Muting the keys

[c-man]

As long as we're picking apart the keyboardists....when's the last time anyone heard what the hell Al Jardine was playing on his guitar in concert?!?......seems to be a trend with the boys after they picked up their big ole backing bands.

Al can be seen and heard trading off lead parts with Dave on the C50 version of "Sail On Sailor". Check out the two videos from that tour, especially the first one (with concert footage shot in St. Augustine, FL).

[Jim V.]

Bruce makes Dan Fogleberg sound like death metal.

Not to forget this is a guy who in an interview was talking about going to see Kenny Loggins play. Gotta say, Bruce is a pretty hip guy.

[Ian]

There are three reviews of that 1977 show that I quote in the book and the incident is mentioned in one of the reviews

[Alan Smith]

From The Guardian/Observer - 2002

During a Beach Boys' show in London in 1978, Mike Love, the group's resident transcendental meditator, was so incensed by his cousin's erratic behaviour that he tried to overturn the piano with his bare hands. 'He got mad at me for smoking too much,' Brian smiles like a naughty child. 'I was smoking, and he was choking. And, boy, he got real mad. It wasn't,' he adds, seemingly unaware of the irony, 'appropriate behaviour.'

Was that at the CBS Convention or no?

Dunno exactly, but the way the section in the book reads (page 300-301 of the Da Capo edition) it implies the CBS convention appearance didn't happen - it was scheduled for 30 July 1977, but the related BB tour got canned as of the 21st July, due to the Lazarus management fiasco (tax stuff, visas and accomodation not secured).   Here's gig tiff bit from the Gaines book tho':

"The group did manage to play one concert in England that July at Wembly Stadium, where one of the ugliest public displays to date occurred.  In the middle of the concert, before an enormous audience of over 15000.  Mike Love lost his temper, picked up a piano bench, and threw it at Brian.  It bounced off the stage and nearly hit his own children, Christian and Hayleigh, who were sitting in the front row."

However, Ian R and Jon S's groovey book, p225, tells us - the band did indeed play at the convention, Grosvenor House Hotel, London, 30/07/77; During Fun Fun Fun, Mike attempted to turn Brian's grand piano over but instead knocked Brian's mike over, and a terrified Brian split when the song was finished.

Wow!  So Alan, that makes three different versions of the story! 

  and counting!  Hoping for another 2 distinct recollections in any forthcoming Brian or Mike auto or otherwise bio's.

[Ian]

The article in question was "Beach Boys: Great Music, Weird Scenes" by Harry Doherty that appeared in Melody Maker on August 6 1977.
Doherty noted with concern that Brian, who had slimmed down considerably and cut his hair very short, “looked totally zomboid and completely unaware of what was happening around him…the guy looked so pitifully detached from what was happening…that one wondered if it was safe for him to be on stage.”  Doherty noticed some odd tension between Mike and Brian.  When Brian moved from piano to bass at one point during the show, Mike announced with heavy sarcasm “Here he is, Brian Wilson, the Eternal Kid…The Eternal Teenager” and during ‘Fun, Fun, Fun’ Mike rushed over towards Brian at the piano and, according to Doherty, “attempted to turn the grand piano over, but instead toppled Wilson’s mike over. Wilson looked positively terrified at this and when the song ended, walked from behind the keyboard, keeping one eye on Love, waved and left the stage."

[Mikie]

This happened about a month before the incident on the airport tarmac in Newark, New Jersey.  Guess tensions were still high within the group.