band.

From what I can tell, Mike used to see some value in having long-serving members in the backing band. I recall up until Kowalski's departure, Mike would often mention in interviews that his drummer had been with him since 1968. Clearly, he no longer sees a need to project that to audiences. Hence the band is being back-filled with (relatively) younger members, and is taking on a rather homogeneous look and sound as I've mentioned in past posts.

The new drummer posted on Facebook that Stamos got him the gig:

https://fb.watch/kK41X1tTk_/

Okay so the mentioning of Stamos sure is odd. What on earth would he have to do with changes in the Mike & Bruce show? Legally, none I would think, unless Mike signed something off to him (which I can’t imagine).

Yyyyeahh, I don't think the implication is that Stamos is literally the manager of the touring band with direct firing authority. I'm not trying to be snarky, but I'm not sure how much more clear the implication could be.

I guess, imagine one of the other Beatles saying in 1970 "Let's all support John in his solo career. Leaving the Beatles was the new direction Yoko had in mind for her friend John Lennon."

[And that’s the new direction John Stamos has in mind for his friends The Beach Boys.]

John Cowsill is a smart guy. He recently posted this on Facebook. As is usually the case, I suppose *someone* out there will miss the not-at-all subtle subtext (well, in this case it's literally not subtext but actual text) explaining A) At least some of the impetus behind why, or whom, made the decision to change drummers and B) Whether this was voluntary or not:

"Hi you guys and gals. I wanna say I love your loyalties and fandom/friendship over the decades. I’m an elusive private type of person. Still working on that! Lol but I need you all, if you can, to support the change by The Beach Boys, Jon Bolton is a sweet kind and solid drummer. He’s gonna bring some flash and fun to the music. It’s his turn to take the throne! And that’s the new direction John Stamos has in mind for his friends The Beach Boys. It’s all good. If you Love The Beach Boys music, I guarantee it’s still the same songs and it’ll be entertaining! I’m gonna see them in Nashville when they get there. I miss my crew bus family. Love to all of you! Now help me spead that around!!! XOXOXOXO"

In case anybody needs extra emphasis, here it is:

"Hi you guys and gals. I wanna say I love your loyalties and fandom/friendship over the decades. I’m an elusive private type of person. Still working on that! Lol but I need you all, if you can, to support the change by The Beach Boys, Jon Bolton is a sweet kind and solid drummer. He’s gonna bring some flash and fun to the music. It’s his turn to take the throne! And that’s the new direction John Stamos has in mind for his friends The Beach Boys. It’s all good. If you Love The Beach Boys music, I guarantee it’s still the same songs and it’ll be entertaining! I’m gonna see them in Nashville when they get there. I miss my crew bus family. Love to all of you! Now help me spead that around!!! XOXOXOXO"

I'm not denying he's trying to be positive and professional, just as Totten was. Just as pretty much every backing band member who has rotated through, either because they're genuinely trying to be kind and professional, or because they signed NDAs, or whatever. But this seemingly polite, amicable statement I think gets the points across that the author wants to get across.

In past years we all wondered if someone like Jeff Foskett was angling at the BB license once Mike was no longer using it. But what if John Stamos is the one angling at it? I'm genuinely just barfing that open question out there.

Are we sure Totten and Cowsill would have happily moved from M&B to Brian?

As in getting the right type of offer? Who knows? I'm sure it would have probably required a pretty good offer. But Brian was very actively touring in the 2016-ish timeframe, such that for a year or two, Brian's tour outgrossed Mike's.

If we're asking if Totten and Cowsill would have had so much allegiance to Mike that they never would have considered moving to Brian's band? I think all of these guys know the gig is never a forever gig. So I think most anybody in their position would at least entertain it under the right circumstances.

Foskett jumping from Brian to Mike was a thousand times more political than Totten or Cowsill jumping to Brian's band would have been, though that still obviously wouldn't *not* also be seen as a bit of upheaval in the BB touring sphere.

A ton of guys that have exited Mike's band have ended up playing with Al and/or Brian subsequently. And some of the guys that ended up in Mike's band had *previously* played with Brian or Al (Eichenberger of course, and also Randell Kirsch had done gigs with Al prior to joining Mike).  There is a large pool of ex backing band members. You can end up seeing combinations of oldtimers (Carter, Figueroa), ex-Mike guys (Farmer, Baker, Kirsch), Al guys (Matt) and even Brian guys (Probyn) all playing in the same band.

As I've mentioned previously, it will be interesting to see if Totten or Cowsill end up doing gigs with any of these off-shoot/tribute bands. Cowsill would seem more likely, as he was sort of doing that circuit prior to playing with Mike, having toured with Jan & Dean as I recall.

That looks like a typical in-between-tour-legs private-ish gig that Mike has been doing for years. It's like doing an off-Broadway show; I'm sure the perfect place to give the new players a dry run. A University Gala audience is like the last place you'll see audience members noticing anything amiss musically.

Yes, I'd agree that one of the only possible takeaways from these short clips is that the tempo does feel a bit rushed. That's what you sometimes get with a younger drummer. The new guitarist is neither here nor there. I still find it kind of weird that Mike has a non-vocalist (more or less) bass player and *three* guitarists, instead of just having Eichenberger play bass as he used to, and then you could eliminate the bass player. I'm not trying to advocate for the guy not having a job. It's just ironic, as we've mentioned in recent years, that Mike seemed to find the larger 50th anniversary tour band to be anathema to his mode of running a lean touring band and operation, yet after the anniversary tour he added *two* extra members (an extra bass/guitar and the sax guy).

Let's be frank. Mike's band struggled in the aftermath of the Carl and Al being gone in the late 90s, and it was clearly Totten who, as one noted commentator said some time back, probably saved Mike's reputation as a touring act by improving the whole thing on multiple fronts. If anyone didn't already know that, it was clear when Totten (and Cowsill) were the only two players brought into Brian's band for the reunion. With those two gone, as well as Foskett, I think the band is kind of plateauing into more of a blandness. It kind of feels like it's Mike and Bruce and like 6 Keith Hubachers.

As someone also noted in the first few years after the reunion, when Foskett was poached for Mike's band, Brian (who at that point was very actively touring) should have poached Totten and Cowsill. Especially once Brian lost a few members to a variety of circumstances.

Others tracked down the names of the new members. Jon Bolton is the new drummer apparently. John Wedemeyer is the guitarist.

I don't know their ages. But to the point above regarding age, I think age is at least one of the general factors. Not so much like there's a specific age where you "age out" of the band. But according to Wikipedia, John Cowsill is 67 years old. I don't know how old that Jon Bolton guy is, but he appears to be quite a bit younger.

The Wedemeyer guy is, I'm guessing, younger than Totten, though perhaps not as much of a gap there.

I think the age factor is more like maintaining an overall sort of median age for the band. And yes, I've also had it theorized to me from folks over the years that there is a less professional/artistic reason Mike would want younger guys in the band around him, similar to why he seems to be so enthusiastic about getting John Stamos on stage as much as possible.

As for Totten's pleasant Facebook message, I think that's a case of being professional and understanding. I'm not saying Totten and Cowsill's departure was necessarily epically acrimonious. I'm just saying my take on it is that it's not voluntary. I think it's difficult to draw an exact analogy between this type of job and other "regular" jobs. When there is a subjective nature to the sound and look and presentation of a band, you might see changes made that you wouldn't in other "fields." That could dictate that someone who is "let go" might be more understanding on some level (and be well aware that no place in the backing band is ever permanent), but wouldn't really be exactly *happy* about it.

While a dual member change like this screamed "probably not voluntary" from the get go in my opinion, I've also had multiple other folks indicate to me that their understanding is that this was not a case of two guys simply concurrently choosing to "move on to other things."

As for Mike announcing personnel changes, we may or may not see something. In the past, Mike has sometimes announced members leaving or joining, and other times not said anything. I recall he did a double posting back to back announcing Randell Kirsch's departure and Eichenberger joining (the first time he joined). Whereas, I don't believe he announced Christian Love returning when he last rejoined.

I think it's more likely that Mike at least says *something* when it's someone who has been in the band for a long time, as Kirsch, Totten, and Cowsill were.

There's video floating around of the new guys in Mike's band. While it has been apparent for some time what Mike is aiming at when he adds/replaces members, it's very clear here in my opinion that he's swapping members out for younger members. They're obviously not fresh out of high school or anything, but a bunch of guys in Mike's band all kind of look the same now. I swear, Eichenberger, the sax player, the bass player, and now the new guitarist all look like they fit that same demographic; they all look really similar. 40-50-ish with that same hairdo with the frosted/slightly gray hair.

The new drummer appears to be one of those players that plays a really low-to-the-ground kit on a high stool, so it kind of looks like he's playing a kid's drum set, or that he's standing while playing.

I'm seeing some YouTube comments and comments in other places that truly seem to think Totten and Cowsill just retired. C'mon people. This isn't rocket science. When two guys are gone at the *exact same time*, that's doesn't sound like an organic decision to retire. As with the vast, vast majority of backing band changes over the years, I don't believe this was a voluntary exit.

I'm guessing that getting younger guys at a cheaper price hit two of the main goals that could have motivated Mike in this decision.

All just my opinion of course....

It's also very clear that certain voices sound worse than others with even extensive information input into the AI.

Some voices have such a distinctive thing going on, it's easy for a fake vocal to pass muster for the average person. I'm sure everybody thinks Rick Astley singing "Billy Jean" sounds "just like him!".

The folks doing these things seem to be having more trouble with certain vocalists. Lennon stuff sounds particularly awful. Michael Jackson stuff sounds way off. Like, literally some impressionists can do this better in some cases.

I think some people *think* they have the McCartney stuff nailed, but you have epic uncanny valley status going on with his "Beautiful Boy" AI vocal, where it's a robot with sort of McCartney's tone, but then he pronounces/sings everything the way Lennon does. Proof that the nuances of McCartney's voice (in its prime) are actually *very difficult* to nail.

Also, no offense to anybody or any region, but it's also painfully obvious when someone with a heavy non-English accent is singing the guide vocals on some of these AI tracks. It's like, "Wow, that sounds 27% like Paul McCartney and then all of a sudden he chokes on his Russian accent!"

The work Giles Martin did on the Beatles "Love" soundtrack, mixing multiple songs up, or the "Smile Sessions" box laying those understated "Surf's Up" code vocals onto "Child is Father of the Man", stuff like that is far more creative and far more impactful.

The best thing AI has offered as far as the BBs so far is creepypasta nightmare fuel like this:

The Carl demo is played at about the 1hr58m point in the video if anyone is curious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkfWn195My8

It's called "You Oughta Know" apparently (no, unfortunately it's not Carl singing about Dave Coulier), and it not surprisingly sounds like a cross between BB'85 and the Beckley-Lamm-Wilson stuff. In other words, it isn't A-list material. But it's nice to hear a new Carl track, and this does confirm what I've been going on and on about for YEARS, which is that there are surely some Carl demos/tracks from the 80s and 90s laying around that his estate has NO INTEREST in doing anything with.

I don't understand why his estate/family has zero interest in doing anything with Carl's legacy. As I've said in the past, I get it, maybe they think his legacy is being served via BB archival releases. But why not put more Carl stuff out? Unless Robert White Johnson was like hiding it from his estate, why not get this stuff out there. I can't imagine it's the only such track.

Keep in mind that Jim Peterik was also working on “new songs” with Brian in 1998 that didn’t come out until 2012.

Separately, I wouldn’t be surprised if whatever Peterik could be working on is another item dusted off from circa ’98.

Might be worth mentioning that YouTube is now filled with a glut of AI vocals from all sorts of artists, and they are almost all truly awful. As in, far, far worse than the first few things posted in this thread.

Few may be prescient enough to predict exactly how this AI thing will play out on the technology side of things, but I what I can tell for sure is that, as with everything else on the internet, it already appears that everybody thinks they can do this, and they can't, and most of it is a total mess. I'm not sure how much of it is bad ears, versus poor use of the software, versus poor vocal execution, etc.

So I feel pretty comfortable predicting that whatever the best is that AI will have to offer, *most* of what you'll see and hear will not be that. It will be exceedingly awful.

Like, I'm hearing stuff with two or three simultaneous voices, stuff with not a few but many, many weird glitches all throughout. And a lot of stuff that doesn't sound like Brian Wilson or Paul McCartney (or whomever), but sounds like someone with a thick Eastern European accent trying to sound like Paul sounding like John sounding like Paul.

Multiple attempts answer the question I think we've all asked many times, which is "What would it sound like if Paul McCartney sang a Badfinger song, but while eating a sandwich and having a stroke?"

Also, it appears most folks have quickly zoomed past any attempt to make logical/clever attempts at its use (e.g. subbing in a younger voice, or having Paul sing a John song, or someone replicate a known of but lost vocal), and have gone straight to dumb, goofball novelty ideas, like having Kurt Cobain sing the Archies.

Updated the top post with the 4/22 setlist.

Hopefully Al can get more bookings and get some momentum touring.

I don't know a super ton about this, but from what I have heard, I would just say... it might be worth tempering your expectations. A Beach Boys "Beatles Anthology" this will not be, as far as I can tell.

I think we'll be lucky if this ends up being a longer (and/or more up to date) "Endless Harmony." And I say that with the utmost respect and gratitude for the EH documentary existing. It's as good, no, *better*, than anything could possibly be under the constraints it was made (the main constraints being run time and its authorized nature). And I think "Endless Harmony" had genuine pathos; again, not easy under those constraints. How it frames Brian giving up on "Smile", how it deals with the Mike/Van Dyke stuff, how it frames the Landy era, it's all done with a deft touch.

I fear the new doc, even if longer and covering the post-1998 era, will appear shinier and slicker by virtue of being a more modern production, but it might lack as much pathos and soul as we might like.

But if it can end up on Disney+ or Hulu (the two likely results considering Disney's involvement), that will certainly boost the band's visibility.

While it's usually pretty obvious that when *two* people depart at the same time, it's probably not a case of the members just organically choosing to move on, another interesting thing that sometimes might indicate that a member is not particularly fed up with playing the music or touring is when/if they start appearing in the various off-shoot tribute bands.

I'm curious if Totten or Cowsill will re-emerge with any of the varying combinations of Figueroa, Carter, Farmer, Kirsch, Baker, etc.

Also, stating the obvious, but I think the pandemic/shutdown led to/hastened/forced a fair amount of professionals in some fields to make bigger changes that might have been in the offing at some point down the road.

Some people learned they really wanted to be at home more, and for those that have the luxury of optioning to do just that, I could envision in the early days of 2020/2021 as folks like Totten and Cowsill geared back up to go out on the road, it was a point in time to being winding all of that down.

Had Mike held off longer on going back out on the road, as opposed to being of the first touring acts to go *back out* in 2020 doing isolation pod shows and "drive-in" shows, you might have seen more personnel changes occur during that time.

Someone online mentioned they thought this might signify a slowdown for the touring operation.  I suspect it's the opposite.  The tour never stops,  and the only way to take a long break is either a pandemic, or leave the band.  It's why Chicago has rotated in and out like 27 members in recent years. 

Someone also said the band has fewer shows scheduled this year, so I suspect it is the start of a slow down. All I know is they are not playing the Puyallup Fair this year; Chicago is the only band on the schedule I would go see.

I do think they are indeed past the era of doing like 180 shows per year. But they're still doing a pretty active schedule, and I would tend to doubt a *slow down* in dates is why Totten and Cowsill would depart, unless they resurface touring with a band that does even *more* gigs. But it certainly sounds like Totten is planning on *less* touring and tour travel.

Looks like that Chiller convention is a general pop culture convention that I'm assuming started as more specifically horror-themed.

I know Mike has done some side deals over the years for autograph signings and whatnot, but it's a little bizarre at this point that he's doing the Con circuit.

He's listed here:

http://www.chillertheatre.com/gt/gtc4.htm

Note the joke "Obituaries" header that is stamped with "Guests." Makes sense for a horror convention, but maybe a bit less so for hosting elderly guests?

Also, I've seen some folks wonder if David's appearance at this convention might signal that he's rejoining Mike's band. While I have no information or knowledge about who's replacing Totten or anything to do with the personnel with Mike's band, knowing what I know outside of the realm of Mike's band, I would not count on it being very likely that Dave would be rejoining.

Meanwhile, a name is already being thrown around for the drummer replacement. Not surprisingly, Mike is likely to tend to higher musicians who are not in their 80s.

I'm also seeing a lot of speculation and intricate breakdowns trying to figure out if this signifies a longer term strategy Mike is employing for the day when he's no longer actively touring. But I think it's just more a case of the usual personnel changes. This one just happened to involve some long-time members. While Mike has occasionally talked about what he envisions for when he's no longer touring (I recall him mentioning he'd be okay with holograms for instance), I don't know that he would want to, or would even be able to, plan for when he's no longer touring. That is, especially with Iconic being the majority stakeholder, if Mike was no longer touring, that might upend the entire touring process. Who knows, maybe it would be easier to just keep the license going with the same operation, just sans *any* actual Beach Boys.

I suppose it's a testament to the known state of relations between members that I don't really see any fans wondering if Al Jardine might reappear.

Someone online mentioned they thought this might signify a slowdown for the touring operation.  I suspect it's the opposite.  The tour never stops,  and the only way to take a long break is either a pandemic, or leave the band.  It's why Chicago has rotated in and out like 27 members in recent years. 

The 25th Anniversary show is pretty much "Mystery Science Theater 3000" fodder at this stage. At the time, I think it was cool/interesting to see and hear the new song at the end. And Carl offers a truly earnest and heartfelt "Heaven" dedicated to Dennis. The cheesy show frankly didn't deserve the class Carl brought to it.

But everything looks and sounds awful at that show, save a few numbers. They pre-recorded most of the audio (see the Gary Usher diaries book for the story on that), and while that negated them actually biffing the songs, they very much sound like they were recorded in a TV dub studio.

Even most the guest spots were kinda awful. Two Dog Night was okay I guess. Everybody always cites Ray Charles, and I can't fault his performance, but frankly I would have been fine with Carl (or god forbid they called up Blondie) singing it. Glen Campbell seemed to be on something at the show and they actually left in the part where he sings the lyrics to the wrong song.

But it's highly entertaining as cheese. Brian squinting to read the lines without glasses. I've always loved Mike's randomly blurting out "Don Ho, what are YOU doing here?" during the end of the show. The truly awful editing, including not even showing the guys in the order they got off the stupid boat for their leis at the beginning of the concert.

There are actually some network like interstitials that the guys taped that I don't think even made it on the Japanese laserdisc, including Brian lifting weights.

As we learned from the Gary Usher book, the 25th show seems to have helmed by an old fashioned, cranky, demanding network variety show producer who yelled and demanded everything yesterday. You can imagine how *that* guy enjoyed dealing with Landy.

There's just no pleasing some people. It's the Beach Boys, it's prime time tv in 1987. I was just happy ABC gave 90 minutes to our guys on a Friday night.
I don't remember Glen singing the wrong song; he did mess up the words on I Get Around, though. "Now none of the guys go steady, no, no, because it wouldn't be right to leave her alone on a Saturday night"...or something like that.

Well yes, my assessment was from the point of view of literally 35 years later. It wasn't that great when I watched it back then, and it certainly hasn't aged well; that was my main point. It's not exactly "Concert for George."

The only way to get the band in primetime, even in 1987, was to stuff the show with flavors of the moment and mostly b-listers from the past (or A-listers past their prime, hence Two Dog Night). And even then, they weren't even getting A-listers *of that era.* Mike actually said later on in an interview that he was disappointed with the number of artists who turned down appearing on the show. I recall him specifically citing Billy Joel. Mike lamented that Billy Joel had opened for the BBs in his pre-superstar days, and Mike seemed to feel it was disappointing that Joel now seemed "too big" to do the BB anniversary show.

Who knows. If the band's 25th had fallen right after "Kokomo" became a hit, maybe a better show could have been finagled with better guests and better production values. But probably not.

I'd say over the last 20-ish years, Mike has certainly been in a far, far better (and more convenient) position to employ David Marks if that was ever the concern of David or fans.

As for Al, while I find it easy enough to believe that he's breaking even or making a few scraps from his current solo/Family & Friends gigs. I suspect touring at his age is more for the love of it, and to stay active. If he was losing a small amount of money, I wouldn't be surprised. I can tell you that those club gigs don't pay huge amounts, and Al also charges a pretty reasonable amount for tickets as far as I can tell. Everybody else in his band are working musicians that need to be paid, so I would imagine Al makes more money on a daily basis collecting royalties than he does with whatever is left over from those gigs after all other overhead costs are paid. By every apparently indication, he *has* to be doing it for the love of playing the music, and/or to stay active.

Let's remember that for those gigs Al played with Brian in 2006 and 2007, Al was apparently not paid at all. He paid his own way entirely. For those gigs, he *did* literally lose money. He paid out of pocket to play those gigs with Brian. That was obviously not a tenable situation for the long term, and that may well have been one of the many reasons he ended up bowing out of that 2007 European tour that was going to follow.

The 25th Anniversary show is pretty much "Mystery Science Theater 3000" fodder at this stage. At the time, I think it was cool/interesting to see and hear the new song at the end. And Carl offers a truly earnest and heartfelt "Heaven" dedicated to Dennis. The cheesy show frankly didn't deserve the class Carl brought to it.

But everything looks and sounds awful at that show, save a few numbers. They pre-recorded most of the audio (see the Gary Usher diaries book for the story on that), and while that negated them actually biffing the songs, they very much sound like they were recorded in a TV dub studio.

Even most the guest spots were kinda awful. Two Dog Night was okay I guess. Everybody always cites Ray Charles, and I can't fault his performance, but frankly I would have been fine with Carl (or god forbid they called up Blondie) singing it. Glen Campbell seemed to be on something at the show and they actually left in the part where he sings the lyrics to the wrong song.

But it's highly entertaining as cheese. Brian squinting to read the lines without glasses. I've always loved Mike's randomly blurting out "Don Ho, what are YOU doing here?" during the end of the show. The truly awful editing, including not even showing the guys in the order they got off the stupid boat for their leis at the beginning of the concert.

There are actually some network like interstitials that the guys taped that I don't think even made it on the Japanese laserdisc, including Brian lifting weights.

As we learned from the Gary Usher book, the 25th show seems to have helmed by an old fashioned, cranky, demanding network variety show producer who yelled and demanded everything yesterday. You can imagine how *that* guy enjoyed dealing with Landy.

I seriously doubt Al makes much if any money doing the gigs he's doing. It wouldn't surprise me if he literally take a loss for himself. While I wish he would have been doing more of them, and had been doing them going back many many years, I have to say it's refreshing to know that he *has* to be doing these gigs now for the fun/love of it (and/or to just stay active), because I wouldn't be surprised if he takes home little to nothing after paying the other members.

I would tend to agree that the overhead for paying the members for his gigs is such that there wouldn't be much to pay a Blondie or Dave or anyone along those lines. I'd also imagine that when he does shows without Carnie and/or Wendy, those gigs pay less, so it's not like there's a bunch more money for ancillary members for just those gigs.

I think a lot of the gigs Al was doing with Dave, mostly pre-2012 reunion, were Al and Dave basically serving as "upcharge" additions when people booked that "Surf City All Stars." I don't think that band was run by Al.

Certainly the house band could have been far worse. I have no major complaints. I think the backing vocals were still too light considering the material they were performing (how much of that was the band versus the mix, I'm not sure), and I don't think the typical house band configuration with the three backing singers really works well for BB material.

But I didn't hear as many oversights and shortcuts in the band arrangements for this material as I've heard on other shows/performances. There was certainly some kind of attention to detail in bringing Probyn in to use the Tannerin.

One can't help but be curious why they didn't just use Brian's band. I'm curious if it was just the producer/director decision to use their preferred players, or if they wanted to differentiate from past tribute shows that used Brian's band, or if there were politics at play so that a "Beach Boys" (rather than "Brian Wilson") tribute didn't skew towards Brian too much.

I'm also curious if Mike was happy with the between-song script the presenters used, as there were at least one or two bits that I would think would have irked him a bit.