Album: “Beach Boys Concert/Live in London [Remaster]”

Description

2 LPs on 1 CD: BEACH BOYS CONCERT (1964)/LIVE IN LONDON (1968). Reissue producer: Mark Linett. Includes liner notes by David Leaf. Digitally remastered using HDCD technology. BEACH BOYS CONCERT: Producer: Brian Wilson. Engineer: Chuck Britz. Recorded live at The Civic Auditorium, Sacramento, California on August 1, 1964. Originally released on Capitol (TAO/STAO-2198). LIVE IN LONDON: Producer: Brian Wilson. Recorded at The Palladium, London, England on December 1, 1968. Originally released on Capitol (ST-11584). Cleaning up the odds and ends of the Beach Boys' '60s releases, this two-fer CD combines 2 very different recordings, 1964's THE BEACH BOYS CONCERT and 1968's LIVE IN LONDON. On BEACH BOYS CONCERT, what's remarkable is how truly fine the difficult harmonies of songs like "I Get Around" and "In My Room" sound in comparison to the boys' garage-rocking semi-mastery of their instruments; it's amazing how well they were able to recreate that vocal sound on stage. LIVE IN LONDON is a lower-voltage affair, recorded by the group's late-'60s live lineup (Bruce Johnston subbing for the increasingly reclusive Brian Wilson, who had quit touring by then) with occasional horns and strings on more complex tunes like "God Only Knows" and a stunning a cappella take on Bobby Troup's "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring." The reissue's bonus tracks are a 1964 version of "Don't Worry Baby" that makes plain the song's debt to "Be My Baby," and a good-natured, relaxed version of the crazed semi-operetta "Heroes and Villains" recorded in Hawaii in 1967 with some different sections from the eventual SMILEY SMILE issue.