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The Beach Boys Leave Good Vibrations in Erie, PA, 8-18-06Aug 21 '06 (Updated Aug 24 '06) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Though the enormous crowd made for a rather squished experience, the Beach Boys delivered two hours of fun, fun, fun!
Here in Erie, we've been hearing a lot about the Beach Boys. After a couple months of build-up about a major surprise headliner for the annual Celebrate Erie, we learned that the Beach Boys would be playing here, courtesy of governor Ed Rendell, who has become friends with current front man Mike Love. This worked out nicely for me, as I'd considered getting tickets to their show in Chautauqua next week but decided I couldn't afford it. It also worked out nicely for Gunther Jucho, the father of the German exchange student we hosted last year. She came back for a five-week visit this summer, and her dad flew in for her last couple days in town and played in the Man's Room Band, one of the bands that preceded the Beach Boys on August 18. The MRB began playing at 4, and there wasn't much of a crowd at that point, though by the end of the performance quite a few people had gravitated toward the stage. We were right up near the front, so we had a clear view of the band as they performed blues standards with two of the members adopting the guise of the Blues Brothers. Then later, shedding their suit jackets and dark glasses, they did some original songs as well as a few older tunes. Not only did Cathi's dad tear up the keyboard, he also had a center stage solo spot in Good Lovin'. Later, one of the guitarists came out into the crowd and jammed alongside various audience members. In front of us was one woman who seemed intimately acquainted with the band, and she was rather flamboyant as she shimmied with him. (Incidentally, pictures of this portion are available at www.gallagherphoto.net under Celebrate Erie One. The last picture features the aforementioned woman with the guitarist, and to his right are me (well, my face), Cathi, Mom and my brother Nathan.) At 6, the Fabulous Thunderbirds took the stage. We missed the beginning of this concert because we stopped into Molly Branigan's, a local Irish pub, for a bite to eat, but we probably were only 15 minutes or so late. The crowd had grown sizably larger, but we were still able to get pretty close to the stage. The beer was beginning to flow more freely, and at one point two elderly, inebriated man - one of whom had completely unbuttoned his shirt to reveal a chest of silvery hair - pushed past Cathi and me in search of some elusive person in front of us. Likely as not, they just wanted to get closer to the stage; Mom and I encountered much more of this once the Beach Boys concert began. Also more prevalent at this point were people smoking, so the fumes were beginning to make me a bit woozy. Also, though each of the band members was clearly very talented, I found the concert rather dull, as most of the songs went on for so long that I could scarcely tell where one ended and the next began. Generally, there were few lyrics but lots of instrumentation, some of it probably improvised. At one point, the lead singer tried to impress everyone with a ridiculously long harmonica solo. It was pretty noteworthy, but it got a bit old after a while. I guess I just prefer more concise and sing-along-able melodies. By the time this concert was over, there was an hour left until the Beach Boys, and I wanted to stay put and get as close to the Beach Boys as possible. I'm afraid I got ornery when we went off in search of Nathan and a place to sit down for a minute. I guess I could have just stayed there myself... At any rate, up until that point I had begun to think that there might not be that good of a turn-out for this, partly because of the weather and partly because maybe there weren't as many Beach Boys fans in Erie as everyone thought. But when Mom and I struggled our way back to the stage area through a massive throng of people, it was clear that the event was a success. The newspaper later estimated an audience of about 20,000, most of whom watched it via an enormous screen a way down the street. Of the original Beach Boys, only Mike Love was on hand, though Bruce Johnston was there too, and he's been with the group almost since the beginning. The newer members were very capable, resulting in a sound not so far off from those original recordings. There was little talking, but Love did most of it and also sang lead on a majority of the songs. Because it was an outdoor concert, the music had to be especially loud, which meant some of its musicality was lost, but not much. The lighting was moody and effective, mostly shades of blue that washed over the stage like so many California waves. Adding to the ambiance were the beach balls bopping around throughout the two-hour set, though none ever got close enough for me to participate in that. Though Love cracked a couple geriatric jokes, there was a definite youthful aura around these 60-something-year-olds as they crooned about surfers and snazzy cars and bikini-clad girls. Love's singing voice sounded so teenagerish I wonder whether the tonal quality was put on so as to sound as much like those early recordings as possible. They all looked snappy in their colorful attire, and the back-up singers from the Man's Room Band who got to sing a couple songs with them certainly didn't seem to mind schmoozing with them for a while. The set list was extensive; I couldn't think of any songs they didn't perform. Of course, my familiarity with the Beach Boys is limited to the hits, but I heard all of those and several I wasn't familiar with. A few got the truncated treatment as part of a medley, but many of them were full length. Among them: Surfin' Safari, Surfin' USA, Good Vibrations, Barbara Ann, In My Room, Why Do Fools Fall in Love, Sloop John B., Be True to Your School (preceded by a speech about how patriotic cheerleaders are) and many others. One of the crowd's favorite moments was when, near the end of the song, they sang, "Wish they all could be Pennsylvania girls!" We were promised an hour-and-a-half-long concert but received two hours jam-packed with hits, topped off by encores of Kokomo and Fun, Fun, Fun - after the mayor presented them with a key to the city. There have been a few letters to the editor in the paper lately complaining about the city's decision to make a bunch of old fogeys the headliner for Erie's biggest annual celebration, and then to act like we should be excited about it. Well, I was excited, and so were thousands of others. Just because a group of musicians got started in the sixties and has members in their sixties doesn't mean the band can't appeal to the current generation. I saw people of all ages having a blast with the Beach Boys, and I think those good vibrations will remain a defining cultural moment for Erie. I guess there is reason to celebrate after all!  |
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