Christopher Rush

Continuing our haphazardly ramshackle survey of ’70s-era Beach Boys albums, we come to the only official live album of the decade from America’s band.  The album also brings to a close the short-lived Blondie Chaplin/Ricky Fataar era (though they have since reappeared sporadically with the Boys), a dynamic and energetic maturing phase in the life of the Beach Boys, as we have said earlier.  Unlike frequent contemporary versions of concert compact discs that pretend to be authentic recreations of actual live concerts in their entirety (which is usually a hollow deception, either as a smash-up of multiple-evening recordings and/or excluding various tracks for either copyright purposes or future box-set money-grabbing “bonus track” release purposes … or worse), this album does not pretend to be a faithful recreation of a particular evening of the tour.  Instead, it unashamedly presents a fabricated selection of songs and performances garnered from a few evenings in a producer-decided album order.  Despite its artificiality, which is said scientifically and not critically, the album creates a very enjoyable tour through some of the then-contemporary sounds of the Boys and their early work done both authentically (as authentically as possible without Brian and the studio) and freshly reworked for a new time, style, and lineup.  Though the title and cover are terribly unappealing, the concert itself is a very enjoyable album.

The first three songs are a very interesting combination: two positive (at times languid) sailing songs (“Sail On, Sailor” and “The Trader”) from Holland surround the less-enthusiastic-about-sailing song “Sloop John B” from Pet Sounds.  This bizarre collocation of eras and attitudes somehow works very well, in part because of the enthusiasm evident throughout the live performances.  Another Pet Sounds tune, “You Still Believe in Me,” follows, perhaps an unknown track to those of us only familiar with the “greatest hits” of the Beach Boys.  Perhaps someday I will attempt to analyze Pet Sounds, but I know I am not capable of doing it justice, so don’t hold your breath for that one.  “You Still Believe in Me” should convince you to listen to it on your own anyway.  Following this is perhaps one of the Boys’ most known songs, “California Girls.”  This version is a fine example  of the freedom the Boys must have felt at this stage (whether away from some of the managerial constraints of the ’60s or what, I certainly have no authority to say): it is not a “faithful” rendition, as live versions rarely are, but it is close and lively and feels like a classic, even though at the time it was but six or seven years old (a long time in the life of the Beach Boys … perhaps even more bizarre when one considers The Beatles only released albums together for about seven years).

“Darlin’” from Wild Honey is next, a very up-tempo song for a band that doesn’t, when one looks attentively at their oeuvre, have a whole lot of what one could call “fast” songs.  The only So Tough song on the tour album is next, “Marcella,” but that’s not terribly surprising since it’s one of the few songs from that album that likely could be done well live on stage.  Though, some rumored version of the concert album yet unreleased (as far as I know, and remember I’m no Beach Boys expert) contains a few more So Tough songs … I would be very keen on getting a copy of that to hear more So Tough songs done live.

Another Pet Sounds favorite, “Caroline, No,” follows, as the manufactured album slows down a bit.  In tempo, yes, but not in beauty.  “Caroline, No” deserves its accolades.  It’s not just famous “because it’s on Pet Sounds.”  It helped make Pet Sounds Pet Sounds (if you can emphasize/pronounce that correctly in your head).  A couple of fine Holland tunes, the beautiful “Leaving This Town” and groovy “Funky Pretty,” sandwich the opening track of Smiley Smile, “Heroes and Villains.”  This version of “Heroes and Villains” (perhaps one of the most reworked, revised, reconstructed songs in the Beach Boys canon) is a prime example of the vibrancy of the time: you can tell the Boys had a lot of fun with this song on stage.  Their version of “Funky Pretty” does not quite match the enthusiasm of “Heroes and Villains,” but it become a good transition into “Let the Wind Blow,” another from Wild Honey.  Now, I’m a big fan of Wild Honey, but if I could only choose two songs from it of which I’d like to hear live renditions, I would not have picked “Let the Wind Blow.”  I would possibly have chosen “Darlin’,” but I’d probably prefer one of the more up-tempo songs such as “I Was Made to Love Her,” “Here Comes the Night,” or “How She Boogalooed It,” but that’s just me.  It’s a lovely song anyway.

Three classic Beach Boys numbers follow in very recognizable forms: “Help Me, Rhonda,” “Surfer Girl,” and “Wouldn’t It Be Nice.”  According to Mike Love in the liner notes in the album, one of the goals of the selection process for this album was to survey the dynamic history of the Beach Boys, and this panoply of even by then recognized standards surely succeeds.  Perhaps the real gem of the album follows this trilogy: the only authentic release of the Holland outtake, “We Got Love.”  Maybe it’s the enthusiasm of the live performance, but the vigor and vitality of this song (both in its quintessential Beach Boy Romanticist lyrics and Fataar-Chaplin-era musical groove) make us scratch our heads in wonder: why was this song deemed unworthy of inclusion on Holland?  Yes, Holland is one of the longest Beach Boys albums, but surely they could have squeezed five more minutes onto it? (proving to you how little I know about vinyl album manufacturing in the 1970s).

The final four songs on the album are certainly among the gold standard for Beach Boys tunes and a great way to end a concert: “Don’t Worry Baby,” about as beautiful as the Beach Boys get (which is saying quite a lot), though this live version has perhaps a bit of a harder edge than we are used to from the quietude of the studio version; “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” undoubtedly an unmistakable Beach Boys standard; “Good Vibrations,” a “mature Beach Boys” classic number (considered by many to be their most important number, and I’m not one to disagree), here it is done quite differently for the live performance than the technically-refined studio version (out of sheer necessity, I’m sure, even if Brian were with them) — this live version again exudes the atmosphere of performing joy the Boys were having.  The album ends with “Fun, Fun, Fun,” a classic, rollicking, enthusiastic way to round out the show.

Taken all in all, this album is a great compilation of their heritage with which they were coming to terms (in a world that had rapidly abandoned “the ’60s”) and maturing artistic freedom they were clearly enjoying in the early 1970s.  The only real downside to this live collection (aside from the cover and nondescript title) is it is not longer than it is.  I suspect the concerts of the era lasted even longer than the 78-some minutes presented here, and the only thing that could be better than this 20-track delight would be a 26+-track version.  But that’s just me being selfish, as usual.  If you are a casual Beach Boys fan, this is a great album to add to your collection and perhaps spur you on to enjoy the artistic direction the Boys had taken in the early years of the ’70s.  It is a fun, fine memorial to the end of the 2^nd Age of the Beach Boys.