LET BRIAN WILSON SMILE ON YOU AND WIND BACK WEDNESDAY
- Bernard Zuel
- 7 hours ago
- 3 min read
Last week’s death of Brian Wilson (and let’s not forget a few days earlier, the death of the equally consequential Sly Stone) brought forth many memories of his return to the stage and first visit to Australia after decades of internal and external turmoil. Those 2002 shows, featuring Pet Sounds in full, were ecstatic celebrations as Wind Back Wednesday has already revisited.
But in many ways as thrilling, especially for nerdy fans who had speculated, pontificated and cogitated on Smile, the Beach Boys album that could have been (and was only partially Smiley Smile), was the 2004 tour playing what Brian was calling Smile.
Playing with pretty much the same band of brilliant musicians and singers, those songs were now arranged for full performance, and played in the order designed for the newly released Brian Wilson album Smile.
Could it match 2002? Could it be better? Hell, could it even work? Read on.
______________________
BRIAN WILSON
Opera House, November 30, 2004
DO YOU REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME you listened properly to something being played in stereo?
Maybe it was a recording of Peter And The Wolf or a Beatles album. You were probably six or seven and plonked in front of your parent’s sound system, speakers on either side, and your head swivelled left and right, left and right, a puzzled look at first as you tried to make out what was coming, from where it was coming and how it fit together. Then the puzzlement was replaced by a beaming smile as you sat back and just took it all in, letting yourself be overwhelmed by the flooding in of sounds, ideas and the sensations they produced in you.
Taking in Brian Wilson’s “teenage symphony to God”, Smile, in concert is a lot like that.
There is a cascade of sounds, voices, noises and music coming at you and you can spend time scanning the stage trying to identify who and what could be doing all this and how they are pulling it together. The 19 musicians - an eight piece Swedish string-and-brass ensemble augmenting the 11-piece all-singing band, who themselves offer at least twice that many instruments - are one minute soaring with a sweet melody, the next banging tin sheets and bits of wood; one minute replicating a kindergarten child’s sense of wonder, the next interlocking parts so complex the brain can fry merely listening, let alone playing. And sometimes all those things are happening at once.
But trying to make complete sense of it is not necessary, nor advisable. (It’s clearer now than ever that if the Smile album had come out in 1967 as planned it would have been commercial suicide, for even today it’s not what most Beach Boys fans can get a grip on.) Best just to ride the cross-country journey conceived by Wilson and Van Dyke Parks, from Plymouth Rock to the lapping shores of Hawaii, from Our Prayer to Good Vibrations.
And along the way marvel at how astoundingly good this band is and how, to borrow a phrase from Dave Eggers, Smile is a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.
How did it compare with the memorable shows of two years ago? On performance, as good; on revelation, higher; on emotional kick, not quite in the same league. But then it would have been impossible to replicate 2002’s mood of celebration and adoration, even though the show began with a wonderful set-up of the band gathered around a handful of microphones, singing to only a few acoustic guitars and looking like some ideal family.
The pre-Smile set, was something of an indulgence for (a clearly more comfortable on stage) Wilson who alongside gems such as Surfer Girl and Sail On Sailor, threw in songs which while not being among his best known or even best were clearly ones which give him pleasure. And did us no harm at all.
Likewise, the closing set of straight out Beach Boys hits went down a treat not surprisingly, reminding us that whatever strains of melancholy and madness appear in Brian Wilson’s work, in everything from the surf songs to the winding, awe-inspiring Child Is Father Of The Man, there is a yearning for and wonder about life.
Like sitting in front of the stereo for the first time and falling in love with music.
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