Pros: Strong vocals, outstanding song variation, excellent instrumentation, live songs you won’t hear elsewhere.
Cons: Brian’s voice falters a few times, “Pet Sounds” isn’t performed in its entirety here.
The Bottom Line: How does a 58-year-year-old man with a history of mental illness and drug abuse produce something like this? A strong backing band, maybe? Who cares? This is outstanding.
sandford's Full Review: Live at the Roxy Theatre by Brian Wilson (Pop)
“There he is!” an audience member jubilantly shouts amid whoops and cheers as Brian Wilson takes the stage.
Then a tape rolls of a 22- or 23-year-old Brian instructing session musicians way back in the early 1960s on how to play “The Little Girl I Once Knew” properly – and Brian’s definitely of “properly” was every note properly tuned and perfect.
“Hey, listen, is everybody playing or what?” the early-20s Brian asks. “OK, come in on that B, Al, real hard. Play that intro soft, horns, OK?”
Live saxophone blasts interrupt this discourse, and Brian’s live band attacks the aforementioned tune. “The Little Girl I Once Knew” received almost no radio play when it was released because it includes a full three seconds of silence between the soaring melody and powerful chorus. In the early 1960s, “dead air” on the radio was unheard of. I guess Brian just wasn’t made for those times, because it sounds outstanding now.
This upbeat, triumphant rocker kicks off this double-CD set perfectly, and is a treat because The Beach Boys never performed it. Lead singer Mike Love didn’t like the “dead air,” and the song never appeared on a Beach Boys album. Brian began performing regularly again in 1999 after taking the stage only sporadically since 1964, and this song is just one of many you wouldn’t have heard at any Beach Boys show over the past 15 years – especially now that only Mike “Play the Hits” Love and Bruce “Do Whatever Mike Does” Johnston are the group’s only holdovers.
“This Whole World” is another such song. Although Brian no longer has the vocal range to perform this key-change-crazy masterpiece from “Sunflower,” the bridge – the real hook of the original version – still sounds great here. The bridge’s bells aren’t as audible, but a wildly picked guitar provides an entertaining background.
The band segues directly from “This Whole World” into “Don’t Worry Baby” from “Shut Down Vol. 2,” not stopping to take a breath. Brian sings the song an octave lower than he did in the early 60s. This version is solid but unspectacular – and fairly close to the original except for the lower voice – and Brian says “thank you” to the audience three or four times during vocal breaks.
“OK, we’re not rockin’ yet – obviously we’re not rockin’ and rollin’ yet but we will be in a while, so let’s do a song called ‘Kiss Me Baby’,” Brian tells the audience. “It’s kind of a sweet little song.”
“Kiss Me Baby” a “sweet little song”? Yeah, and “Battlefield Earth” was a “below-average movie.” Please. Brian sings the verses here – Mike’s old job – and other members handle the higher-vocal-range parts and choruses. This version is remarkably faithful to this masterpiece from “The Beach Boys Today!” album, complete with the “Kiss a little bit, fight a little bit” low-level backing beneath the “Kiss me baby, love to hold you, kiss me baby, love to hold you” chorus. Guitarist Jeffrey Foskett shines in this song, singing the “Told my folks I … would be all right” parts. This guy proves throughout both these discs and the Brian concert I saw in October 2000 that he’s the second-most-important person onstage at just about all times.
“How … how would you all like to hear a really groovy rock and roll song?” Brian asks. The band tears into the hit “Do it Again” from “20/20,” and it’s funny to hear Brian sing the “It’s automatic when I talk with old friends” part traditionally handled by Mike. The guitar solo during the bridge actually is more satisfying and inventive than the original’s. Considering all of the lawsuits The Beach Boys have filed against one another over the past dozen years – Mike’s suit against Brian over songwriting royalties in the mid-90s was the most publicized – it’s hilarious to hear Brian and other band members clearly sing “Let’s get back together and sue it again!” in the last verse. They sing this very clearly; this is no “Excuse me while I kiss this guy” debatable kind of thing. Quite amusing!
Brian introduces “California Girls” as The Beach Boys’ “main anthem song,” then again handles Mike’s traditional vocal parts. It’s fairly faithful to the original version, but the four bars of a cappella treatment given to the “I wish they all could be California” over a backing of “girls, girls, girls” near the end is a big treat.
“All right!” Brian enthuses before launching into an embarrassing cigarette lighter joke that he performs at almost every concert. The punch line is that “There’s no smoking in here,” although he doesn’t make it to the punch line before giving up on the joke in this show.
The band launches into “I Get Around,” Brian once again singing Mike’s part. Beach Boys fans often aren’t big fans of Mike Love for various reasons, but at this point in the CD, I have to admit to wanting to hear his nasally voice handling a few of the songs, especially this one. His vocals are perfect for “I Get Around,” and unlike Brian’s voice, Mike’s has changed little since the 1960s. But now I’m treading dangerously close to pining for a Beach Boys reunion, and I don’t want to approach those shark-infested waters here. I guess this not-hearing-Mike thing is similar to when I attended a Roger Waters concert, and it was really strange not to hear Dave Gilmour sing the chorus in “Comfortably Numb.”
Brian calls for some bass, then some drums, then asks, “Is that a good beat?” The song he proceeds to perform is among the biggest surprises on this CD: “Back Home,” a long-forgotten track from “15 Big Ones.” It’s a great song – I believe it was written during The Beach Boys’ ultra-creative and ultra-productive songwriting sessions in 1969 and early 1970, though it was unreleased for six years – and it’s yet another example of Brian’s capability of writing any kind of music he chooses. This song is blues with a great backbeat and vocals bespeaking a desire to spend summer “back home in Ohio,” getting up before the rooster and eating “everything Mom puts on the table.” Given Brian’s nearly 300-pound girth when this song was released, perhaps he should have considered altering that lyric back then.
Brian announces that the band is going to unplug to do some pretty songs, but promises that “maybe later on we can rock out or something.” Throughout these CDs, he seems conscious of boring the audience with slower songs, a fact that becomes even more evident as he begins to perform “Caroline, No” on Disc Two.
“In My Room” is every bit as beautiful as the original, thanks largely to the outstanding backing band Brian has assembled. The minimal guitar in the background gives this almost a cappella treatment, and man, does it sound great! The audience confirms this with one of its more enthusiastic applause explosions of the night.
The harmony vocals are particularly stunning on “Surfer Girl.” Brian is singing one of the lower parts, but it’s difficult to tell where because of the wall of voices floating from the stage (or the speakers, in this case). The song ends with a beautiful, a cappella “whooo, whooo, whooo.”
The band begins “The First Time,” a song Brian wrote in the early 1980s but hasn’t recorded. The presence of a “new” song might scare people who buy this CD to hear some obscure oldies in all their glory, but this song is satisfying if unspectacular. The lyrics are quite weak – they actually sound like something sinister psycho therapist (I mean “psycho” to be descriptive, which is why it’s two words here) Eugene Landy might have come up with.
“This Isn’t Love,” another new song, is quite satisfying. Note, though, that in the Brian Wilson dictionary of 2001, “new song” means “something written, but not recorded, in the past 15 years.” The verses are beautiful and the piano introduction is promising, but the chorus disappoints. It’s unfortunate that this song was wasted on the soundtrack for the awful “Flintstones Movie” sequel (and sung by someone else), but at least we hear Brian’s vocal version here.
“This next song has the most incredible lyrics I’ve ever, ever written. They’re the most fantastic lyrics in the world,” Brian says of “Add Some Music to Your Day.” I prefer Brian’s more clever lyrics in “Time to Get Alone” from the “20/20” album – oh, if only they’d included that incredible song here! – but these words speak of the wonders and powers of music, powers that Brian has been blessed with like few others in the 20th and 21st centuries. These lyrics include lines such as “Music, when you’re alone, is like a companion for your lonely soul.” Fair enough; it’s no worse than Mike writing “I’m a real cool head; I’m makin’ real good bread.”
This version is decent, but I do miss the vocal interplay between original band members that made the “Sunflower” version so charming.
“This is the last song before we get to rock a little bit. It’s a very beautiful song,” Brian says of “Please Let Me Wonder.”
Indeed, the song from “The Beach Boys Today!” is one of the best of the pre-Pet Sounds era. The verses are average, but the chorus, featuring back-and-forth interplay between the band’s harmony vocals and Brian’s elevates this song into “early classic” status.
So ends Disc One. Brian promises not long before it ends that the band is going to “rock out” after “Please Let Me Wonder,” when the band returns from intermission.
Well, that doesn’t really happen, but what does on Track 3 is astounding. First, Foskett introduces the band, which includes all four members of Los Angeles band The Wondermints. Then the band begins a short, close-to-a cappella snippet of the Barenaked Ladies’ “Brian Wilson,” the chorus of which is “Lyin’ in bed, like Brian Wilson did.” The fact that Brian can sing this after he did just that for many years in the 1970s, taking drugs and burning himself out, shows how far he’s come in recent years.
Then things slow way down for one of these discs’ biggest treats. As the warm-up music plays, Brian remarks, “It could almost put you to sleep! Please, don’t fall asleep!”
Then, the magic: “I’m a cork on the ocean, floating over the raging sea …”
“Till I Die”? In concert? I have goosebumps as I type this and listen to this stunning rendition of one of the most personal, telling and gorgeous songs Brian ever wrote. The bells in the background come through more clearly here than they do on the “Surf’s Up” version of this song. The ending: “These things I’ll be until I die” repeated several times, must require lots of guts for Brian to sing more than 30 years after he wrote the song. At age 58, he knows now whether his prediction of years of frustration and feeling alienated has come true. Sadly, for the most part, it has.
It never stopped fans from adoring him, though. As soon as the song ends, a female audience member shouts, “We love you Brian!” When Brian says “thank you,” a male audience member yells “no, thank you!”
The band rips into “Darlin’,” an underrated rocker from the “Wild Honey” album. Brian handles the straining vocals well. This song was meant to be performed live; the album version doesn’t have the energy this has.
The band then plays two “Pet Sounds” instrumentals, “Let’s Go Away for Awhile” and “Pet Sounds.” These renditions are so dead-on that they don’t bear need for description; they sound almost exactly like the 1966 versions.
Brian explains that no pop song had ever included “God” in the title until Brian put the song to follow on “Pet Sounds.” Brian handles “God Only Knows” quite well, and once again, the production is remarkably similar to that of the original, right down to the sleighbells, staccato percussion and flutes kicking in toward the end of the second verse.
Brian dedicates the next song to his brother Carl Wilson, who died of cancer in 1998, and everybody else in the audience who’s had a death in his or her family.
“Lay Down Burden” is by far the best song from Brian’s 1998 album “Imagination,” and hearing it live adds some feeling to an already emotionally charged song. Brian and Carl became distant in the later years of Brian’s life for reasons such as Brian’s virtual imprisonment by the aforementioned Landy.
Brian asks the audience what their favorite songs are, and when someone answers “Brown-Eyed Girl,” a surprised-sounding Brian exclaims, “well I’ll be Goddamned!” This is much funnier on the CD than it is in my mention of it.
Brian then explains that “Be my Baby” by “the fabulous Phil Spector” is his favorite song, and launches into a fairly disappointing version of the song. This song is suited to Ronnie Spector’s vocals, but definitely not the 58-year-old Brian Wilson’s. This is one of these CDs’ few disappointments. But hell, if Brian wants to perform his favorite song, I’m happy to have a CD that includes it. If I become a famous musician someday and am pushing 60, I’ll perform Brian’s “All I Wanna Do” from “Sunflower,” announce it as my favorite song of all time and care little about whether it’s also the audience’s favorite song.
“Good Vibrations” is entertaining as always, but this song is the opposite of the many tunes I’ve mentioned that pick up energy when performed live: this is better suited for the studio. Too many subtleties are buried here, and again, I do miss Mike’s “I’m pickin’ up good vibrations” chorus and Carl’s lead vocals. Brian does reasonably well with this piece, though.
Brian laughs out loud during the introduction to “Caroline, No,” the first encore. Someone in the audience must have pumped his or her fist or something, because Brian says, “Are you makin’ fun of us? Don’t you think this rocks?” Brian obviously is amused, and perhaps the incident relaxed him a bit, for his vocals are surprisingly solid considering that he has sung more than 20 songs at this point. He hits several high notes, but the shocker is “Oh Caroline no!” at 3:40 or so, where he reaches a few notes he probably couldn’t have hit 10 years ago. The audience applauds this and he thanks them. A nice flute song ends the song, and Brian yells “You’re welcome! You’re welcome!”
“All Summer Long” from the album of the same name is another big surprise and treat. You’re not going to hear the Mike and Bruce Show perform this tune – unless you offer Mike a couple of thousand dollars or something. This swinging tune showcases Brian’s songwriting just as it really was beginning to blossom, and is one of the first truly outstanding songs he wrote. The harmony verses are impressive.
Brian ends the concert traditionally with a “special little tune, just for you” called “Love and Mercy,” the single from his self-titled solo album. This version is so much better than the album version because it lacks the overproduction of the original. It’s just Brian singing, harmony vocals and a piano. That simple, and so beautiful. This charming song that wishes the listener love and mercy is the perfect way to end a concert.
The most remarkable thing about these CDs is hearing songs such as “The Little Girl I Once Knew,” “Till I Die,” “All Summer Long,” “Let’s Go Away for Awhile,” “Pet Sounds” and “Back Home,” all tunes the traveling Beach Boys never touched. Brian’s voice sounds surprisingly strong, too; remember that this guy put himself through many years of abuse, and the fact that he’s the last survivor of the three Wilson brothers is incredible. And the mere fact that he had the courage to stage a big 2000 tour is a big change from the Brian of 25 years ago, who was pushed out onto the stage by the other Beach Boys and looked extremely uncomfortable there.
Two downers are that a.) Brian performed the entire “Pet Sounds” album during most of his 2000 shows, and he didn’t here, and b.) he recently has been burying his long-held fears about the “Smile” album, performing “Prayer,” “Heroes and Villains” and “Surf’s Up.” It would be a huge treat to hear those here. In all fairness, the absence of some “Pet Sounds” material did allow for the inclusion of other songs he had to skip during other shows in 2000, such as “Back Home.”
I bought this double CD at the Brian Wilson show I saw in October 2000 in Clearwater, Fla. At the time, it was available only through Brian’s Web site, www.brianwilson.com, and at concerts. It since has been released through stores with three bonus tracks: Sloop John B, Barbara Ann and an interview with Brian. I can’t review these three tracks because I haven’t heard them, but they would have to be truly awful to take anything away from this remarkably strong double album.
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