Review Of The First Two SMiLE Concerts
From The Smile Shop
Review of the first two SMiLE concerts, by Matt Bielewicz
Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2004 9:56 pm Post subject: Must... stay... awake... must... post... detail
Will this do for now?... I'm now absolutely fried (it's nearly 2am here in the UK) and can't finish the third movement off, but here are some more detailed notes on the first two... for a quick overview, see my post in the sticky above.
More notes:
Most of it flowed seamlessly on from one thing into the next.
Movement I
Prayer (slight pause)
Gee + 'dit dit dit, H&V' as per box set
Fluttertone horn
H&V first verse as per Smiley, into the chorus with a 'slowing harmony transition' like Smiley, chorus more like Smiley than the stereo Hawthorne mix (the bass played straight, held root notes, not the rising scale, and thus sounded more like the droning Baldwin organ of the Smiley version)
Chorus finished on a diminished chord, I think, like the version on H&V Sessions part I and II
Stand Or Fall
Accapella Verse with whistle
In the Cantina (with extra bass line, I think)
You're Under Arrest
My Children Were Raised (Smiley arrangement, not Cantina-style)
Sunny Down Snuff
H&V chorus again (no ribbon of concrete, by the way) to diminished chord, then Rising harmonies (ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ahhhhh), as on Pet Sounds tour last year
'C&W' aka Sweeping strings (no lyrics over it, though!) to woodblock rallentando straight into...
New horn section (couple of bars only - will have to ref recording as I didn't recognise it), then into...
The pounding drum intro of DYLW, with the new lyrics over the second half of that
Plymouth Rock
Bicycle Rider (music box)
Chanting Indian bicycle rider with fuzz bass (Jan 5th, 1967 version, right?) to clean harpsichord end as per GV box set mix
pounding drums again, with 'Sandwich Isle' lyrics
Plymouth Rock
Music Box into chanting Indians again (unlike GV Box set mix)
Wahalalou lei etc
Plymouth Rock (with lyrics, not instrumental)
Music box outro with slowing down section/breakup just as on GV box set (note; NO section as per GV box set with slowing/dragging error and 'la la la' vocals included here)
Whoo-oo-oo-oo-oooooooh Train harmonies (as per unedited cantina section after 'dance marguerita...' on H& V Sessions boot)
Barnyard with out in the barnyard lyrics (no barnyard billy, though!)
Straight into Old Master Painter/YAMS exactly as per boots. No OMP lyrics. No Sunshine Barnshine or whatever. String slide down goes straight into...
Cabinessence - pretty much as per 2020. String slide down into Who Ran The Iron Horse section both times. No extra sections unheard before. Truck Driving Man lyrics (again hard to hear/barely audible, but there). Before the 'Have You Heard The Grand Coolie...' section, someone sang 'hey mister...' to lead into it. Cool strings over the last part and great vocal performances. That ended the first movement.
Movement II
Wonderful as per box set, straight into Child Is Father chorus (there was a dip back to Wonderful here somewhere, but it went on further into CIFOTM again)
One line of lyric here went 'maybe not once'... didn't catch anything else!
straight Into the staccato Look section (with bass and piano on eights), and CHILD chorus lyrics over the top! (arranged like on the April 1967 Vega-Tables CIFOTM chorus... you know what I mean, SOT 17 fans!)
Look slow section with horn and more lyrics... didn't catch them, have to listen to the recording again...
Staccato section again with April 67 chorus vocals
Child Is Father chorus as per SOT 17 boot disc 1 (I think)
GV riff bells
key change up, then down, then down again, I think (from memory), then a cymbal and into the second Look muted horn section with thunderous toms
Muted horn bridge (that we used to think was the intro)
Another CIFOTM chorus
Some strings (I'm vague on this because my notes are... I didn't write much here because it was bloody great! so it's from memory) with lyrics something about 'my child'
Final child chorus (or possibly second Look piano break with muted horn)
'Fluid ending' finishing in bowed strings... then straight into Surf's Up, with, I think, a key change
Pretty much as per 71 album. Bygones and Brother Johns (BW sang Brother John wrongly, I think, after the first verse... no-one else joined in, and he kind of petered out...)
into Second movement with harmony pad as per 71 version. Sweeping strings a bit like the ones in Pet Sounds' Don't Talk... and (I think) some horns too, but nothing too fancy... no George Fell stuff or anything like that. Big bass notes like the ones from the Moog in the 71 version
and to close, the CITFOTM tag in full, with the piano loudly and obviously on eights as in the 66 demo, not buried like on the 71 version.
As you can tell from my increasingly illiterate scrawl, I *have* to pack this in now, and get some sleep... I'll be back with more detail like this tomorrow (hopefully more coherent, too!)...
Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2004 10:02 pm Post subject: Oh yes, and...
Oh yes, and...
No Swedish Frog. I for one, didn't miss it.
I did miss Tag To Vega-Tables though. Oh well, you can't have everything.
Now that I think... no Rock With Me Henry, no Barnyard Billy, no He Gives Speeches!
OK, that's not a full review... but consider it an addendum to my last, lengthier post.
Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2004 11:15 pm Post subject: Oh, what the hey..
Oh, what the hey... I reconsidered and stayed up typing to give the thing some closure.
Movement III
Commenced with a new waltz time section... I thought it was Time To Get Alone for a second, and then I realised it was IIGS, as per EH 'demo'. Fresh Zen Air lyrics (or whatever) Bass and piano, strings and trumpet. Lovely!
There was an attempt at the tape explosion. Some little delays, but they didn't feedback enough to build up and it petered out. Possibly a fluffed effect that should have done more but went wrong; I don't know. After that, into...
I Wanna Be Around - arranged exactly as on boots, except with lead vocals by BW. Presumably Johnny Mercer's (or whoever's) lyrics. Certainly they were the 'pieces of your broken love affair' lines. Then straight into the Woodshop. This was brilliantly done, almost exactly like the recording, with the drill (played by Brian) leading into the section. No other lyrics, just the performance on power tools, hammering, etc. Funny!
Somehow (can't remember how) into Vega-Tables.
It was the April 67 arrangement (bouncing bass, piano), and structurally very like the GV Box Set mix. Brian did the 'table vegel vegel' line from Smiley at the end of the first verse, though...
It went a bit march time (2/4) on the drums in the chorus, too. 'Tenny' became 'tennis shoe' and then it went straight into 'Mama says/Sleep a lot' - wait, except that it had the high wailing whistle or theremin line, but played on a flute - you know, like the slow 'oh, roh, oh roh/de ullah, de ullah' bit on the GV box set, in other words but it was faster, like the sloppy Sleep a lots in the April mix. Sort of somewhere between the two Do A Lot arrangements, in short. No sign of the other one with the prominent glockenspiel from SOT 17, though.
Then it was into the scat verse, then Candy Bar, then straight into 'bop bop bop bop' (NO pause). And it would have been the accapella section (slow 'I know that you'll feel better...') next, but Brian gaffed it, and had to start it again. This went straight into the next song, with NO tag or 'bells verse'.
Which was Holidays. In structural and instrumental arrangement just like the boots - only with lyrics! All I caught from memory was 'If I'm around on a holiday...'. And on the choruses, the band started singing DYLW's Plymouth Rock! ('Rock, Rock, Roll...'). The second verse had a strange, incomprehensible vocal with an effect on it, not unlike Hal Blaine's (?) 'Roll up, roll up' in Amusement Parks USA... like it was through a megaphone or telephone EQ or something.
Then there was a string bridge (again, very short; just a few seconds) that I didn't know, and then it launched into Whispering Winds. I think (from memory) that it started off like the Holidays tag on boots, with marimbas and wooden pitched instruments (er... xylophones, isn't it?), but mutated into a perfect rendition of the SOT 18 (yes, 1 Smiley Wind Chimes tag. The same harmony parts ('wella wella wella') and also the glock/celeste line which is almost totally mixed out of the tag on Smiley Smile. This was *beautifully* sung and played; I got tears.
Somehow (don't remember how) it went smoothly into Wind Chimes, almost exactly as on the GV box set, instrumentally and also in structure. The first verse, the bass riff, then the second verse with xylophone runs, then the loud chorus with the prominent blasting woodwind/horn line. There was also a prominent woodblock which seemed new to me. Then it was the tinkling piano coda, except it then went into the Take 5 bridge part from SOT 17. No vocals on it, though. Then the chorus *again*, to the resolving ending exactly as on SOT 17, with the woodwind blowing us to a halt.
Then we shot off into H&V Intro with a whistle. Brian played swanee in this part, too! Exactly as on Mark Linett's 88 edit, it went from the end of H& V intro into Fire (this whole part was played *very* like the original recordings, down to the timing and pitch range of the whistles and also the dischordant organ parts at the end of H&V Intro).
Fire was LOUD, as others have said, but also bloody impressive (and quite scary). There were no lyrics, but eerie harmony 'aaaaahs' over the top, which I think were like those descending parts in Rio Grande; same complex harmonies. They did *not* remind me personally of Fall Breaks, though all of those harmonies are slightly similar. I'll have to have another listen and report back.
Fire ended just as on boots, with the fire being 'stamped out'. Then, immediately, it was into...
Water Chant. Same as on SOT 17, with organ and 'directionless' 'waadooo' vocals (now, no-one start, OK?), but with Brian on lead vocals over the top. The lyrics were something like:
'Is it hell in here or is it me? I could use a drop to drink'
or possibly 'Is it hot as hell in here or is it me?'
From here it went straight on into I Love To Say Dada, complete with thundering, woodblock-rapping, DYLW-referencing intro. This too had new lyrics, which served to increase the feeling it has of being like a 20s standard... it's always reminded me of a flapper song, like Anything Goes or something! I'm afraid I don't recall any of the words, though; just that you still had all the pauses and 'wa-ho's. No squeaky chair legs as in 'Air Dada', though.
No wait! Lyrically, towards the end there was something about a waterfall down in Blue Hawaii.
Then there was a final bridge part (strings again) which slowly referenced the Bicycle Rider/H&V theme (again, no more than a few seconds at most), and somehow led back into a reprise of Prayer. Incidentally, Prayer did not have the final high voice overdub from 2020 on it, either here or at the start of the show; it was like the GV box set SMiLE version.
After Prayer finished, it was straight off into GV. This was exactly as released for the most part, except that the organ bridge was longer to accomodate the lovely 'hum be dum' vocals. Always loved those... really glad they made it in! Oh, and it had Tony Asher's lyrics ('She's already working on my brain'), not Mike Love's. Make of that what you will... and the chorus had 'Rarities Mix'-style shouts over it by Brian 'Yeah!!!!' after the 'Good, good, good, good, vibrations' line.
The ending was the lively coda arrangement exactly like last year's concerts, ie. the ending the band played all last year, which is well suited to live versions of GV, I think, and capped off SMiLE on a real high.
I got a program, but no other merchandise; I was in a tearing hurry on the way in, and only made my seat and set my recorder going (that is, my holed, flute-like instrument, of *course*!) about 30 seconds before the start. The program is beautiful; a work of art. It was 10 pounds, but I didn't blink an eyelid before buying it. Great essays from Leaf, Chidester, and Priore, and a good interview with Darian. It's similar to the Mojo one, but there's more detail (the only thing my addled brain can recall right now is that the illegible word on the 1966 VDP DYLW lyric sheet that made Darian and Brian call Van Dyke was 'Indians'). The artwork's lovely, too. DP's SMiLE production timeline is beautifully coloured, laying the pencil effort in LLVS to rest for good. In short, if you're going, don't miss out, and be sure to get one!
Other things I've just realised were missing tonight; no False Barnyard, no With Me Tonight of any kind, no You're Welcome, no tape explosion in H&V, no solo Tack piano Bicycle Rider or Dum Dum Dum verse. No hey baba ruba, or Vega-tables tag, as already mentioned, either.
All round, it was beautifully played and sung for the most part. Brian was in good voice for 2004, and the band were stella. It was nice to see Van Dyke pulled up on stage to tumultuous applause, and heart warming to see BW handed a bass (stencilled with the SMiLE logo) and play it in the oldies encore. The standing ovation at the end was the least we could do for him!
But god, it sounded great. Jon's right - we *are* lucky sons of bitches. I hope everyone who wants to see this gets to. It's something else.
If I had to sum it up, I'd say it was everything I'd hoped for, and contained some surprises, but for me, they were all good ones.
And now... no more cod-philosophising! Sleep...! And this time, I mean it.
Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2004 11:21 pm Post subject: A Final postscript...
A Final postscript...
VDP's essay that was on here *is* in the program. I think it's the same, anyway. It's certainly very close if not identical.
No Frank Holmes stuff, I don't think.
Oh, and the ending of Surf's Up had the 'song is love, and the children lead the way' lyrics. Not Frank Rieley's work, then?
Matt (falling over and into bed)
Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2004 10:06 am Post subject: Waking up after the Elements... more thoughts
OK... I'm awake again. So here are some more thoughts.
God! As I go back over it (in my mind,of course), more and more leaps out at me. I swear, I've always tried to keep two feet on the ground with this stuff. Yes, I'm a fan, of course, deeply so, but there was some material that always seemed too unfinished about SMiLE. And the stranger for it. There were things in the glorious rag-bag that *was* SMiLE that I would admit to not being that bowled over by... and that was the stuff it was always hardest to win other people over with, too.
Now, trying to keep that same detachment that allowed me to see the unfinished nature of some of the work-in-progress stuff we all know so well, trying not, in other words, to just be swept along in the post-concert rush (hard, of course - you be the judge of whether I appear to have achieved this balance); even with all that in mind, I *still* can't believe how beautiful this thing sounds.
We've all used phrases like 'a diamond in the rough' when talking about SMiLE. Looking back, that's what it was now, no doubt about it for me any more. It was beautiful, but the final ten percent extra afforded it by the cutting and polishing has actually improved it out of all recognition, and made it sparkle like nothing else around.
It's *extraordinary*.
As someone else said here (I think in the sticky above), it's lighter, funnier, wittier, but somehow without losing any of its impact and gravitas. It's also the best kind of Brian Wilson material. In short, incredible music; the kind that gives you chills and shivers. Really smart key changes and modulations. Intelligent repetitions and reprises of themes with subtly different arrangements each time. And throughout... those harmonies. *Wow!*.
Not surprisingly, too, the themes come out more strongly now that we have more of the lyrics - and boy, Van really shone with his word play (I have to go out shortly, but I'll post what more I can make out of these fantastic new lyrics later). Sure, the Americana really shines in the Old West stuff, but also, to my surprise, in *The Elements*, where I Love To Say Dada's lyrics mesh seamlessly with the early 20th century American feel to the backing track to produce something I can't help but feel Gershwin would have been proud of. Gershwin, of course, who Brian admires so much.
The Elements as a whole is really quite an experience. You get music concrete-type stuff with Fire - again, Ballet Mecanique fans or Charles Ives springs to my inadequately informed mind, comparisons that have been raised before, I know, but they seem to fit for me. And there's that big, impressive ol' thing called Rock and Roll in there, too, powering Fire along. I felt the same kind of excitement you can get from the rhythm section when it's playing, I don't know, Fun Fun Fun, or I Get Around, or Dance Dance Dance... (this is most inadequate wordage, but if you know what I'm talking about here, then, well... you know what I'm talking about) but that rhythmic excitement is heard in a different context, with a stew of other influences on top, each one equally rewarding and rich.
And at the end of LTSDD... a reprise of the Cantina theme, on beautiful strings and horns... then moving into a string arrangement playing something that sounded to me like a version of the old vocal 'Soul Made Beautiful' section (but I'll have to listen again later to confirm this)... and then, oh so cleverly, into a section of Our Prayer for strings... but then the strings stop and the voices take over, as at the start of the concert... and it all comes to a stop that is arranged to mesh perfectly, chromatically and rhythmically, with the 'ah...' at the start of Good Vibrations. This is crackerjack arranging; amaldiçoe-o, it's *breathtakingly* good, and I really mean that; it made me *gasp* on my last listen through.
I even had the SMiLE assembler's dream experience last night, that I'd wondered if I would have before I went... of sitting there, in the middle of Child Is Father Of The Man, with my eyebrows suddenly glued to the top of my forehead, going 'So *that's* it!!! *That's* how it fits together!'. That happened several times over the 48 minutes, actually, but seeing how the staccato part from Look went under the 'Child, chiiiild' vocals (as on the April 67 'Vega-tables take' of CIFOTM); that was the big one. And then hearing the muted horn bridge of Look meshed with the CIFOTM chorus vocals, too. If there was plenty to enjoy on a sheer musical level, then that was a bit different... that was a real Smile Shop moment. That's the kind of thing that everyone who's posted here has wondered about, and wondered if we'd *ever* get to know the answer, and that was the moment the answer arrived. My forehead got more exercise last night than it has for years, as my eyebrows just kept on shooting up in that part! But it wasn't just intellectual curiosity that was satisifed... it was such good music as well. Hot *damn*!
I know lots of people who are 'into' music; it's a big part of the job I do every working day. My colleagues are all similar in their love of music, but we hardly ever agree on what we like. We have great musical disagreements at work, all the time. Nevertheless, if you're into music in any way at all, I'd say you couldn't fail to enjoy this. A bold assertion, I know, but I'll stand by it.
If you're going to hear this, you are in for such a treat - *such* a treat.
Now I have to go again, but I'll be back. Sharing these thoughts is great fun.
Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2004 9:25 pm Post subject: And so, it came to pass...
And so it came to pass... that I went again. I hadn't actually planned to originally... and the story is too complicated to explain... but I ended up at the RFH again tonight, and this time I *wasn't* furiously scribbling notes all the way through, so I was able to just sit, watch, listen, and enjoy.
And *did* I enjoy...
Amazingly, it was even better than last night. The band were *so* tight; there were hardly any snafu's, and the (minor) mistakes made last night had been fixed (eg Brian's incorrect 'Brother John' after verse 1 of Surf's Up, and the gaffed Vega-Tables harmony break - both were flawless this time).
Brian was also in better voice and form than yesterday. This fed back to the audience, who stood and cheered him throughout the concert whenever they could, and seems to have lifted him on to still higher things. By the end, he delivered 'Love and Mercy', the last song of the night, in a clear, powerful, unwavering tone. That song carried me somewhere tonight, I can tell you. Just *beautiful*.
The standing ovation was more powerful tonight, too, and you could tell Brian felt it.
Tonight, I was accompanied by a former SMiLE cynic, who once said he'd listened to 'Cabin Essence' and thought it was interesting, so I hit him with my then-current SMiLE tape. At the end of that, he said 'I just can't see what all the fuss is about. And even that Cabin thing doesn't really sound that great to me now'. Again, the story of how *he* ended up in the RFH is too complex to relate here, but suffice to say he did... and he was blown away, too. From the first few songs of the acoustic set, he was laughing between songs, staggered at how good it was, mouth agape. After Surf's Up and the second movement of SMiLE, he said 'It's really complex, isn't it? I'm not sure I can get it all first time around'.
I didn't tell him he'd almost exactly paraphrased Leonard Bernstein in 1966...
Anyway, he'd said before we went in that the thing he was looking forward to most was Good Vibrations, and after that, with the even longer ovation it generated, he said 'That was just A-MAY-ZING. And I've *never* seen an audience react to *any* live concert like this'.
Trust me. First my wife last night, now this guy. This stuff reaches non-SMiLE-oholics too!
That's me done, anyway. Twice is enough for me for one lifetime. I have a way of hearing it again for the time being, and there'll be a DVD along soon, and (from what I hear), there's an excellent chance of a new studio SMiLE. But, so I understand it, not one that uses anything old - a complete re-record. When that's out, I'm *so* there. The idea of a new studio version of this is irresistible.
I'll post some corrections and amplifications to my earlier threads shortly - I can see all sorts of mistakes in them now. And I'm having another bash at deciphering the lyrics as we speak! More on this in a bit!
To all you people who have yet to hear this, I can't recommend it highly enough. *What* an experience you're going to have.
Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2004 11:23 pm Post subject: An assorted grab-bag of corrections and clarifications
An assorted grab-bag of corrections and clarifications
Answers to some things that people have asked about, and others which I have realised I stated wrongly in my addled state last night.
Firstly, SMiLE was the same last night as the first night. So that's it now; there's a definitive 2004 version.
Secondly, some more things that are definitely NOT in this SMiLE:
Sound effects in the elements - ie. there's no celery in VT, no fire in, well, fire, no water in the water chant.
Tune X - well, actually, I don't know for sure, as I've never heard Tune X. But from what I know of it, it doesn't figure. I knew everything that was played last night and tonight, apart from the new vocal melodies, and three segues, which I now have heard reliably were written for this version. So I think that I can say: no Tune X.
No 'telephone/dooby' Cabin Essence lyrics.
No 'cornucopia' Vega-Tables lyrics.
No 'East or West Indies' lyrics in DYLW.
I commented on the lack of 'With Me Tonight' last night, but also; no 'Little Pad', or anything like it. That did surprise me. It seems the road from SMiLE to Smiley Smile may have been more involved than we thought... although Dennis did say pretty much straight out in late 67, didn't he, that 'Little Pad' was derived from stuff Brian had finished 'months before'?
Well, I *still* hear DYLW in Little Pad, anyway (stubborn, aren't I?).
What else? The 'Hey Mister' in Cabin Essence didn't bother me... in fact, I rather liked it!
YAMS was indeed in the present, apart from the last line.
The lyric is, in fact, Child Is Father Of The *Sun* (a *classic* VDP piece of word play!).
The song is apparently Holiday in the singular. That's the correct title, I hear, so in fact the set list is right and the old title on the tape box is wrong!
The final string segue from LTSDD to Prayer is *not* based upon 'In The Cantina', as I said... that's the segue that starts the third movement. The one at the end *is* like Soul Made Beautiful, then goes into Prayer on strings, then the voices replace the strings.
I know what the attempt at the 'tape explosion' in IIGS reminds me of... one of the songs on the High Llamas 'Hawaii' ends in the same way. It's basically a digital delay with the 'Regen' parameter turned up, but not feeding back into itself or low-pass filtered.
Sorry, guys, but they definitely go 'waaaader' in the water chant. No waaadoooos. Not even a bit.
They *do* sing 'Ribbon Of Concrete' lyrics in DYLW.
There are *no* horns in the 2nd movement of SU - just the strings.
The lyrics to IIGS are *not* what I thought they were - they are (and this is absolutely cast-iron) 'Fresh *Clean* Air around my head...' and finish with 'I'm in the great shape of the *agriculture*'. Yes, agriculture.
There *are* vocalisations over both the 'Take 5 bridge' to Wind Chimes and the 'ending'. No words, just complex Vega-Tables Tag-style 'ba's and 'da's.
I made reference to *Frank* Rieley last night. D'uh! Shows how awake I was. Everyone knows his real name is Eglantine.
Finally - there is *so* no way you can patch this thing together with the 66/67 recordings. Quite apart from the new lyrics and harmonies, and the new string segues, so many clever rallentandos, percussion clicks or drum fills take place to link everything seamlessly together, you'll never get something that is all 66-7 SMiLE that comes *close* to this. Give it up, people. It's not going to happen. You want a complete SMiLE, you'll have to embrace this.
Fortunately, that is not a bad thing at all, as I may have mentioned elsewhere!
Best wishes,
Matt Bielewicz
