Brian Wilson Concert

October 16th, 2004

Brian Wilson ConcertToday a friend of mine, Lee Lampkin, and I met in Atlanta to catch Brian Wilson in concert at Chastain Park Ampitheatre. Wilson, of course, is the creative force behind The Beach Boys, having written and produced all of their hits. In 1966, The Beach Boys earned critical acclaim with their album PET SOUNDS. This was Brian Wilson's masterpiece and is still highly regarded today. However, this left Wilson at the time with tremendous pressure to top himself. 1967 was supposed to see the release of SMILE, an album that had aspirations no less than being a "teenage symphony to God". Sadly, due to mounting pressure, strained relationships with his bandmates, and his ongoing mental instability, Wilson had a breakdown and walked away from the project entirely. Thus began The Beach Boys decline from the top of the music scene and the SMILE album grew into a legend as The Greatest Rock Album Never Finished.

This all changed in 2003. Brian Wilson, with the encouragement and help of his current band, re-united with his original SMILE collaborator, Van Dyke Parks, and finished the album. Nearly 40 years late, SMILE was finally released in 2004, marking a remarkable triumph for Brian Wilson. As my luck would have it, his tour came through Atlanta and Lee and I did not miss it.
The show opened up with an acoustic set where you could really hear all the voices harmonize. Then they got to the heart of the show and played full versions of a nice mixture of Beach Boys hits and obscurities as well as some more recent Wilson solo songs. Then they after an intermission, they came back on stage and performed SMILE in its entirety, complete with a string and horn section. It was magical night to be a Brian Wilson fan, to hear him perform this music that was lost for so long. It was special for me to witness this remarkable new chapter in the Brian Wilson story, since I am too young to have been around for the height of The Beach Boys creative output and success.

After SMILE, the band left the stage again just to be introduced individually as the came back on. Then the show closed out with the sure-fire Beach Boys crowdpleasers that everyone wanted to hear: I Get Around, Barbara Ann, Help Me Rhonda, Surfin' USA. The show was fantastic, the band sounded incredible and maybe, just maybe, I turned Lee into a Wilson fan.