Brian Wilson – RFH 26th February 2004

The band was eleven strong and that was augmented by a 7 piece string & horn section (The Stockholm Strings!). The start was a bit twee & contrived with all of the eleven on one side of the stage surrounding The Great Man doing a sort of Hi Brian, how about we sing a few songs? What should we do first? Hey I know, a big hit that all the audience will applaud & we pretend it’s off the cuff!

We were also subjected to ‘We were just talking backstage and decided this was going to be our best ever gig!’ A touch patronising but their heart was in the right place. It was virtually unaccompanied with just a couple of acoustic guitars & some bongos squeezed in there somehow as they huddled round a couple of mikes. But after Surfer Girl & In My Room you forgot about the setting. After a few more numbers in a similar vein the band spread out and we got into the first half proper.

There was no support and the whole thing started off just a bit after 7.30. Once into the full electric bit the first half was just full of good stuff. The band consisted of 2 guys on keyboards, one of whom did a lot of instrument swapping, 2 guitarists (one looked like a 60’s beatnik & was from Liverpool apparently and the other also played French horn & theremin), an old looking bloke on bass, a pretty blonde woman as eye candy on backup vocals, drummer, percussionist, multi instrumentalist on flute, saxes, clarinet, harmonica who led the strings & horn, a balding fat poof (I searched for a better description, really) who did the high vocals, back up and actually played some mean guitar and The Great Man himself who sat behind a keyboard in the middle of the stage who did most of the lead vocals and barely touched his instrument all night.

He looked like he was getting a pit porky again and was dressed casual to the point of slobby. Despite being high up in the balcony the sound was pretty good but I was grateful I’d brought along the binoculars to pick up a bit more detail. After the intermission they all trouped back for the Smile album. Surfs Up was a highlight and Vegetables highly amusing with the entire band holding bits of produce and the girl singer with a red pepper and courgette in each hand as if they were maracas. Also The Great Man produced a small cordless electric drill at one point and sort of played it in front of the microphone. The binoculars don’t lie!

The time was getting on and just as I was thinking about what the encore would be and deciding probably Good Vibrations they went and played Good Vibrations as the last song of the set. And a superb storming version it was too. The encore was hardly a token here’s the one we haven’t played yet either. Help Me Ronda, Surfin’ USA and Barbara Ann hardly counts as a token gesture! They may have played one other as well but I’m not sure about that (I’ve just remembered – it was Fun Fun Fun!).

There was even a second encore of a slow one that I wasn’t too familiar with before the show ended at 10.20. What is really strange about Brian Wilson’s music is that he seems to get it right first time. No one does better versions and modern renditions by his own band are simply the old songs played with better equipment and sound. The gig was sufficiently good that I coughed up a tenner for the programme afterwards without any anaesthetic. Having given it a quick once over it isn’t bad value for money. On the anorak front the keyboard player who hopped around a lot played an electric vibraphone thing that sounded good, guitars were Telecasters, a couple of Danelectros, Fender Jaguar and BFP (balding, fat, poof) steamed in with a 12 string electric, Strat and a red gold plated Firebird 7 (over the top in my view & the sunburst 5 is the business).
www.brianwilson.com will fill in the gaps.