Last night, I had the privilege of seeing Brian Wilson and his band perform live at the Royal Festival Hall, London, and I just thought I'd post some of my impressions of this event:-).


The music of Brian Wilson is often lazily described as simply 'surf, cars and girls' pop, of which there are indeed many good examples in his huge catalogue, but he also wrote/co-wrote imo some of the most timeless, profoundly moving pop music of all times, including such classics as 'God Only Knows' 'Til I Die' and of course the whole 'Pet Sounds' album. His music is an intoxicating mixture of classic Four Freshmen harmony, Phil Spector granduer, Chuck Berry rock n' roll, near Frank Zappa levels of sophistication, Charles Ives percussion experimentalism, '50s exotica music and George Gerwhin/ Jerome Kern timeless song-writing.

And, with the fabled 'Smile' album in particular, finally completed and premiered at the Royal Festival in 2004, Brian and his lyric collaborator Van Dyke Parks began moving into a new music that is best described as 'serious, artistic composition with psychedelic overtones'. This album in its completed form, easily equals any Beatles album imo, and perhaps exceeds 'Sgt Pepper' in its sheer musical and lyrical vision. The melodies and rhythms are to die for. The arguable centrepiece of the album, 'Surf's Up', is, for me, up there with Lennon/McCartney's 'A Day in the Life', as a profound, if more abstract, expression of the way the '60s were going.

So, he is clearly a far deeper and more complex figure musically than often thought, and his great work is increasingly recognised as being easily on a par with any thing the Beatles did, only Brian not only composed the music (and some lyrics), but also arranged and produced over twelve albums of original music between 1962 and '66 alone . His personal problems are well known and are now under control and are basically a thing of the past.

As well as brilliantly performing most of the greatest hits of the Beach Boys, Brian and his magnificent band of multi-instrumentalists/ harmony singers also performed Brian's brand new song cycle, 'That Lucky Old Sun', inspired by the standard famously recorded by Louis Armstrong.

His new material is almost certainly the best and most consistently good new work he has produced in many a year, and has been reviewed very positively and the standout song was probably a truly moving ballad called 'Midnight's Another Day'. This is a real lump in the throat song. Also another song (I don't know the title as it's new), when he sings of 'All the voices, made me feel so small, all the people, made me feel so alone', which for anyone familiar with Wilson's history, is again truly moving. I look forward very much to the album release of 'Lucky Old Sun', sometime next year, at a guess.

This was my first time seeing Brian live, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that, while not a super-dynamic frontman, Brian has a definite 'presence' or charisma, even just sitting behind his keyboard, and sang and performed with more confidence, power and consistency than I had seen him in other recent live footage. He is a strange mixture of strength, humour and melancholy vulnerability, which is personified, I suppose, in his music.

Even in his mid-60s, he still seems to be recovering his vocal and compositional skills and seems to be making up for lost time. He even 'got down' playing his bass during the classic rock n'roll encore, especially on 'I Get Around' . They made no effort to be 'cool' or 'of today' as the music is obviously timeless and will live on.

I can honestly say that, while I've been to numerous concerts, I've never attended one with so much love for the main artist coming from the audience. The arrangements were just like the records (no mean feat, considering the sophistication of some of the music) and the harmonies were on a par with the Beach Boys themselves.

My only criticism would be that he didn't play any of his imo under-rated post '60s work, with the obvious exception of the new song cycle, but I'm just being greedy and the man owes us nothing after all he's already given us.

The show ended with one final encore, in which Brian talked about his friend Paul McCartney telling him that 'God Only Knows' was his favourate song of all time, and then Brian and the band performed the McCartney Beatles 'Sgt Pepper' classic 'She's Leaving Home' in true Brian Wilson style, with sterling harmonies and beautiful vibes (vibrophones ). Following a five minute + standing ovation, we made our way out.

One particular image that stays in my mind from the night was a brief moment when the maestro turned round his chair to face the band, started conducting them a bit, and then just sat back, digging what the strings and horn sections were playing.

I had a smile glued on my face virtually all night. This is 'real', multi-faceted music, played by real, multi-talented musicians, and the genius that is/was Brian Wilson still burns brightly imo, if a little less frequently than in his 20s.

A sublime evening.

Any fans round here of Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys etc?

Miles said:

Wow, sounds like a great show. I would love to see him live someday. I just got into the Beach Boys earlier this year so I'm still relatively new to Brian WIlson and his struggles, but it's great that he is able to go out and tour these days.

How was his voice though? Has it improved any over the past few years?

I started myself a Beach Boys thread a couple of months ago, with poor success (8-12 answers ), but it's good to see that at least the org has some hardcore Brian Wilson (and Beach Boys, by extension) fans.

I love your review; it feels like you truly enjoyed the power, emotion and richness of Wilson's music.

By the way, Smile(the 2004 version), is a masterpiece , I mean, a five star album

By the way, how many Pet sounds were played?

Great review.

You've got a Beach Boys fan here.

I've still got a couple of their 45s that I bought as a kid.
I Get Around b/w Don't Worry Baby
Dance, Dance, Dance b/w The Warmth of The Sun
(I played the B-sides more than the A-sides of these 2 singles)

A few other favorites...

Wouldn't It Be Nice
God Only Knows
Good Vibrations
Sail On, Sailor
In My Room
Darlin'
I Just Wasn't Made For These Times
Wind Chimes

...None of the surf tunes. Just very cool well written Pop songs.

It's unfortunate but probably until Pet Sounds, they were considered a lame AM Top 40 group and didn't get any play on the hipper Free Form FM stations.


Haven't really checked into any Brian Wilson solo releases.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431
[Edited 9/13/07 21:19pm]

Great review. I have Pet sounds and Smile but so little time to get into the other stuffs, yet.

Excellent review. I'm a big fan. I wouldn't quite call myself a disciple or anything - some people take their BB/BW very seriously, but I absolutely love their early singles, and their post-pet sounds albums - these ones in particular:




and my favourite:



It might just be my contradictory nature, but I've never quite wet myself over Pet Sounds the way some others do. I admire it and certainly don't complain when it's playing, but I don't go to it regularly the way I go to the stuff I mentioned above.

Yay, third time lucky! The post worked!!

waw2002 said:

Well, Brian's voice has been through various 'periods'. In the '60s, he mostly sang the high falsetto parts ('I sang like a girl', as he said recently.). Then, as the self-abuse kicked in his voice got gruffer and rougher, espec. in the '70s. In recent years, it has moved into a deeper register, mainly due to natural ageing meaning you can't reach those high notes very easy, and on other recent-ish live recordings I've heard, he has been good if a little shaky and out of tune here and there.

But on the night I saw him, his voice was pretty damn good. He hit the vast majority of the notes he was reaching for, and on the new ballad, 'Midnight's Another Day', his voice went really powerful and rich in one section, sending chills down the spine. On one new song, he even began to sing it, was clearly dissatisfied with his performance and stopped the band and made them start right over from the beginning, which they did in a heartbeat.

Basically, I think he's been getting more and more confident as a live performer and vocalist, and the whole 2004 'Smile exorcism' of all or most of the ghosts of his 1967 breakdown seems to brought his confidence even higher.

Let's put it this way. He sounded a lot better on the night than he did on record in 1995, 1985 or 1975. There were one or two rough edges, but the guy has been singin' a damn long time, so there's gonna be a little wear and tear, or 'character' in the voice.

He seemed to be enjoying himself, and surprisingly, he showed no real signs of tiredness vocally after just over 2 hours onstage.
[Edited 9/14/07 12:38pm]

JoeTyler said:

'Pet Sounds'? He did 'Wouldn't It Be Nice', 'Sloop John B' and a wondrous 'God Only Knows'. That was so great, sitting listening to BW and his band excellently sing and play 'God Only Knows', one of my all-time favourate songs, live. It doesn't get any better imo.

They played just over over 30 songs in all (including a great 'Sail On Sailer, tA!), and there was a good selection of stuff from the excellent 'Beach Boys Today' album, Side 2 of which was a kind of precursor to 'Pet Sounds' a year earlier. They played several good album tracks from the other mid '60s albums too.

Sadly, he didn't do 'I Just Wasn't Made For These Times' or 'Caroline No', etc, but they did do an awesome performance of the 'Smile' version of 'Heroes and Villains', with a soaring, complex acapella group harmony section that was just jaw-dropping.

These guys (and one cute gal) sure can sing harmony! I'll bet Carl Wilson (Brian's baby brother and original lead singer on 'God Only Knows', as well as master harmony singer) was looking down from Heaven and smiling.

wow intresting stuff never knew about this

diana ross had recorded an album in like the 70s as well and it never got released until like 06 or something and prince had that to.

its just great to have an album in the vaults and release it decades later and you capture the sounds from back in the day , in a way you wouldnt be able to capture it now. i will be checking it out

theAudience said:

Well, they did the first five of those songs the night I went and all were mighty fine!

I agree that Brian/ the Beach Boys had and still have something of an image problem among general listeners. Their original, clean-cut, stripe shirted, pretty boy look helped make their initial success, but it become a bit of an albatross by the late '60s, when their popularity dropped so much that the Boys (sans Brian) were for a short while playing such great venues as an English old people's care home!

Once, while on a high in the late '60s, Brian apparently proposed they change their name to simply 'The Beach', highlighting a more 'serious' attitude and the environmentalist message underlying some of their songs of that era, but this was rejected by the others.

But you only have to listen to the arrangements and dig some of those mad chords and beautiful, melodic progressions, shimmering marimbas, vibes and harmonies and surprising turn-arounds in the music to know they were something special.

Had the by-then Brian-less Boys capitalised on the success of their late '80s 'Kokomo' hit, they could imo have had a major career revival similar to the one the Bee Gees (another renowned group of harmonising relations)had around that time.

Another interesting thing I heard - On the Beach Boys ... interesting (and entertaining imo) hit collaboration with the Fat Boys, of the old surf classic 'Wipe Out', it is rumoured that the only Beach Boy who actually appears on the record is Brian.

damosuzuki said:

All excellent albums from their underrated late '60s-early '70s period especially 'Sunflower', a real 'group' album, with all 6 members getting to contribute excellent new songs to the record. Imo, Carl Wilson, Al Jardine and particularly Dennis Wilson, were all under-rated as song-writers.

Dennis released one semi-great solo album in 1978-ish, 'Pacific Ocean Blue', which is a fine record, different and 'heavier', emotionally and musically than most of Brian and the Boys' stuff, but clearly spawned from them. Sadly, I don't think it's available on CD, other than a super-expensive rare old edition. Had Dennis not done the whole drink/drugs/death routine, I've a feeling he could have ended up being a major musical/ composing force in his own right, both inside and outside the Boys. He had a gift, which he more-or-less squandered in the end.

I would also add 1968's 'Friends' to your list, as imo it's a real beauty.

Miles said:

I have an 'illegitimate' copy of Pacific Ocean Blue. Semi-great is a good way of putting it - some excellent songs, and a nicely ragged sound, but a few of the tracks aren't quite there as far as the songwriting goes, really. Copies apparently go for hundreds of dollars in the collectors market these days. I can't really understand why it remains out of print - we know there's a rabid Wilson/Beach Boys cult out there who'd snap up a reissue in a second. Likely there are legal issues in the way I'd imagine...

Miles said:

And that says it all.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431