Brian Wilson's Last Show

Well said!

Well, it's happening to all of us. In my prime, I was going out to probably one concert a month (sometimes more). Now I look at the lists of upcoming shows, and most of the bands I've never heard of; and others are just charging far too much for someone on a limited income (me). Yeah, it's a combination of seeing ticket prices soar, and fewer acts out there that I am interested in.
I remember thinking back in 2013 that $50 was a lot to see Michael Nesmith (and for an additional $50, I could have done the meet and greet), but he was not a touring animal, so I paid the money and took my chance. I'm glad I did. And now he's gone. I saw all four Monkees individually, and Micky, Davy and Peter together twice. Now Micky is the only one left, and I have no interest in seeing him perform as The Monkee.
I love the Beatles, but Macca charges way too much for his shows, and his voice is gone. Ringo still looks and sounds great, but I have no interest in his current All Starrs. Is it really worth coughing up $80 to see Ringo sing a few songs, and back up other guys on their hits? 
I doubt Ray or Dave Davies will ever tour again; so for me, that leaves Bob Dylan and John Fogerty. And Mike and Bruce. 
Yeah, it's depressing. I grew up loving the rock and roll of the 50's 60's 70's, but always assumed other acts would come along that I would grow to love just as much as those oldsters. Well, occasionally someone would come along...and then they'd disappear. 
The last show I went to was a little known acoustic performer who goes as Hamell on Trial. The only reason we get to see him out here is my friend knows him and pays his way. Let's him stay at his house and everything. A good size crowd for Hamell is 50 people. 

As a guy at the tail end of Generation X, rather than embracing most "modern" music growing up which included alt-rock and hip hop, my musical tastes always gravitated towards older music my parents grew up with. It's hard to watch my heroes such as the Beach Boys, Paul McCartney and others grow old and eventually fade out entirely from recording and performing as they are the music I primarily followed through the years. It's nice that at least Paul Simon and apparently the Rolling Stones have at least one more new album each in the works but it doesn't appear we're going to be receiving much else after that. It has forced me to engage younger artists and embrace more modern music but it just ain't the same.

Agreed and I do listen to some classical. Not to mention some jazz as well. But I'm talking about artists I can follow who currently make music and perform.

And just to reiterate what Rick and other posters have said, it is very bittersweet watching that footage. So happy for the unexpected 25 year coda to his career, but boy is it heart-breaking to watch him traverse the stage on that walker. Watching your heroes get old is really painful. 

Thank you big guy, for all the joy you've given me.

That was, as Alan clearly says, the final show of the joint tour with Chicago (joint... yeah: Brian opened every date) - "last time this tour with Brian Wilson", and Brian had five more shows scheduled, the first just under two weeks later, but less than 24 hours after it was promoted on his own Facebook page they were all cancelled due to a downturn in his health (according to the management). Since then... nothing. Not a word. No more dates, no rescheduled shows. The concensus is that Brian's touring days are over (Carnie as much as said so on the BBTalk show she was on, although she's not exactly in constant touch with her father). In all honesty, that should have happened a couple of years ago. As for this observation of yours - "Brian sang both verses of California Girls on key in tune in perfectly accurately" - you must be watching a different video to me. First verse, yes, adequate if clipped... but he basically gave up halfway through the second.

So no, never planned or announced/advertised as the final show, but it almost certainly was. With all my heart, I hope so. It hurts to see Brian embarrassed like this: the man deserves so much better.

I came in from the other side! After five years of buying one or two "classical" LPs virtually every week, I switched to pop albums (via Ravi Shankar) with my head full of a hundred years of orchestral and choral music. So for me it was first Charles Ives and Aaron Copland and then SMiLE (and first Edgard Varèse and John Cage and then Frank Zappa).

But in 1967 I was completely in awe of Pet Sounds, my first pop album since Del Shannon's debut in '61. I knew many tracks from "pirate" radio but stuff like "Don't Talk" and "LGAFA" was not a million miles away from the classical things I knew and loved.

For me, Micky has kind of worn out his welcome. I saw the group in 1987 and 1997; Davy solo in 1996; Peter with Shoe Suede Blues in 2001; Micky solo in 2006 and 2007; and Mike solo in 2013. Michael and Peter were the most interesting to be as solo performers, because they weren't trying to do a Monkees show. I don't really care to see Micky singing Davy and Michael's songs. 

The Gershwin shows were pretty damn good too, but that fall 2009 tour was legendary: Brian was on fire.

You made the right decision. I saw two of the shows in 2016, and on one I was lucky enough to see the soundcheck. Brian was clearly in charge on that show, and clearly doing well -- he was a bit bored for part of the Pet Sounds set and speak-singing a bit, but it was a good show and had one moment that was very, very special for me. The other one I saw a few days later was less good, but still a perfectly fine show.
I saw him in 2017, and he was bored and not at his best apart from the three-song mini Wild Honey set, where he came alive. Al, Matt, and Blondie carried the rest of the show. I decided not to bother again unless he was going to do something very different, but it was just about adequate, and everyone has an off night.

But then in 2018 I got the opportunity to see him again for £2, on what turned out to be his second-to-last ever UK show. It was £2 because tickets became available through a seat-filler site because nobody was interested any more, but I thought it was probably worth £2 even though it was yet another Pet Sounds show.

Where previously I'd seen Brian play at the Royal Festival Hall, the Royal Albert Hall, the Bridgewater Hall, prestigious, classy, concert venues designed for classical music, this time he was playing "Digbeth Arena". This is called an arena but is actually a disused, graffitid, car park, with a couple of Portaloos and a "bar" consisting of a trestle table with someone pouring cans of lager into plastic cups. The "venue" could hold approximately a thousand people but it was maybe half full. It was grey, and rainy, and Brian clearly wanted to be anywhere else in the entire world, but despite the surroundings it could still have been a great gig if Brian hadn't been so clearly unwell and incapable of performing. He mumbled his way through about half the lyrics to the handful of songs he sang on at all, forgetting the other half and not even attempting to sing in tune, and spent the rest of the time staring into space dissociating. The rest of the band tried their best, but I honestly felt cruel and somewhat soiled by the experience, as if I was being nonconsensually drafted into participating in elder abuse. It was heartbreakingly sad.

(Note that I don't say it *was* elder abuse. I've spoken a lot with Brian's band members over the years, though not since then, and I firmly believe that they all have Brian's best interests at heart and wouldn't take part in something that they knew in advance would be upsetting for him. But it's very easy for something that starts out great to slowly turn into something with good days, bad days, and the occasional great day when you can convince yourself it's still like it was, and then for the great days to become infrequent, the good days less good, and the bad days worse, without you really realising if that's your day-to-day existence. But seeing the clear, marked deterioration over that two-year period made it very, very visible what was happening. In 2016 touring was still a net positive both for Brian and his reputation, even if the shows weren't quite as good as those from 2002 or 2004 or 2007. In 2018 he was a seriously ill man dissociating in a half-full car park in the rain while an audience of a couple of hundred people who hadn't even paid for their tickets cheered and pretended not to notice what was in front of their eyes.)

I've struggled to find any. I've been looking, as I'd love to relive the experience.

www.giginjapan.com/scan211/brian-wilson-california.htm

Best I could find this morning. My old (overseas) supplier and his website have bitten the dust, sadly.