Over the past I don't know how many years, I've always thought about watching some old BB July 4th stuff when the 4th of July comes around each year, but I never have really done it. But today, I did manage to watch a good hunk of three different 4th of July shows on video (1980 and 1984 in DC, 1995 in Philadelphia).
I've always had a soft spot for the 1980 DC show, and that is one of my favorites of any live BB video. Sure, it's overdubbed rather noticeably in many places, but all of the basic stuff is still there from the original live performance, and the BB's were pretty solid. As c-man mentioned, this was one of last eras where the number of actual BB's on stage outnumbered the sidemen (and by a 2-to-1 ratio at this show!). While I like the Knebworth show, I actually think the DC show, which was only done two weeks or so later, is actually even better. I actually managed a number of years ago to track down the Japanese Region 2 DVD release of that DC show, and it looks and sounds great.
The other two 4th of July shows I watched were hit and miss. The 1984 show had some interesting song selections. Some of the guest appearances are embarrassing (Julio Iglesias singing to Latoya Jackson?), while others (Ringo) are at least interesting just to see that grouping up on stage. I still laugh at the fact that the BB's chose to have Ringo drum on "Back in the USSR", when that is actually one of the few Beatles tracks that Ringo didn't drum on originally!
A couple years ago, Ringo released his "Postcards from the Boys" book, and in one of the captions Ringo mentions that he had played a show with the Beach Boys. He went on to say that he didn't remember the show at all, but since there is video of it, he must have done the show!
The 1995 4th of July show is okay for a late-era BB show. The whole thing is a bit of an "autopilot" production, standard setlist, with the added annoying "bonus" of John Stamos sticking around for the entire show. One thing I did notice as I watched this show was that, as annoying and as mediocre as Stamos appears at these past BB shows, even his drumming actually is probably better than Kowalski's!
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