Originally published in Upstage Magazine

 

Brian Wilson Makes Us SMiLE

Musical genius delights PNC audience

 

By Ken Shane

 

If you’re looking for objective journalism, you should probably look elsewhere in Upstage Magazine. There’s simply no way that I could ever review a Brian Wilson show in a disparaging manner. After all, Brian has been one of my greatest musical heroes since I first started having musical heroes.

 

Last year, he released “SMiLE”, and not only did the 37 years-in-the-making album top my year end poll, I have now come to recognize it as one of the great artistic masterpieces of the 20th century. On this night I had a chance to see SMiLe performed live by Brian and a seventeen piece band. You see? There just wasn’t a chance that it wouldn’t be a great show.

 

We’ve all heard the stories about Brian. The tales of drug addiction, mental illness, and family strife have been over-reported for years. We’ve seen Brian on television in the last few years and noticed that his movements were a little stiff, or his speech a bit slurred. We wondered if he could ever realize a full return to his earlier form. Wonder no more. Brian is back.

 

The structure of the show is the same for each night of this tour. Brian and his “Band of Angels” come out and play a first half that features some of his greatest songs from the Beach Boys years, including several from his pre-SMiLE high point, “Pet Sounds”. I can’t begin to tell you how amazing it is to hear these songs played live by a big band that manages to create a Spector-like wall of sound onstage.  I should say something further about this band of Brian’s. There are a lot of them, and they can all do a lot of things well. At times there are eight people singing in brilliant harmony that, believe it or not, will make you forget the Beach Boys originals.  The nine-piece core band, led by keyboard player and “musical secretary” Darian Sahanaja, and guitarist Jeff Foskett, is augmented by the eight-piece Stockholm Strings and Horns. It’s a big sound. A really big sound.

 

The first set was hit after hit. They were all highlights, and I could list them all, but certainly “Please Let Me Wonder”, “Sail On Sailor”, and the Pet Sounds songs “”Sloop John B”, “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”, the instrumental title track that featured the brilliant guitar work of Nicky Wonder, and “God Only Knows”, a song Brian described as his friend Sir Paul McCartney’s favorite, were the most memorable for me.

 

There were many more songs I would have liked to hear, but after the generous first set, it was time for intermission.

 

The second half of the shows on this tour is an uninterrupted performance of SMiLE. It opens with the bright white light of heaven shining down on Brian’s angelic choir as they sing the unforgettable opening strains of  “Our Prayer”. SMiLE is a work presented in three movements. Each movement is played through, and then there is a very brief pause before the next movement begins. To my delight, the PNC audience remained in their seats, and paid very close attention to the music, giving the work the respect that it so richly deserves.

 

There are some familiar songs in SMiLE, recognizable because when Brian originally abandoned this project back in 1967, some of the songs made it onto subsequent Beach Boys albums. These songs include “Heroes and Villains”, and “Cabin Essence” from the first movement, “Wonderful, and  “Surf’s Up” from the second, and of course the finale “Good Vibrations”, new lyrics and all. And that’s where the remaining in their seats thing ended. From the opening “Ah!” of “Good Vibrations” to the end of the final encore, no one sat down again.

 

This is not easy music. It’s not easy for the musicians, and it’s not easy for a listener if you happen to be expecting something more like the songs played in the first half of the show. But if you’re willing to surrender yourself to the power and majesty of the work, you will be transported. I guarantee it. The SMiLE album, released in 2004 is brilliant. The live performance was even better.

 

If SMiLE is designed to appeal to our hearts and our minds, then the encore was meant for our feet. Did you ever hear an eighteen-piece band rock? It’s a powerful thing. From Jeff Foskett’s opening guitar riff on Johnny B Goode, to the final ring of “Fun, Fun, Fun”, the roof of the PNC Bank Arts Center was shaking, and so was everyone under it.

 

I have the distinct feeling that some day in the future, this particular concert tour of Brian’s will have become legendary. I’ll be able to tell people I was there, and I’ll probably be overcome with emotion as I talk about it, much as I am writing about it now. See what I meant about objective journalism?

 

There was one more encore. Brian came back for the last time to sum up what his message has been all along. “Love and Mercy, that’s what you need tonight. Love and Mercy to you and your friends tonight”.

 

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