Concerts sure have changed since I was a kid. At a recent Paul McCartney concert I stood up when he started playing 'Please Please Me'. I mean, wouldn't you stand up during the encore when Paul pulled an old gem out like that? "SIT DOWN" shouted the guy behind me. I looked around and yup, I was the only guy standing. OK, seat belts back on, ear plugs back in, come on grandma, let's rock out.
But back in 1974 I saw The Beach Boys at the Oakland Coliseum with around 50,000 others as they jammed with The Grateful Dead. Look at the picture - everyone was standing! In fact, the only ones not standing were the ones stoned out on pot. Pot?? At a concert? Oh yeah, and how about that nude girl dancing over there? I was only 16 and that was pretty fantastic. The Beach Boys then were still a real band, not the oldies tour group they are today, and when they fired up Good Vibrations it was pretty awesome. I took a ton of photos with my trusty Minolta SR-T101, but lost them through the years. Luckily a few survived and here they are.
Recently I met Brian Wilson and even got to attend the live taping of That Lucky Old Sun. I'm even on the DVD, front row, during the Beach Boys set. If you haven't heard Lucky Old Sun, get the mp3 download and put it on when you have people over to bbq this weekend. It's Brian's best work since Pet Sounds. And later I snapped this shot when he came to visit San Diego. That's pretty cool. He even told my wife she was pretty....hmmmmm.
