“Now from Hawthorne, California, with a gala concert and a recording session the fabulous Beach Boys.” Those words launched the Beach Boys into there first live concert recording which would result in a Number One album.
I have always thought it a bit odd that Beach Boys Concert would not only be the Beach Boys first Number One album but would be their only Number One album issued in the 1960s. Not one of their critically acclaimed and marvelously constructed studio album releases would attain that level. Brian Wilson, would of course, tinker with the album. He would speed a song up here and add or subtract some crowd noise there and re-work some vocals in the studio but when all was said and done Beach Boys Concert would present a fairly good representation of a Beach Boys live performance in the mid 1960s.
Listening to the Beach Boys Concert album today I find that the whole is better than the sum of its parts. I found myself criticizing many of the individual songs but when I listened to the album from beginning to end it was still enjoyable.
This concert recording contains a lot of cover songs. Later notes concerning this concert show that not all the songs from that evening were included. Some of the hits were left out so as not to have an album of all repeat songs.
“Fun Fun Fun” is always a good way to start a Beach Boys concert. Carl Wilson’s opening guitar solo is infectious and the upbeat tempo gets the crown rocking and involved. The hits “I Get Around” and “Little Deuce Coupe” are competent but not outstanding. They show an ongoing problem for the Beach Boys live as there are only five voices available which is different from the studio versions of layer upon layer of overdubbed harmonies. “In My Room” features an excellent lead vocal by Brian with effective harmonies in support. I have always found it amusing that when the Beach Boys hit the first few notes of this song you can here several audience members yell “Surfer Girl” which has a similar beginning.
Article comments
1 - Lou Katz
The reviews are great, but for accuracies sake, you have the wrong cover for the Christmas album, and the wrong album for the Concert album.
2 - Fred Vail
I'm honored that the writer of "Beach Boys Concert" album review opened it with my introductory remarks made that night--December 21, 1963--at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium. I was the producer of the concert from which the 'live' album was recorded. In fact, I conceived the idea of doing a 'live' album and had to convince BW and Murry to rocord it. It was not only the group's first #1 album and first "Gold" album, but paved the way for other 'live' albums to follow. It proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the public would be interested in purchasing a recording of a concert. Taken in context of the era in which is was recorded, it is the portrays the excitement of being there as "America's Band" does what they did best: reproducing their incredible studio recordings as n o other band before or since.