50th Anniversary live double CD up for pre-order on Amazon

[SonicVolcano]

Anyway, the video is very cool and I loved the backstage snippet at the end. I hope there will be a DVD with this kind of stuff.

I hope not. They had their fair chance of releasing a decent DVD and that turned out to be an utter disappointment, just like this live release. That would be just milking the cash cow.

Give us MIC first and after that the Carnegie Hall 1972 shows, please (my opinion, of course).

[joshferrell]

Maybe "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeen" will be the next single by them..(not BTTYS but just When.)

[Rocker]

Anyway, the video is very cool and I loved the backstage snippet at the end. I hope there will be a DVD with this kind of stuff.

I hope not. They had their fair chance of releasing a decent DVD and that turned out to be an utter disappointment, just like this live release. That would be just milking the cash cow.

As long as they do it better and with a great result I'd be okay with that

[Justin]

I heartily enjoyed listening to the new CD. I think its fine.  Instead of nit-picking and looking for moments of dishonesty I decided to just enjoy the show and remember the thrill of seeing them in person.

 Yes the lead on H&V is fishy; and yes “Isn’t It Time” sounds like the studio version with added applause. But most of the time the tweaking isn’t that blatantly obvious and distracting. I especially liked “All This Is That” with Brian singing his part strong. Plus we finally have “WHEEEENNNNNNNNNN….” on CD so I can crank my sub-woofer and break a few windows with The Power of Love.

Last time I checked Joe Thomas produced a successful Beach Boys reunion album that received critical acclaim and went to #3 on the charts. What have you done lately?

I always look forward to your posts!

[Paul J B]

There's something weird going on here. I seriously doubted the BWPS thesis earlier in the thread. Now I'm not so sure. There seem to be like three or four Brians singing at various points in this track, so I wonder if there are a couple of live takes in there, along with the earlier studio track. A bizarre possibility, if true.

Remember the terrible Beach Boys movie scene where Brian and Mike are writing I Get Around and they used vocals by the real middle aged Brian....and how weird it sounded. Terrible movie aside, that was really bizarre and nonsensical.

Not passing too much judgement yet as I have not heard the CD but doing weird stuff like this is a pattern and really makes no sense at all. Since they had the ability to take tracks from dozens of decent shows....then I don't get all of the apparent tinkering and mishmash.

Also, I played some of that NPR concert stuff I think Mikie posted a few pages back and Isn't It Time even on that has got to be the studio Brian if not all of the studio vocals. If I'm wrong, then he sang that dead on as bad as the album version.

[Wirestone]

As I posted earlier, they did not have dozens of shows to pick from. They only had however many shows were pro-recorded. I can't imagine they did that for more than a handful.

[AndrewHickey]

As I posted earlier, they did not have dozens of shows to pick from. They only had however many shows were pro-recorded. I can't imagine they did that for more than a handful.

Well then they're daft. If you know you're going to release a live album, it surely makes sense to take soundboard recordings of every show.
They certainly had the *opportunity* to pick from dozens of shows...

[STE]

I was told by one of the Beach Boys that they had recorded all the shows up to that point.  That was about show 50-55, in Europe.
The plan was to record all the shows until the end of the tour, and we anyway know that some Asian shows and all the UK shows were recorded.
So unless disproved, they had all the shows available to chose from.

[Paulos]

Paulos has now listened to the whole thing in Paulos' car and this release is one strange beast indeed, veering madly from the sublime to the ridiculous, some songs sounding great, others made Paulos wonder why they had bothered, with Isn't It Time being the worst offender. Still, it's not quite the trainwreck that Paulos expected, more of a fender bender type affair and if people want to listen to quality live Beach Boys performances then throw on Live In London or In Concert or one of the many bootlegs available.

The Paulos.

[AndrewHickey]

Paulos has now listened to the whole thing in Paulos' car and this release is one strange beast indeed, veering madly from the sublime to the ridiculous, some songs sounding great, others made Paulos wonder why they had bothered, with Isn't It Time being the worst offender. Still, it's not quite the trainwreck that Paulos expected, more of a fender bender type affair and if people want to listen to quality live Beach Boys performances then throw on Live In London or In Concert or one of the many bootlegs available.

The Paulos.

The Andrew agrees with The Paulos' assessment.

[drbeachboy]

Paulos has now listened to the whole thing in Paulos' car and this release is one strange beast indeed, veering madly from the sublime to the ridiculous, some songs sounding great, others made Paulos wonder why they had bothered, with Isn't It Time being the worst offender. Still, it's not quite the trainwreck that Paulos expected, more of a fender bender type affair and if people want to listen to quality live Beach Boys performances then throw on Live In London or In Concert or one of the many bootlegs available.

The Paulos.

The Andrew agrees with The Paulos' assessment.

The drbeachboy second's that emotion.

[Wirestone]

As I posted earlier, they did not have dozens of shows to pick from. They only had however many shows were pro-recorded. I can't imagine they did that for more than a handful.

Well then they're daft. If you know you're going to release a live album, it surely makes sense to take soundboard recordings of every show.
They certainly had the *opportunity* to pick from dozens of shows...

I'm pretty sure there's a difference between a soundboard recording and something that's pro-recorded with a mobile truck. And they do have a credit for the latter in the booklet.

I was told by one of the Beach Boys that they had recorded all the shows up to that point.  That was about show 50-55, in Europe.
The plan was to record all the shows until the end of the tour, and we anyway know that some Asian shows and all the UK shows were recorded.
So unless disproved, they had all the shows available to chose from.

Again, I'm sure that all the shows were recorded through the soundboard for reference, if nothing else. But I don't think that's the same as a full-on, professional recording job.

[Rocker]

As I posted earlier, they did not have dozens of shows to pick from. They only had however many shows were pro-recorded. I can't imagine they did that for more than a handful.

Well then they're daft. If you know you're going to release a live album, it surely makes sense to take soundboard recordings of every show.
They certainly had the *opportunity* to pick from dozens of shows...

I'm pretty sure there's a difference between a soundboard recording and something that's pro-recorded with a mobile truck. And they do have a credit for the latter in the booklet.

I was told by one of the Beach Boys that they had recorded all the shows up to that point.  That was about show 50-55, in Europe.
The plan was to record all the shows until the end of the tour, and we anyway know that some Asian shows and all the UK shows were recorded.
So unless disproved, they had all the shows available to chose from.

Again, I'm sure that all the shows were recorded through the soundboard for reference, if nothing else. But I don't think that's the same as a full-on, professional recording job.

Right! Soundboard is not multi-track

[Wirestone]

And that's not to mention differences in microphones, baffling, audience miking, etc., that might be included if recording a show for potential live release. Given that Joe produces live shows for TV as his job, one could expect he'd be particular about these things, and not want to use what he considered lower-quality soundboard tapes.

[AndrewHickey]

As I posted earlier, they did not have dozens of shows to pick from. They only had however many shows were pro-recorded. I can't imagine they did that for more than a handful.

Well then they're daft. If you know you're going to release a live album, it surely makes sense to take soundboard recordings of every show.
They certainly had the *opportunity* to pick from dozens of shows...

I'm pretty sure there's a difference between a soundboard recording and something that's pro-recorded with a mobile truck. And they do have a credit for the latter in the booklet.

I was using "soundboard" inaccurately and loosely, to mean any in-line recording.

[STE]

Yes but nowadays you don't necessarily mean a truck to record a show, in many cases a DAW could even just be enough.
But true about miking and setup.

[AndrewHickey]

And that's not to mention differences in microphones, baffling, audience miking, etc., that might be included if recording a show for potential live release.

Given that he's used studio recordings on at least four songs, I doubt he was that bothered about different mics and baffling.

[Heysaboda]

On the cover, I find that floating, disconnected hand and arm on Bruce's back to be vaguely creepy and funny.....!

 

[Custom Machine]

2012 is 40 to 50 years away from the Beach Boys vocal golden era of 1962-72.  The Beach Boys Live - the 50th Anniversary Tour was released for entertainment value, with listening by a mass audience in mind.  The human brain is much more forgiving of less than stellar vocals when viewing a live performance, followed by watching a video of a live performance, and least forgiving when listening to audio alone.

Aging voices, artifacts from pitch correction, and a few edits are too obvious at times, but overall I find the CD to be a very enjoyable listen, and a nice reminder of how great it was to have Brian, Mike, Al, Bruce, and David reunited on stage last year.  And that doesn't mean I wouldn't like to have straight soundboard recordings of the concerts I saw in person last year, but for a CD intending to represent the entire tour to a mass audience I think there's way too much complaining going on here.

[the professor]

The Professor is still waiting for the CD but is listening to the entire album from Rhapsody, downloaded to his SacDisc clip on Bose headphones. I can't determine that quality I have thus obtained, and I ask the audiofiles among you to please evaluate the relative merits of this procedure. That said, the whole things sounds much much better than clips and previous hints and samples, and it sounds better with earphones than on my Bose speakers off the computer via Rhapsody (why?).

The edits between the bits of the opening car medley are terribly distracting.

Marcella sounds great--lots of instruments can be heard.

"The great David Marks" moment (Brian speaking) is welcome, as is Dave's great vocal and his triumphant Pet Sounds.

IIT may be a sort of Frankenstein's monster, but I think it sounds great, despite its mixed origins in gods and monsters.

TLGIWK has too much Jeff, and I can't hear Al; it's supposed to be an Al/Brian duet.

All in all, I'll play it every day, and so far it's getting better all the time. I am giving it a B for today. To get an A they would have had to have chosen better performances for a few songs (409 seems to lag for example) and to have obtained better, more live sounding mixes for another 6 or so.  The abrupt cuts between songs that were seamless in concert is painful--my main critique and the most un-listenable feature. Moving from 409 to Shut down in concert is glorious; here it pops your ears. Autotune, so to speak, is not my main critique.

[gfac22]

"The great David Marks" moment (Brian speaking) is welcome, as is Dave's great vocal and his triumphant Pet Sounds.

That's one of my favorite moments, too.

[Gabo]

After reading all of this, I wonder if they left out the concert dates in the liner dates based on the fact that the release is a Frankenstein's monster of edits, fly-ins, and the like.

[Freddie French-Pounce]

Paulos has now listened to the whole thing in Paulos' car and this release is one strange beast indeed, veering madly from the sublime to the ridiculous, some songs sounding great, others made Paulos wonder why they had bothered, with Isn't It Time being the worst offender. Still, it's not quite the trainwreck that Paulos expected, more of a fender bender type affair and if people want to listen to quality live Beach Boys performances then throw on Live In London or In Concert or one of the many bootlegs available.

The Paulos.

The Great and Wise Paulos has spoken.

[AndrewHickey]

After reading all of this, I wonder if they left out the concert dates in the liner dates based on the fact that the release is a Frankenstein's monster of edits, fly-ins, and the like.

I doubt it. There's no attempt made to present it as a single show -- just the fact that they left in the references to Texas, Arizona and Colorado shows that.

[bossaroo]

as of now, I am boycotting this release. which is a damn shame because the tour was a triumph, the show I caught was a dream come true, and i really like the cover photo too!

but WTF??!!! the Beach Boys are the greatest vocal group of all-time. the glaring and excessive use of autotune/pitch correction is just unforgivable really. it sounds FAKE.

I've been listening to the Mermaid recording and yeah, there's some flat notes. a bunch to be honest. but it's REAL. Brian and Mike sound like human beings, not like a f*cking Speak & Spell.

remember those?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM8FcN0aAvU

I have a fantastic Speak and Spell VST called BitSpeek which really does make you sound just like it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg7ACJrsqM0

is that you? because i love that guy.