The Next Big Thing

Brian Wilson in SF… the Don Daly Report!

“saw brian wilson at the symphony hall. wow!!!!! holy moley, was he GREAT!!! best thing since mccartney. easily THE show of the year. i mean i'd heard raves - and even heard the whole smile section from the show beforehand but i wasn't prepared for this. it was everything people said it was but ten times better.
it started out with him and a few people (the wondermints i guess) backing him up -- huddled together in front of the stage. a guy on bongos, couple of guys on acoustic guitars -- in other words it was like a little beach bongo party. also there was this super hot blonde gal who sang and played some percussion. brian wore a short sleeve green floral (almost hawaiian) short. he looked alright. not at all disturbing - let's put it that way. and they opened with "surfer girl". before long i started to get sweaty. this was gonna be heavy. they did some other old beach boys nuggets --unplugged -- including "wendy". that was killer. absolute perfect harmonies. brian sang lead all night with others doing his falsettoes. okay, after they already blew everyone's mind with that section, they took their places filling the stage -- drummer behind full drum kit -- percussionists, keyboards, bassist, 3 guitars. and they did "sloop john b". i lost it! my eyes filled up and i almost had to walk out for a second. and i wasn't alone. from here on almost every song received a standing ovation. "this is paul mccartney's favorite song ever" he proudly proclaimed before doing a killer version of "god only knows". they ran thru a bunch of classics -- "california girls", "please let me wonder", "our hearts were full of spring", lots more... everything! plus the title cut from his new album - which wasn't bad. then an intermission. people were already talking about how insanely great it was and we hadn't even heard "smile" yet. i mean everyone was just stunned. okay so he comes back and now he's got a 20 piece band - he's added strings and horns. and they do the entire "smile" album spectacular. completely absorbing. starts with the acapella "our prayer" and then a really powerful rendition of "heroes and villains". all of the reservations i had about seeing a mentally ill person onstage were totally unfounded. i mean he was totally together. he sat behind a keyboard and rarely played but i mean he was right there the whole time. went thru the whole smile piece and it's just astounding - i mean - really heavy.

the string section all wore fire hats during "mrs o'leary's cow" and they even had a fire hose -- they had this whole thing choreographed.
they went thru the whole thing -- "surf's up" - the whole fantastic -- well--- symphony. ending with "good vibrations". and then he went off to wild cheers and they came back shortly and all the musicians were introduced one by one and then came a whole nuther set of beach boys stuff starting with "do it again" and moving on to "fun fun fun" and "help me rhonda" and all that. it was like wash dc 4th of july! brian picked up the bass for "barbara ann" and then he saluted chuck berry and ended up with "surfin' usa". and this is the symphony hall! the aisles were full-- people clapping and dancing, including rodney bingenheimer (whom i shook hands with as he was leaving).
brian came back for one more encore... "okay, no more rock n' roll, gonna leave you with a nice quiet one". and he did "love and mercy" (much better than the record). good vibrations all around!” -- don

Then comes Part Two… Don had lost it to the extent that he hadn’t reported on the hardware… Goes something like this…

Don- Dead on awesome review! But no comments on all the different guitars?

The man, having gained his composure by this time duly did his duty…

“okay... you asked for it... that's funny -- right after i sent that out i realized i hadn't mentioned the guitars and then i wrote an addendum but only sent it to the guitar players. so now i'll bore everyone else and you can all blame andy.
ok... there were some pretty cool axes up there, mostly from the guy in the orange shirt with the cap. first the gibson j-200 during the bongo party. this was particularly great on "wendy" when he and the other guy traded off on those chords in the instr break. then that guy had the guitar i currently have the madness for: a white fender jazzmaster. in fact for the last month or so i've been trying to decipher prices on them at japanese websites. i saw one on ebay and very nearly put in a bid. just the other day i saw one on haight street but it was blue. it's gotta be beach boys white with red pickguard or not at all!!
okay, that guy also had a danelectro six string bass. that was the blue sparkly thing. i've already got one of those.(in case i'm ever called upon to play the solo to "wichita lineman").
the other guy on that side of the stage had some nice hollow bodies.
first he had an epiphone 12 string which he used on "california girls"
and "dance dance dance". this was kinda like carl's gibson 12. this guy also had a nice white gibson 335 which he flipped over at the end and it said "smile" on the back. this guy also had a ukelele for that hawaiin bit from "smile".
then there was that other guy -- he had a black telecaster and also a danelectro 12 string which he somehow managed to play slide on. he also played banjo on "cabinessence".
i think they all had blackface fender reissue combo amps -- looked like twin reverbs. bass guy had a 5 (or 6) string gold fender bass. brian had a white fender precision bass (his trademark) which he plucked with his thumb-- in his classic style.

i think that was about it. thanks for the reminder andy” - don

If Don says that was about it then verily that be it!