This is a great thread....I said on a thread a couple of years ago, I saw first hand how the many versions of Rhonda in concert caused issues the evening of the Cleveland stop of C50 mid June 2012. As a birthday gift, my wife bought us Meet and Greet for the show. During the sound check, at the end, they specifically did Rhonda, which I thought was weird. At the end of the song Al and Scott T. got into a bit of a rift over what Al did the previous evening in Cincy and Scott wanted to get it straighten it out for that evenings show.
It hurt watching Scott say "Al, this is how we do it now". Scott walks off, Al puts down his guitar, slowly turns towards the 3 rows of fans, puts his arms out at length, shakes his head and slowly walks off. I can see where Al could have been in a groove/habit of doing old rifts where MB now maybe plays a different "version" where Al just wasn't up on...who knows. I'm not up on the exact musical differences between all the versions but I can see in the C50 make-up of the band, old habits were probably very hard to break for some of the guys, including Brian and his bandmates. Remember, Scott T. was the musical director for the tour and Mike in charge of the set-list.
He was co-director with Mertens apparently, but it does appear during soundchecks a lot of that stuff ran through him. I totally get it, if you're the director (or co-director), you have to do your job even if it means telling the artist they're doing something wrong. (I'm curious if Totten has or would ever take that same tone with Mike). But at the same time, this isn't a normal "artist hiring a musical director" situation. Totten had to know he's been intertwined into Mike's touring band, which remained a cause/player in a lot of BS Al had to go through legally and politically in the BB organization. If Al wants to do it a different way, why not stop and change the arrangement to do it his way?
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Al over the years could be wishy washy and strangely still unsure of things he's been doing for a half century.
Stories like this also reinforce a few more things about Al and C50: Al was comically marginalized (the band seemed to be largely preoccupied with reconciling the arrangement differences between Brian's band and Mike's band; not so much how Al had been doing songs at his random fairs over the years), and Mike wasn't the *only* person who may have had legit beefs with how C50 went. But you don't see Al giving interviews complaining about how he was marginalized on C50 or was told to sit down and shut up, etc. He continually praised C50.
Imagine Paul Mertens telling Mike that he has to change how he does "Kokomo." It would have received a full-page recounting in Mike's book.
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