The Beach Boys
"Do It Again"
"Source: Syracuse University, May 1, 1971" (see date/venue
notes below)

Triangle Records PYCD 054

Silver CD > EAC > FLAC

01 Heroes & Villains
02 Do It Again
03 Darlin'
04 Aren't You Glad
05 Cottonfields
06 Vegetables
07 Okie From Muskogee
08 Cool, Cool Water
09 Help Me Rhonda
10 Student Demonstration Time/Riot In Cell Block 9
11 Caroline No
12 You Still Believe In Me
13 Sloop John B
14 Wouldn't It Be Nice
15 God Only Knows
16 Good Vibrations
17 California Girls
18 Surfer Girl
19 I Get Around
20 It’s About Time

Music/Performance Notes:
As noted below, Dennis Wilson was not present for this
performance, reportedly having flown home to work on post-
production for the ‘Two Lane Blacktop’ movie. I can’t point to
any part of the performance where this fact is obvious.
Despite technical limitations (see sound quality/source notes
below) I love listening to this recording. It serves, I think,
as an interesting document of the stage version of the band
continuing to grow and evolve into a progressive 1970s
performing rock & roll band, no longer trying to be heard over
screaming teenagers with inadequate sound reinforcement but
performing music for interested listeners. In my opinion, the
performing band reached its zenith a couple of years later with
the addition of Blondie Chaplin & Ricky Fataar (as documented
on the ‘In Concert’ album) but you can hear interesting
developments in this recording. (The front cover photo clearly
shows Blondie, but this show predates his membership in the
band; the tray insert on the back lists Brian and Dennis as
performers, although that clearly is incorrect, too.) A couple
of notable musical moments for me are the spare, finger-style
acoustic guitar accompaniment for Caroline, No and several
occasions where a (Hammond B-3?) organ are very prominent, far
more so than organ parts in studio versions. To my mind, both
of these are welcome ways of tastefully reinterpreting
carefully crafted studio music for live and often large
audiences. Another clear sign of conscious musical development
is the fact that it isn’t until the 17th song in the set that
we get something recorded (by the Beach Boys) before 1966.
[There’s plenty more I could say, but I want to finish this and
post this torrent; I do have vague plans of writing up an essay
comparing performances on this recording to the same songs on
‘Live in London’ and/or ‘In Concert’. I’ll post a link to that
here if I ever get around to it.]

Date/Venue Notes:
The date or the location of this show given on the tray insert
is most likely incorrect. According to Keith Badman's "The
Beach Boys: The Definitive Diary of America's Greatest Band On
Stage And In The Studio", on May 1st, 1971 the Beach Boys
performed an afternoon set at the Washington Monument
(Washington, DC) for 'The Peace Treaty Celebration Rock Show',
an anti-war rally organized by the Mayday Collective. Later
that night, they played at Springfield College in Springfield,
MA. The best case that could be made, I think for a May 1st
date is Mike Love's reference to playing "the other night" at
the Fillmore East with the Grateful Dead, a well-documented
show that took place on April 27th, ie, four days before May
1st (and a full two weeks before May 11th).
Alternatively, they -did- perform at Syracuse University on May
11th. This show was a fund-raising benefit for the Berrigan
brothers, leaders of the US anti-war movement and Roman
Catholic priests who were in jail, having been convicted in
connection with a vandalism incident at a Maryland draft board
office. Except for one quick, "Thanks for helping out!" as
they are leaving the stage, I've noticed no other indication of
a charitable intent for the performance (indeed, the one
mention of fund raising I can think of is a somewhat crass
complaint by Mike Love to the music fans about Capitol Records
having "ripped off" the band of half a million dollars).
Nonetheless, since Syracuse is explicitly given as the venue,
the date of the 11th seems far more likely, given that it's an
error of a single digit. Additional evidence that this
performance took place on May 11th is Badman's parenthetical
note to this performance that "Dennis is absent" from this
show, which is indeed the case as Bruce Johnston(?) announces
before the first song. The case for the 11th is strong enough
in my mind that I have used that date in the file names and ID3
tags associated with the FLAC files.

Sound Quality/Source Notes:
The sound quality on this recording is reasonable but not
great; it's very listenable from start to finish. One
significant flaw is its very butchered editing job. Between
many tracks (but not all?) there is a gap of silence, but it
doesn't sound to me like an otherwise seamless recording that
has had TAO-burned gaps dropped into it. In some cases songs
come to an abrupt halt before all of the reverberating notes
have died out, and then the sound comes back in
as between-song dead air.
Varied vocal and instrument channels usually come through
clearly, leading me to conclude tentatively that this is a
soundboard recording; on the other hand, there are anomalies
that make it clear to me that it's -not- a pure soundboard.
Examples of anomalies would be occasional moments of the
recording suddenly sounding like a distant audience recording
and just as suddenly returning to soundboard like sound. Also
to be heard is what sounds like a police radio (reminiscent of
Spinal Tap's Air Force base performance that led to Nigel's
angry departure from the band), someone whistling a little tune
apparently unrelated to the music being performed and a pretty
egregious cough into an open mic. Also, although I'm aware
that soundboard recordings made from the house soundboard don't
always sound the same as it sounded in the house at the show,
there's something about the mix of this recording that makes me
think that it probably isn't the house PA mix and only the
house PA mix. One purely speculative theory I have based on
these facts is that this recording may have been made by a
Syracuse campus radio station, with some signal from the house
PA board but also maybe other 'ambient' mics and possibly a
(stoned?) student DJ with an open mic from some broadcast
location. So my best guess is that this is an FM broadcast,
thus the categorization of this torrent. But who knows?
Extremely listenable and enjoyable in my opinion.