This place is in the middle of nowhere. I was convinced that I had the directions wrong at every turn. There weren’t any other cars going the way I was going and I was just passing houses as I wound up the road into the hills. Then, I saw the sign…
Last Wednesday, in between hosting the Morning Benders and Beatbeat Whisper, I noticed that there was still a staff ticket to Brian Wilson at the Mountain Winery. Yeah, there are perks to being famous. Yeah, last Wednesday was a pretty good day…
the view from my crappy phone camera; that’s Brian a little right and down from the percussionist
I finally saw some other cars as I pulled into the parking lot. Comp tickets are always a bit hit or miss, but after I got my ticket and walked down, I realized two things: a) whereas I was expecting a Shoreline-size (22000 seat) venue, it was much smaller, even much smaller than the Greek Theatre (by my count. b) My comp ticket was in the “premium” floor area. Boom! Winner!
The concert area is built next to a hill side, not really into a hillside like a greek-style theater. That is the performers face parallel to the ridge of the hill and all the spectators on the hill, sitting on built-in wooden benches, face his left side. There is then a floor area and a small set of bleacher on stage right. I ended up being in row N, about 60 feet from Brian, not much further than I am from the stage on a typical night at the Fillmore.
Anyway, I made my way to my seat during his second song; it was not a hit and now that I think about it, I think it was a cover. Brian was seated at, but not playing, a keyboard. His arms were at his sides. The 64 year old looked a bit haggard, with a glazed look in his eyes and his grey hair splaying every which way. He was wearing a non-descript white long-sleeved shirt and a blue and red-striped nylon track jacket. They launched into one of their better known songs and that’s when I noticed something: he was staring into a screen mounted above and to the right of his keyboard. He had a teleprompter. He continued to stare at this for most of most songs. “God Only Knows”? Yup, used a teleprompter. “Wouldn’t it Be Nice”? Teleprompter. “I Get Around”, “California Girls”, “Surfer Girl”? Teleprompter. I enjoyed the idea of Brian Wilson watching a bouncing ball bounce across the words on the screen. He was doing karaoke to his own songs.
After about 45 minutes of music there was some craziness. As they were finishing “Sloop John B” Brian got off of his stool and went down onto his stomach. I thought he might just be acting strange (it’s not like he doesn’t have a history of that), but his band mates seemed genuinely concerned when he stood back up. Brian got on the mic and said that he’d been having fainting spells and might not be able to finish the concert.
Cleveland Simmons Group - Histe Up the John B.’s Sails (Sloop John B.) (mp3) (buy)
(I just like to remind everyone that Sloop John B is actually a traditional tune from Bahamas/ West Indies.)
For about 15 minutes it looked like the show might end there and some people started leaving, but eventually the band and Brian came back on stage and immediately launched into “God Only Knows” and “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” but not before everyone overheard Al Jardine (guitar, vocals) tell Brian “Let’s do a good show, Brian.”
I wanted to elaborate a bit further on Brian’s role in the concert. He had a keyboard in front of him but didn’t play it, save the intro of one song. He sang some lead vocals but left plenty of them to Al and left all of the falsetto leads/ harmonies to one of his band members. During the encore, someone put a bass on him and he appeared to be playing it, but the more animated bass lines were obviously coming from the regular bass player. He started the show hardly saying anything but became more engaged and engaging as the show went on, even playing to the crowd later in the show.
His band and their sound were pretty good. The band was pretty tight and the vocal blend was pretty solid, though not much will top the Beach Boys recordings. The bass end vocals seemed a little too percussive, like they were honked. The musicians, in the basic set up were: 2 keyboardists, 4 guitarists (including Jardine), two percussionists, bass player, misc woodwinds, backup singer and Brian. One of the guitarists also played trumpet and french horn (and “theremin”, they called it, though he definitely touched it, so I think it was probably a portamento strip on a synth). It’s cool that they cover important parts in the songs when they come up, but let’s be honest, a guy playing one french horn line a day isn’t going to beat someone like Alan Robinson who played all day every day for a living.
In fact, musically, it was good. It was fun, but it wasn’t the records. Pet Sounds is so meticulously perfect—it’s as simple as that—no live performance is going to beat that one pure musical basis.
For the encore, everyone was standing: “Johnny B. Goode”, “Fun Fun Fun”, “Barbara Ann” (and one other, I think). There was a second encore which was “Love and Mercy”.
With Brian Wilson and Al Jardine (and Billy Hinsche but he hardly counts) are there, it makes me wonder: why is Mike Love’s group still going by the “Beach Boys” when this group has more original members? I know it’s legal reasons, but the law is dumb.
The crowd there was mostly older people, but there were a few younger people sprinkled in there, the ones that are hip to the old stuff and the ones either dragged there by their parents or the one whose only common ground is the Beach Boys.
A funny conversation during the fainting break:
Daughter: “His voice is really good.”
Mom: “Do you recognize the music?”
Daughter: “Yeah”
Dad: “Isn’t this great??”
(I’m really amused by the idea that anyone could possibly not recognize at least a handful of Beach Boys tunes.)
(And before we move on I wanted to at least mention the two guys front-left who were giving standing ovations after each and every song at least for the first hour of the show.)
The crowd got me thinking about what coolfer pointed out a while ago: only 2% of Americans go to 3 or more shows a year. I was seeing the 98% there tonight. They were out in full force. It seems ridiculous to me to pay $50 or $150 for a ticket to an event (let alone if you are bringing a spouse or the whole family), but I guess if this is your show, or one of two for the year, shelling out multiple hundreds of dollars isn’t all that bad. And instead of standing in a crowded, hot room uncomfortably close to tons of sweaty hipsters watching a band that a few hundred or thousand people in the world know while your back is hurting and your knees aching and hoping you’re going to see something amazing, you get to sit fairly comfortably in a fresh-air venue at a reasonable distance from reasonably smelling, reasonably dressed rich people, seeing one of the best-known songwriters in the world, knowing you’re probably going to see a good (but not amazing) concert. There are trade-offs there, definitely.
The run-down-summary:
Show: good; that is, fun.
Music: fine, doesn’t beat the records
Venue: surprisingly good and intimate. Good place to see the Brian Wilsons of the world
Crowd: odd, interesting.
Posted in SF bay area, industry, old-time by adrian at 12:31 pm
