Concert Review : Brian's Back!

It was little sort of astonishing to long-time followers of Brian Wilson when he started to tour again in the late 1990's. His retreat from the road in the 1960's as leader of The Beach Boys was a major part of his legend. As was the virtually abusive treatment by those close to him who frankly should have put their concerns for their wallets on the back burner rather than all but force a reluctant Brian back to the helm of the Beach Boys in the mid-1970's.

His return didn't appear to be lacking ambition - it was not long before he was touring concerts halls with an orchestra and performing Pet Sounds in all its' glory. Even then, the idea of him venturing outside of the USA seemed a little remote.

Times have indeed changed, and last night I saw Brian perform for what must be about the fifteenth time I have seen him lead his truly excellent band through their paces. That's encompassed seeing the aforementioned performance of Pet Sounds (albeit without the orchestra), watching him debut SMiLE after so many years and, most astonishingly, present a new album in the form of a concept album on Southern California which not only recalls some of his previous acheivements but manages to stand more than proudly beside them in the Wilson canon. Besides them a number of shows that merely claim to present his greatest hits seem almost routine.

His troubles with mental illness over the years are as well documented as his music. Indeed, it's unusual to see too many articles on the man that don't mention both. Over the years, Brian has given the impression of being an awkward performer leading some to speculate wildly that he's being badly advised in some way in performing as he has been doing. However, on the contrary, what I've seen over the last decade seems to be almost Brian taking steps in his own reconstruction by facing his musical past head-on and then moving beyond that to create new music of equal value to his consderable legacy. The change in the man has been palpable, but even now he does still come across as the adult child of yore, still full of enthusiasm about music and the impact it has on him. All the while as we marvel at the impact that his music has on us.

All of which acts as a long introduction to the fact that Brian presented himself to a loving audience at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow last night. After the artistic peak of the Lucky Old Sun tour (where I caught three shows one of which - in Edinburgh - was one of the best shows I've seen Brian give; by definition, that means it was the best concert I've ever attended) the idea of a greatest hits tour as this was advertised almost seemed like a let down but given that Brian is largely playing festivals whilst fitting some more regular concerts in between, we should consider ourselves lucky that he chose to bless Glasgow with his presence.

Starting off with California Girls, after an introductory blast of Lucky Old Sun, two things quickly became apparent. The band sounded as awe-inspiring as ever and when the first blast of harmonies from the chorus hit the soul soured with sheer joy. But Brian was very low in the mix and his vocals were difficult to make out.

This continued throughout the first half despite some shouts from the audience to turn Brian up. However, what was also noticable was how tired Brian was and, presumably as a consequence, he seemed more prone to switching off when he wasn't singing. It seemed like he was struggling to get himself "up" for some of the songs.

I had come to the conclusion that one of the issues with the volume of the vocals was that the mike was slightly too high for Brian's singing position. I did realise later that the mike was perfectly positioned - when Brian did, as he usually does, sit up his mouth was at the right position. However, he was slouching back in his seat for much of the time and this was at least a contributory factor. I have seen it recorded that an enquiry was made with the sound engineer at the interval and they were informed that he'd been asked to keep Brian down in the mix.

All in all, there were points in the evening where Brian simply looked uncomfortable. His long term friend and colleaue Jeff Foskett was more than usually attentive to Brian during the show. (During the past decade, a sign of Brian's increasing confidence has been his decreasing need to rely on Jeff's musical and physical presence, with the exception of those falsetto vocals that Brian can no longer reach).

All in all, this was the most inattentive I've seen Brian. I'm not going to speculate on the cause of this, but he did look very tired and prone to more errors than we've been used to - indeed, he had to stop Please Let Me Wonder and restart the band on the second verse. He also introduced a song out of its' planned sequence at the start of the second half.

Now did this ruin my enjoyment of the concert. To be honest, not too much. Given Brian's life and the sheer wonder of seeing him perform at 67 years of age I'm prepared to forgive him what was an off night for him.

In any event, his band quite noticably upped their game for the evening as did the audience who were noisy and exuberant. By the second half, Brian was responding positively and his own performance level was raised by a good few notches. The performance of Midnight's Another Day (from the Lucky Old Sun album) was a spine chilling moment with Brian's vocals pitched to perfection and aiming the song straight for the heart.

If I had any complaints about the song selection then it would be that there were too many of the early songs - Custom Machine, 409, Shut Down - when I'd have preferred some of the later Wilson classics. As ever with Wilson's immense back catalogue, that is simply churlish on my part.

Tonight, Brian and the band are performing in Liverpool. I rather suspect the current schedule might be a bit much for Brian and a schedule with at least a day between gigs might be more appropriate. He is, after all, 67 years of age and still has to fight a natural shyness and awkwardness that he's always exhibited on stage.

There's nothing left to prove for Brian Wilson. I know with a sense of certainty that when my son is regaling his grandchildren of the concerts he's seen that the fact that he's seen Brian Wilson many times (and at my expense!!) will mean something significant.

What I Surrounded Myself With On Holiday

I'm just back from a relaxing week in Ireland - to be more precise in Cushendall on the Antrim Coast. As much of a family visit (my wife's mother and brother live over there) as a holiday we had rented a rather lovely holiday flat for the week as the picure below shows. The weather was a little iffy but this did not cause too much concern on my part, not least as in my advancing years my need for activity on holiday diminishes and the availability of books to read and a ready supply of liquid sustenance (and that's usually coffee!) is good enough for me.


There was one considerable additional attraction to our home for the week and that was the presence of a 5.1 Surround Sound system. Much as I love movies I've not yet indulged in a home surround system and have been a little sceptical of the benefits of this to music. For the latter, I remain wedded to the view that I'm (at least in theory) listening to a performance by a band where I'm in the audience and they are on stage in front of me, and not surrounding me. In other words, my preference seems to sound very much like stereo

Conclusions? Mixed, I think.

The live concert DVD's I took along with me (all Bruce Springsteen as it happens) did not much more than to give an expanded version of the Stereo soundstage. The back channels were not much more than the sound of the audience and it did give some impression of sitting in a concert hall right down to, rather bizarrely in my opinion, the echo of the drums coming off the back wall! As such, much of the music was drenched in a greater amount of echo than is the case for the stereo mix.

I also took Brian Wilson's DVD's of SMiLE and That Lucky Old Sun. Although live performances (and I remain of the view that there has been an element of post-performace sweetening) these were set out with a view to recording and so are not the same as a live concert as such. My first disappointment was in being reminded that my version of SMiLE was a Region 1 disc so it would not play. That Lucky Old Sun was able to play and was thoroughly enjoyable but I'm not sure how much of a benefit there was to my ears - it certainly put you in the middle of the stage but that does seem a false place to be when listening to music.

I had also taken the 40th anniversary DVD of Pet Sounds and this was most interesting as the 5.1 mix allowed a better seperation of the instruments from the voices. If anything would encourage me to invest in surround sound this would have been the best advocate amongst the things I took along.

I did have another disappointment when listening to the DVD of the The Beatles' Love album - this plays as a continuous edit but there were gaps between the tracks which broke the magic of this album and I must confess that I didn't listen to it fully.

At this point in time, I think home surround sound is grand for movies (and probably those of a particular kind with lots of effects) but I think the jury remains out for music.

Brian Wilson

It's been one of the great pleasures (and without the slighted pang of guilt) to have enjoyed the musical renaissance of Brian Wilson over the last decade. At the outset of this period I wouldn't have bet a single penny on my chances of seeing him perform far less that I would by now have seen him so often (now into double figures) and that they would be without exception the greatest concerts I have seen. Everyone else simply trails in his wake.

During that period I've seen him perform Pet Sounds in its' entirety, start to perform songs that you might have thought he would have been reluctant to revisit culminating in the performance of a completed version of SMiLE.

That would seem to be enough for any artist to allow themselves a gentle rest on their laurels, and it appeared that Brian might have been doing that when more straightforward hits-based shows followed the completion of the SMiLE tours. (And I am aware that to describe some of Brian's songs as "straightforward" is a considerable abuse of the English language).

However, Brian has certainly astonished me with the recent performances of his latest work "That Lucky Old Sun - A Narrative". I had the pleasure of seeing him perform this in London at the Royal Festival Hall on Saturday 15 September and again in Edinburgh the following Saturday at the Festival Theatre. Bolstered also by becoming more familiar with the piece as a result of some audience recordings I think it's fair to say that this work is the real deal and is going to be heralded alongside some of the peaks that Brian enjoyed in the 1960's.

Whilst his solo albums have been enjoyable, they have never been sufficiently consistent. For every moment of inspiration there's been too many moments of perspiration or just incomplete ideas. That Brian was able to record and release new material was a joy in itself but I held out little hope that we could ever see an album of new material that would match his best work.

However, That Lucky Old Sun will do just that if, as is to be hoped, Brian takes his excellent band and the Stockholm Strings & Horns into the studio to record it. At thirty five minutes it may be too short for an album in these modern times, but I do think it deserves to stand alone without other songs to distract attention from what is undoubtedly a major piece of work.

Surf's Up!!