The Beach Boys - 1971-05-01 - Syracuse, NY (SBD)

Beach Boys
1971-05-01
Manley Field House
Syracuse University
Syracuse, New York
Soundboard recording
320 kbps
Artwork Included

01. Heroes & Villains
02. Do It Again
03. Darlin'
04. Aren't You Glad
05. Cottonfields
06. Vegetables
07. Okie From Muskogee
08. Cool, Cool Water
09. Help Me Rhonda
10. Student Demonstration Time/Riot In Cell Block 9
11. Caroline No
12. You Still Believe In Me
13. Sloop John B
14. Wouldn't It Be Nice
15. God Only Knows
16. Good Vibrations
17. California Girls
18. Surfer Girl
19. I Get Around
20. It’s About Time

The Beach Boys - 1971-05-01 - Syracuse, NY (SBD)

The early 1970s found the Beach Boys struggling to remain a relevant musical force. In a time where the counter culture ruled the music scene, the band's surfer image and tunes seemed woefully out of place. The fact that Brian Wilson was hardly himself anymore, having suffered a nervous breakdown trying to record Smile, didn't help matters. The band attempted to rectify matters by moving to Reprise Records, described as probably "the hippest and most artist-friendly major label of the time." Reprise booked the band to sit in with The Grateful Dead at the Fillmore East on April 27, 1971, in an effort to change the band's image.  They were also booked for the closing of that venue on June 27, 1971, on the same bill with the Allman Brothers. This soundboard recording captures the Beach Boys between those 2 Fillmore East gigs, on May 1, 1971, 4 dozen years ago today, in Syracuse.  By the way, the effort to remake the band's image met with limited success as evident in a Rolling Stone review of the album Surf's Up, released in August 1971. Critic Jim Miller praised the album as "without doubt the best Beach Boys album in recent memory, a stylistically coherent tour de force", but mused: "It makes one wonder though whether anyone still listens to their music, or could give a shit about it."