The Beach Boys
Julie, Caroline, and I went to see the Beach Boys tonight at the Hatch Shell. It was the most miserably organized event I have ever experienced in my life. After crossing the Longfellow Bridge, we walked up to the Hatch, and our entry to the esplanade and the island was blocked — a Boston cop turned us back. So we had to go around on the path by Storrow Drive. Once we circled around the Hatch itself, the path was incredibly crowded. There wasn’t a cop in sight, and it was completely over-populated. Caroline was in her stroller, and it was very tight getting by. There were a couple of wheelchairs coming in the other direction, and they were having a tough time of it as well. As we got back towards the Fiedler footpath, it seemed for awhile that there would be no egress. I really haven’t seen anything like it. Security should have cleared the paved paths. It felt as though even the slightest disturbance in the crowd would cause a rampage with people overrunning those in the way. I hope the sponsor, Oldies 103.3, was furious. It was awful. The crowd was as big as the crowd on July 3rd. Plus, even with a crowd that large, they didn’t have the auxiliary speakers you’d expect for that size crowd. It was really the “perfect storm” for a big show: A major artist, a great day, the final show of the oldies series at the Hatch; and, finally, the prior show (Chi-Lites, et. al) had been rained out. The city and police should have known it would be bad.
As we walked by we looked back at the stage, and it was pretty hard to tell what was going on. While I’ve never seen the Beach Boys, I’ve seen Brian Wilson about three times, and it was hard to tell if he was up on stage. I would assume that it was just Mike Love with some studio musicians, as it has been for some time now, ever since the death of Carl Wilson. It was ok, I guess, but they are really nothing more than an oldies show.
So . . . they did do all of the great songs, and it brought back memories of listening to all those songs with the lights out and the volume pretty loud on the stereo in our house in St. Paul: “In My Room,” “God Only Knows,” “Wouldn’t it Be Nice” . . . What a weird band. No Dennis songs, none of the offbeat Carl songs (if only to have heard “Feel Flows“). One thing I always liked about “California Girls” was that it’s non-judgemental. They never say that they prefer California Girls to Midwest Girls or East Coast Girls . . . They just wish that all of those girls were California Girls. I guess that’s coastal teenage hetereosexual agnosticism.
And all along I’m thinking: These guys played Reagan’s inaugural. Sheesh.
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