Billboard Magazine Review - 1981

[petsite]

I can remember how weird it was back in 81-82 to see these kind of reviews with Carl Wilson touring solo and the Beach Boys playing somewhere else. On this occasion, they were actually reviewed in the same issue of Billboard. And since it was the Greek Theatre incident for the Beach Boys, it was not good.

[KDS]

My father saw The Beach Boys around this time, and said they were just OK.  At the show he attended, there were no antics like this from Brian, but he basically sat there without much movement. 

Kinda funny that the reviewer credits Back in the USSR to John Lennon.  While his name is on the credit, that's a Paul song.

[Emily]

Perhaps the Dennis-Mike incident was the following night.

[wantsomecorn]

My father saw The Beach Boys around this time, and said they were just OK.  At the show he attended, there were no antics like this from Brian, but he basically sat there without much movement. 

Kinda funny that the reviewer credits Back in the USSR to John Lennon.  While his name is on the credit, that's a Paul song.

It absolutely is a John Lennon song, just as much as "Run, Run, Run" is a Beach Boys song.

[KDS]

My father saw The Beach Boys around this time, and said they were just OK.  At the show he attended, there were no antics like this from Brian, but he basically sat there without much movement. 

Kinda funny that the reviewer credits Back in the USSR to John Lennon.  While his name is on the credit, that's a Paul song.

It absolutely is a John Lennon song, just as much as "Run, Run, Run" is a Beach Boys song.

Run Run Run is a song by The Who. 

[HeyJude]

Is there really any evidence that Carl performed "Surf's Up" at any point in 1981?

I recall that during his solo club tour, he only did one BB song ("Long Promised Road") and then during his stint opening for the Doobie Brothers he did that track as well as "Darlin'."

Wondering if someone's concert notes for Carl's set indicated that "LPR" was *from* the "Surf's Up" album, and someone else transcribed something incorrectly.

As for the 1981 BB show, that review is pretty par for the course. The band was lucky they didn't receive even more scrutiny and negative reviews during that time. Similar to what Rusten and Stebbins's excellent "In Concert" book points out (especially in relation to their late '81 gigs at Sun City), sub-par performances and boneheaded booking choices (e.g. Sun City) didn't receive as much criticism from the press as one might think, mainly because nobody much cared at that particular point.

It's still interesting as well to see the contemporary reviews from the late 70s and early 80s in the "In Concert" book, because reviews still varied quite a bit.

[Emily]

How many shows did the BBs do with Brian and without Carl? That seems like a recipe for even more disaster than usual.

[Emdeeh]

Carl didn't perform "Surf's Up" in his Atlanta solo show, just LPR.

[HeyJude]

How many shows did the BBs do with Brian and without Carl? That seems like a recipe for even more disaster than usual.

Carl's last 1981 gig was in February I think. He returned for a few shows in early 1982, left again, and returned in May of 1982.

So most gigs between March 1981 and May 1982 were Carl-less; essentially almost a year and a half. Brian and/or Dennis were at the majority of these shows, but not all. Dennis missed gigs sometimes, and Brian did as well. Sometimes you'd get both, sometimes just one or the other.

I think there were only a handful of late 1981-early 1982 gigs where all the Wilsons were absent. But there were definitely a small number of Mike-Al-Bruce shows in that period where Carl was still gone and both Brian and Dennis didn't or couldn't make the gig.

The main issue with "1981 Brian" was that while he had some spunk and energy during some of his 1976/77 shows when he came back, by 1978 and especially 1979/80, he was really just a bit player in the shows. He was off to the side of the stage on his grand piano, mainly only adding the opening lines to "Sloop John B", the bridge on "Surfer Girl", and singing along with Al on "Wouldn't It Be Nice."

So when Carl left, all of a sudden Brian was being asked to be much more active and involved than he had been the previous several years. He was singing the lead on "Good Vibrations" and "God Only Knows" (sometimes doing a relatively decent job actually), as well as several others. For some mind-blowingly weird reason, they also chose to add "Don't Worry Baby" back into the setlist and have Brian try to sing it in the original key. Look for the 1981 Queen Mary show on YouTube to see what happened there......

[Fall Breaks]

So Al sang God Only Knows when Brian left the stage? Any recording of that?

[HeyJude]

So Al sang God Only Knows when Brian left the stage? Any recording of that?

There's a story, presumably from very early 1982, of Brian balking after a few words at singing GOK because of a cold, and then Bruce starting it up again and then also balking at the lead due to a cold, and then Foskett singing the song.

But assuming the Greek review is from '81, Foskett wasn't in the band yet. The review seems confusing; did Brian really give up after a few lines, and then Bruce went after him and got him to come back, all before the end of a 3 minute song?

Either way, it sounds like Al only sang some of the lines. I don't know of any recording from that era of Al singing it. I believe Al recently sang the song at the Lennon NYC event in Central Park. He also sang alternating lines (along with Adam) with Wendy and Carnie during "Family & Friends" performances in 1998-2002 or whenever it was that band ended.

[Lonely Summer]

Not a good time for the group. I have an audience recording from '81 where Brian sings GOK and actually does a very nice job, even earning onstage praise from Mike. They they do DWB and it's awful.
Wish the reviewer had more to say about Carl's opening slot. Definitely no "Surf's Up" in his solo shows, though.