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Post by AGD on Feb 20, 2024 3:22:26 GMT -5
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Post by lonesurf on Feb 20, 2024 6:22:27 GMT -5
What a night!
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Post by John Manning on Feb 20, 2024 6:29:34 GMT -5
Six great nights (out of seven). Mind-blowingly superb. Thanks to a whole load of Strings & Horns, Wondermints and other talented souls, but special thanks to Van Dyke Parks, and the big man who made it all possible: Briaaaaaaaaaan Wilson!
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Post by AGD on Feb 20, 2024 12:12:33 GMT -5
May the Lord look sideways on me (as my mother used to say) but if I read once more that Macca & Sir George were at the first night, I may not be responsible for my actions.
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Post by dauber on Feb 20, 2024 13:51:17 GMT -5
May the Lord look sideways on me (as my mother used to say) but if I read once more that Macca & Sir George were at the first night, I may not be responsible for my actions.
THE HELL YOU SAY.
What next? You gonna try to tell me that Nick didn't change shirts in the middle of a song?
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Post by dauber on Feb 20, 2024 13:53:01 GMT -5
I know I commented on this elsewhere today, but it bears repeating:
As I was in my New Jersey home that day, I was very smugly laughing at all you fools who went to the show in England, honestly thinking that something ridiculous as Brian actually doing a Smile show would ever happen. I laughed at what a ride you were all taken for. I couldn't wait to wake up the next morning and tell you idiots, "Told ya so!"
I was shocked to learn how wrong I was.
When I heard the first leaks of the show, I was never more thankful EVER to be wrong.
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Les P
Grommet
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Likes: 19
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Post by Les P on Feb 21, 2024 2:53:41 GMT -5
An incredible experience of a lifetime: the concert that was - somehow, incredibly - better than we could have expected after decades of speculation, the fact that Brian (and his amazing band) had pulled off the impossible (I half expected him to run off the stage when "Fire" kicked off) and the lovefest in the Royal Festival Hall among strangers from around the world who felt immediately bonded by their love of Brian. Getting my ticket autographed by VDP after the show and later by BW at a meet and greet. Not to mention the joyful gatherings and singalongs at the Travel Inn, where we were often treated to visits by band members. It was also my wife's first trip to London, so to walk off a transatlantic flight and step into this scene a few hours later was a trip! We were still buzzing wide awake in our hotel room at 4 a.m. even though we hadn't slept in 2 days.
I remember meeting AGD and John Manning and perhaps others on this board whose names I don't remember.
It's a nice memory to reflect upon when there's been so much sad news in the Brian camp lately. Thank you, Brian and Van Dyke, and the amazing band. And RIP Melinda, Nicky Wonder, and Jeff Foskett, all of whom played crucial roles. May you live in the eternal music.
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Post by AGD on Feb 22, 2024 3:40:27 GMT -5
[I post this [on Facebook] every year, with minimal amendments, but in this of all years, I make no apology for so doing. If you were there, you know...]
Twenty years ago, I was enjoying, thoroughly enjoying, the single best group experience of my now nearly fifty years of Beach Boys fandom. When it was announced in early 2003 that the following February, Brian & his band would perform Smile at London's Royal Festival Hall, well, once the shock had worn off, plans began to be laid. To slightly reword a famous line from the excellent Field Of Dreams, "if he plays it, they will come"... and they came. Oh, how they came.
They came from England, Wales, Scotland & Ireland; they came from France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark & Sweden; they came from the USA & Canada; they came from China (via Russia), South Africa & Australia. They came by foot, by plane and by every other mode of transport in between, and all converged on the County Hall Travel Inn (as it was then), and when they arrived they were all welcomed as long-lost friends. It was without question the biggest BB fan gathering of all time. For a week, it seemed you couldn't go anywhere in London without encountering Beach Boys fans, and every night, show or not, we convened in the bar of the Travel Inn to talk, laugh, drink and above all, sing... and not just us, for camped in the Marriott at the other end of County Hall were Brian and his band, and it was a poor night when only one of them showed up. But, by now they weren't 'Brian's band', they were our friends, Darian, Probyn, Nelson, Jimmy, Scotty, Bob, Taylor, Nicky, not forgetting our new friends the Stockholm Strings & Horns. To finish at 1.00am was an early night, and on one memorable occasion, the bar staff forcibly ejected Darian, Scott, Probe & Nelson at 3.30am. Now consider this: they didn't have to do this, but after doing a two-hour show performing a legendary and hugely complex piece of music, and the subsequent meet & greets, they chose to come and hang with us. These people were not merely approachable, they often approached us. They were all, and remain, stars. (I've been asked why not Jeff - simply, he had Brian to look after. We all understood)
But... it wasn't just about the music, even though that was as exciting, moving and uplifting as we could have hoped (as the final notes faded on the historic first night, hundreds of grown men were in floods of tears, and I'm not ashamed to admit I was one of them). It was the incredible sense of fellowship and community that grew as the week progressed: if you wanted to find someone, chances are they were at the TI, the RFH, the Slug & Lettuce or the little internet cafe opposite the London Eye that did a roaring trade that week (and probably not coincidentally, closed not long after), and during they day we showed them our city. Some ventured further afield, to Stonehenge or Brighton, or took in a Jack The Ripper walk one dark night. Friendships were formed and strengthened: unquestionably it was the high water-mark of Beach Boys fandom - we were all just fans, celebrating the music that brought us all together in the first place. It was, without apology, magical... and of course, it was also too good to last. In time divisions emerged and factions formed, friendships were strained and sometimes sundered, while other simply dropped from view. But, whatever, the shining memory of a week in London, late February 2004 endures in the hearts of those fortunate enough to be there. I was, and it warms my soul to recall those days.
To list those present is, of course, fraught with pitfalls as to forget someone is inevitable, and for this I apologise as I tip my hat to the following people who made the week what it was: Paul & Ashley, Val, Andrew G, Suze, James, Anne-Marie, Phil, Danni, Linda & Mark, Sue & Stu, Jacqs, Alex, Alan, Peter R, Peter W, Dan, Gerard, Heather & Dave, Mark S, Tony, Joseph, Robyne, Andy, Kit Kat, Sean, Francis, Paul, Ails, Rob, Pat, Hugh, Rene, Hans, Joe T, Brian B, John P & Judy, John E, Ant, Danny, Ann-Michelle, Mike, Charlie, the Dutch contingent and... oh, all the others.
Coda 2024: sadly, the passage of the years has taken some of those named above from us, fans and performers alike, but their memory remains bright. I dedicate this 20th anniversary post to Rob Dean, Charlie Brennan, Kit Kat and Dave Findlay... and of course to Markus Sandlund, Nicky Wonder, Jeff Foskett and Melinda Wilson.
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Post by KenWorthing on Feb 22, 2024 5:18:36 GMT -5
Well written, Andrew. About once a year I put on my home-brewed dvd of the BBC cut of 'Beautiful Dreamer' and pinch myself that I was there .. I had to be there .. if you know you know. It's just incredible that it happened and I too cried a bucketful at the end of that first performance. 20 years. Wow! Gone too darn fast.
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Post by sneakypete77 on Feb 22, 2024 9:41:44 GMT -5
Couldn’t make it to the premiere but I was there for the second night. Seated between a girl on my left who sobbed non-stop through every song, and a very striking gentleman to my right who was dressed in colourful traditional Indian garb and wearing a dazzling turban. He could barely speak any English, but it was a thousand percent better than my Punjabi, and when the music began he sang every song with gusto and was word perfect throughout. Talk about this beautiful music transcending cultures.
After the show, and thanks to the kindness of Jeff and Darian, my genial Geordie pal JP and I headed off downstairs to the VIP lounge where there was a free bar and buffet. We got a table down the far end of the room and sat talking about the show and wondering if dear Charlie Brennan had managed to capture it on his mini disc recorder (yes, the 2CD set with artwork was ready before sunrise). John then disappeared to do his usual networking and two guys came over to ask if they could join me. One was very knowledgeable about the band and the story of SMiLE, the other was quieter and more reticent, but after a while he opened up too.
They looked familiar, probably Stomp Convention attendees, but after downing a few free drinks the memory cells had already decided to jump ship. We talked for what seemed a long time, and their enthusiasm for the music really shone through. When they left, JP and a few others came over and apparently I had been voted coolest dude in the room, which for anyone who knows me, is an utter absurdity. It seems that I had spent over an hour talking mostly drunken bollocks with the erudite Glen Matlock and the more reserved Steve Jones, a couple of Sex Pistols no less. What a crazy, crazy night.
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Post by Awesoman on Feb 23, 2024 10:12:36 GMT -5
Got to see Brian perform the album live in Atlanta. Probably not as epic as the debut performance though. Would love to see a vinyl reprint of the album. It *is* the 20th anniversary this year...
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andyb
Grommet
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Likes: 7
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Post by andyb on Feb 23, 2024 10:24:43 GMT -5
I was there for that first week of concerts at the RFH. But i can't remember which night. I've long lost the ticket, but i found the programme the other day, which in itself is a wonderful bit of work. But that whole time was an incredible experience. I remember staying off the internet until i after i saw the show. I didn't want to spoil it and know the running order, or even what songs were included. So when i heard them play it, every moment seemed magical and joy to behold. I couldn't stop smiling the whole way. As a piece of live music, it just worked so well. Better i think than anyone could have imagined. Those were great days. Just so glad to have been a witness to them!!
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Post by sneakypete77 on Feb 23, 2024 13:50:13 GMT -5
Further to my previous post, the girl seated on my left had stopped sobbing when the interval lights came up, but started up again big time when she realised who was sitting directly in front of her:
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Post by Awesoman on Feb 24, 2024 13:38:54 GMT -5
Would be great if they put this performance out as a CD/vinyl live album. And it would make for a helluva Record Store Day release.
Alternatively if you have the DVD performance and a computer with a DVD drive you could rip the audio with a DVD audio ripper and make your own live CD.
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Post by Mikie on Feb 25, 2024 12:58:52 GMT -5
From my friend Steve Webb, Writer and Arts and Entertainment Editor, who used to post on the old Cabinessence/Shut Down Message Board as "Textus": A lot of BB/BW friends are commemorating the SMiLE premiere anniversary this week, partly because of our sad loss over the last year of Jeff Foskett and Melinda Wilson. I wasn't in London for the premiere, actually saw the show in our nation's capital instead with the delightful author and conversationalist Don Cunningham. If anyone's interested, this is the main article of three I wrote for clients about the tour: "The long journey to ‘SMiLE”. Why Brian Wilson could complete his 1966 epic in 2004 after not doing so in 1968, 1971, 1975, 1980 and 1988"
By Steve Webb, Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune; Oct. 17, 2004 The Sixties can end now. When Brian Wilson finally released his long-lost album “SMiLE” with its three movements of interlocking pop songs last month, the last of the decade's prodigals finally surfaced. Bob Dylan released his 1966-67 “Basement Tapes” in 1975. The Rolling Stones' 1968 “Rock and Roll Circus” made it to stores in 1999, and just last year The Beatles' raw "Get Back" album was finally released as “Let It Be ... Naked.” The album’s legend - it was to follow The Beach Boys' critically successful “Pet Sounds” and would be anchored by the No. 1 hit single "Good Vibrations" - eclipses any of the others above. Wilson abandoned finishing the thing in early 1967 amid disagreements with the other Beach Boys, and subsequent efforts in 1968, 1972, 1975, 1980 and 1988 by the other Beach Boys or their record companies to get him to finish it came up empty. Hearing it in 2004 is a lot like if George Gershwin fans suddenly discovered that he had actually written his score for "The Lights of Lany," a second folk opera he planned to adapt from a play by Lynn Riggs before he died in 1937. Or it would be like the discovery of a whole set of alternate episodes for a potentially classic TV series that instead "jumped the shark," such as a "Chicago Hope" in which Alan Birch wasn't knocked off and Aaron Shutt didn't get all goofy, or a "Dallas" in which Bobby didn't die in the first place (or for that matter J.R. did). Having a finished “SMiLE” is that big a deal. It came about because after for years associating it with his own unraveling, or with the quick disintegration of Southern California’s pop utopia during the ‘60s that occurred after he wrote most of the music, Wilson became to accept that many of his most ardent fans seriously loved the bits that had made it to the public over the years, and then to confront finishing what had become through its legend both the jewel and the largest blemish on his legacy as an American musician. Why 2004 is different from all those other failed attempts to get Brian to finish “SMiLE?” The answer has a who, a couple of whats and whys and to some extent a where. It matters that Wilson’s first “miracle cure” at the hands of psychologist Eugene Landy didn’t take. In 1979, saxophonist Walter Parazeider from the rock band Chicago had a solo project in mind that he thought about seeking Brian out to produce, Within a year, he dismissed the idea. “Brian isn’t well enough to do it,” he said in a 1981 interview. In 1988, when a combination of his debut solo album and the quirk success of The Beach Boys single “Kokomo” prompted renewed interest in the project, he had completed his second cure hinged on his belief that his best music appeared on the more conventional albums “Beach Boys Today,” “Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!)” and “Pet Sounds.” Even as early as 1968, brother Carl Wilson’s completion of the songs “Prayer” and “Cabinessence” for inclusion on the “20/20” album backfired when Carl gave the song a more foreboding sound than Brian intended by grouping them with a song brother Dennis Wilson had co-written with an aspiring lyricist, Charles Manson. At heart, though, the answer involves a “when.” In 1971, there was a deliberate push to have a “SMiLE” in 1972. When the Capitol hits package “Endless Summer” became a No. 1 album in 1974 and The Beach Boys had at most four releasable songs for a 1975 album, there was the same push to have a “SMiLE” in 1975. After the 1979 Beach Boys’ “L.A. Light Album,” there was another one to have a “SMiLE” suite serve as the centerpiece for the 1980 album that became “Keepin’ the Summer Alive.” The efforts Brian’s circle made to bring about a completed “SMiLE” did not involve such deadlines. The efforts began as many as 13 years ago, but certainly no fewer than six years ago. In 1991, a court order severing Brian’s business and patient ties with Landy led to his affairs being handled by his second wife, Melinda, whom he married in 1995. The next year, “SMiLE” lyricist Van Dyke Parks delivered to Warner Brothers Records his quadrennial solo album, “Radio Free America,” and it got rejected. Label president Lenny Waronker, a longtime friend dating back to the mid-‘60s, suggested to Parks that the songs had more commercial potential than did Parks’ quirky singing voice, and suggested in particular that one of them be re-recorded with Brian singing. “This happened to be a period in which I wanted my records to actually sell,” Parks recalled in 1996, after re-crafting its songs with lyrics in the same kind of Cole Porter cum Walt Whiteman made of the “SMiLE” songs and recording them with Wilson as “Orange Crate Art.” The album was politely received, and one of several steps following the 1993 release of a dozen “SMiLE” fragments on the “Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of the Beach Boys” boxed set intended to let Brian know that the public didn’t only love his 1963-65 top 40 hits. In 1996 when Capitol prepared for release a four-CD boxed set of the “Pet Sounds” sessions, onetime Wilson biographer and eventual confidant David Leaf floated the idea of a similar “SMiLE” sessions box. It is possible a finished “SMiLE” wasn’t yet considered a possibility, because when asked about the box, Leaf said, “Having a finished ‘SMiLE’ will never happen. That moment’s lost. What the box would do is collect and finally distribute all the wonderful music from those sessions.” The “Pet Sounds” box didn’t sell enough to pursue the idea further, although a new stereo mix of the 1966 album done for the box would eventually sell 2 million copies after its 1998 release. That is a key year in the quiet “SMiLE” conspiracy. The release of Brian’s solo album “Imagination” included him revisiting a song he had abandoned in 1965 and 1976, “Sherry She Needs Me,” and successfully completing it as “She Says That She Needs Me” with new lyrics by Carol Bayer Sager. A series of concerts promoted the album, at a small enough scale to allow Wilson to deal with his legendary aversion to touring. The next year, both Wilson and Parks received a jolt from the ABC miniseries, “The Beach Boys: An American Family.” Although in general a less sensational fictionalization of the group’s story than the 1990 ABC biopic “The Beach Boys: Summer Dreams,” it generally portrayed Wilson as a gifted naïf brought into focus only when working with his cousin Mike Love. And Parks was portrayed as a fast-talking huckster, sponging off Wilson rather than collaborating with him. As the most watched ABC program not hosted by Regis Philbin that year, this image would be the lasting one if nothing changed. Parks started talking to friends about completing “SMiLE.” “I have no intention of ‘completing’ it after Brian is gone,” he is said to have retorted. “That’s ghoul’s work.” When a British journalist came to Los Angeles to interview him and mentioned liking the song “Cabinessence,” Parks saw to it that the journalist got to say the same thing to Wilson himself before heading back to the U.K. When Melinda Wilson talked Brian into doing a tour of the “Pet Sounds” album, Parks agreed to score an overture for the show. In 2001, a tribute concert at Radio City Music Hall for Wilson pointedly included “Prayer” and “Surf’s Up,” the latter in a stunning version by Vince Gill, Jimmy Webb and David Crosby. “Phil Ramone told me that it was very important that the song be included,” Gill said in a 2001 interview. After hearing Gill sing the song, Wilson used it and several other “SMiLE” songs as an opening act for Paul Simon in 2001. After recording a complete album with his post-1998 solo band, work began in earnest to first finish the arrangements, then complete the lyrics, then premiere in February at London’s Royal Albert Hall, and then to record that last light from the ‘60s. And maybe, because it was completed, the ‘60s can’t end now. If “SMiLE” matters as a piece of popular music literature, maybe the decade is now going to go on forever. What is ‘SMiLE’? A 60-something’s Cantata to the American Dream (This previously unpublished piece was written as a sidebar to “The Long Journey to ‘SMiLE.’”) A bunch of guys (and one girl) gather around a campfire, get comfortable singing some songs they all know and then launch into a complicated, 50-minute joke. That image most captures what Brian Wilson and his musicians do in a concert intended to present the original Beach Boy’s “SMiLE” to the world. If there is one central thing those of us who spent up to 37 years speculating about what the thing would be missed, it is the level and nature of its humor. We imagined the California songwriter had done rock’n’roll’s “East of Eden,” when all along what he really wanted to do was its “Cannery Row.” What is “SMiLE?” When Wilson began his 1966-67 collaboration with lyricist Van Dyke Parks, he said he wanted to do a “teenage symphony to God.” That never really fit. He was 24 when they started on the thing, for one thing, and he had to set it aside until 2003 to complete. So try this: “SMiLE” is a 60-something’s Cantata to the American Dream. Its lightness, and its almost serial structure of building mini-movements into songs and strings of songs into movements beg the more informal label among serious vocal works. And both the subject matter and the medium reflect the idea of America. Wilson and Parks – a session keyboardist and strings arranger at the time whose sessions ranged from Disney animated soundtracks to Paul Revere and the Raiders – intermingled three ideas. One involved this country’s westward expansion created by the evolution of transportation. A second used childhood to reflect potential in a country that constantly reinvents itself. A third involved the role that the Virgin Land itself plays in the first two. And that sounds so heavy! It’s not, mostly because the two concocted it using various conventions of American song as a response to 1966 rock’s fascination with droning Asian modes. Some songs are quoted directly, most obviously the country song “You Are My Sunshine” and a torchy version of Johnny Mercer’s “I Want to Be Around.” Some titles become word play, “Home on the Range,” “C C Rider” and “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” among others. Others inspire melodies, a riff from “Rhapsody in Blue” that Wilson built into a stanza that then reminded Parks of Marty Robbins’ “El Paso.” As a recording, “SMiLE” finally confirms that Wilson stands alongside America’s greatest songwriters. As a stage piece, though, it comes alive. Sight comedy abounds. When musicians aren’t playing, they join in a pantomime playing denizens at a cantina, a fitness club or a Keystone-like firehouse. All of which, among other things, turns the conflagration that “SMiLE” once seemed into that inviting campfire. Steve Webb
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Post by jk on Mar 13, 2024 5:25:48 GMT -5
And here's another that fits this thread. BWPS hits NL at Amsterdam's Pepsi Stage precisely 20 years ago today. It's in Dutch and unfortunately there are no shots of the performance. Some familiar faces in there all the same:
Is that Melinda just after 5:40 in part two?
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Post by lonesurf on Apr 11, 2024 12:31:37 GMT -5
Not sure if this has already been shared:
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Post by AGD on Apr 11, 2024 15:24:04 GMT -5
And here's another that fits this thread. BWPS hits NL at Amsterdam's Pepsi Stage precisely 20 years ago today. It's in Dutch and unfortunately there are no shots of the performance. Some familiar faces in there all the same: Is that Melinda just after 5:40 in part two?No, that's Pat Panuska, better known as Bluebird.
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Post by jk on Apr 11, 2024 15:46:58 GMT -5
And here's another that fits this thread. BWPS hits NL at Amsterdam's Pepsi Stage precisely 20 years ago today. It's in Dutch and unfortunately there are no shots of the performance. Some familiar faces in there all the same: Is that Melinda just after 5:40 in part two?No, that's Pat Panuska, better known as Bluebird. Thank you!
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