Tempo of live BB song performances throughout the years

[Lonely Summer]

From what I hear it seems like the tempos change from song to song year by year! Interesting hearing the tunes going by each year. Help me Rhonda sounded ALOT  different in the early 70s

That version was okay for that era and that time, when the band was trying to appeal to the hippie crowd, but I'm glad the guys went back to the classic arrangement in the 80's.

[Ron]

a side note to tempo but can we discuss arrangement as well?  

They did do some kind of strange things with the arrangements over the years.. I was listening to some old live stuff last week, and in the mid 60's when they used to do a medley of the surf songs, they would do Surfin' USA, for some reason they would drop 1 line of the lyrics out.  So it'd go "You'd see them wearin' their baggies... huarachi sandals too... everybody's gone surfin, Surfin' USA" they would delete the line about a "Bushy Bushy Blonde Hairdo" I guess so they didn't have to do the full chorus and could go into the solo or something.

And then for a long time in California Girls, Mike would go "They Make You Feel All Righ.  Ih.  Iht"

I'm sure they had good reasons for all that but it's always strange hearing them consistently do it different than the record...

[Eric Aniversario]

a side note to tempo but can we discuss arrangement as well?  

They did do some kind of strange things with the arrangements over the years.. I was listening to some old live stuff last week, and in the mid 60's when they used to do a medley of the surf songs, they would do Surfin' USA, for some reason they would drop 1 line of the lyrics out.  So it'd go "You'd see them wearin' their baggies... huarachi sandals too... everybody's gone surfin, Surfin' USA" they would delete the line about a "Bushy Bushy Blonde Hairdo" I guess so they didn't have to do the full chorus and could go into the solo or something.

And then for a long time in California Girls, Mike would go "They Make You Feel All Righ.  Ih.  Iht"

I'm sure they had good reasons for all that but it's always strange hearing them consistently do it different than the record...

It's fun to listen to all the different intros that they've done for Do it Again over the decades. Just during the 70s alone there were several!

[bringahorseinhere?]

some thoughts:
like a lot of bands over the years, they get tired of doin the same old 'crap' night after night, so they play with the arrangements to keep things
fresh for the performers, and also try to keep a good tune 'updated' to whatever is happening in music.
The great thing about the Beach Boys, they had a pool of great material to work with.  
interesting song arrangements done live:
help me Rhonda.  Always loved the original record, always loved Dennis singin this in the 70's to change it up a bit.  They also key changed this one over the years.  Never really got into Carl's lead vocal on this on the live recordings however.  Has too much of an Al imprint it's hard to almost hear anyone else do it but him.
good ol' Barbara Ann.  Now here is one song we all love yes? ha.  I like the song in it's original context as a party song, but as a full band live track,
it is boring as hell to me.  I would have loved for them to interpret this over the years in the  'unplugged' setting.  For a vocal group, this would have
been great to use in a small set in the show with 'their hearts', 'surfin', 'add some music' without a full band backing.  Simplify.
In a live setting, this song has been went from a 'walking bass' shuffly feel to a rock tune.  

One song I have not had much time for is 'be true to your school'.  I actually prefer the album version if I had to choose. The honeys and all that
'noise' doesn't do much for me, but however as a live track somehow, it seems to go over on a crowd somehow, even if it wasn't really a hit.

I like the song 'H&V', but always thought this song works live better than the original single mix (Sorry Brian).  This is a great ensemble of melody
and instrumentation that after hearing the 'smile' sessions stuff over the years, probably should have been a better compilation of parts.
I have seen Brian do this, the C50 tour doing this, and it is always a great performance tune.

The recorded version of 'little deuce coupe' is a cute little song, but again done live over the years, they made it into a rock feel instead of the
'shuffle' sound of the original record.  This is one that would have benefited being into the almost acoustic set.  Snare drum, bass, piano. acoustic
and electric guitar, and the vox on top.  That's all.  I know some venues have it's limitations for this setup, but would have been neat had
they approached some of their tunes like that over the years like the unplugged 92 tour.  
Some of those early songs are so dang short, that it would almost sound like a medley over a 20-25 minute set.

[Ron]

Yeah that's some good ideas... I like some of the rock versions, though.... that version of "Little Deuce Coupe" that's on the Hallmark CD is friekin' awesome.  It's like a wall of sound, even the way Mike counts it in, is just perfect.  He does the car song intro thing, and then you hear "a one, two, three, fou..." and then this entire wall of Beach Boys "LITTLE DEUCE COUPE......" the sound pressure is outstanding.  Zero to Hero in 1 moment, love it!

Also the drums in some of the versions of "Heroes and Villians" were just kick-ass, sometimes when the Beach Boys veered towards Hard Rock I loved it.  Such smooth voices but with the guitars and drums cranked up it really sounded great, imho.  Check out for instance the drums on the In Concert album, about 2:30 into the song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cyA7keBgvk

I know a lot of people don't like the drums on that album though, not sure why  


You mentioned "Barbara Ann", I've never liked that song (the off key singing even as a kid grated on me).. but for whatever reason, I really like how JEFF sings it!  The "whoooaaa BARBARA ANNNN!!!!!" just works for me, I don't know it's something about the way Jeff swoops up into it. 

Generally though I agree with you that on some of this stuff when they turn it into a rock song, it would be even more interesting if they were a little more reserved with it.