No. 923 – Good Vibrations

Performer: The Beach Boys

Songwriters: Brian Wilson, Mike Love

Original Release: single, Smiley Smile

Year: 1966

Definitive Version: None

This supposedly was my favorite song when I was a little kid. I called it “Good Bibrations.” However the earliest memory I have was when I was almost 4, so instead I’m going to recount the time I saw the Beach Boys in concert at the Ohio State Fair.

I wanted to see the Beach Boys, because, why not? They were legendary, and even though they were more than a decade from their last hit, they still were cool. I knew all the songs and Beth was keen to go too, so that would be our first concert together.

Back then, the big live acts played the (now long demolished) grandstand by the trotter racetrack. The deal was you paid admission to enter the Fairgrounds and then the shows were free. All you had to do was get there early enough to get seats, because the shows were festival seating.

In the summer of 1983, when it was announced that the Beach Boys were going to play the Ohio State Fair, it was a big deal. As you might recall, they had been the center of a controversy earlier that year involving James Watt, Reagan’s notoriously uptight secretary of the Interior. I wasn’t very politically informed back then, so I didn’t really care other than the fact that … the Beach Boys? Really? They bring in the wrong element? Yeah, I suppose compared to Donny & Marie, they do.

But what that meant in practical terms was that the Beach Boys, finding themselves in he news for the first time since who knows when, were suddenly a hot ticket. Beth and I got to the Fair two hours before the Beach Boys’ afternoon set, and the grandstand was already almost full. Fortunately, we were able to get two seats at one of the far ends, so we were in the shade. We both have fair skin, and it could’ve gotten ugly.

It had been a big summer for waiting fa long time or stuff. In May, Beth and I waited in line for 2-1/2 hours to see Return of the Jedi on the first day. Anyway, the grandstand filled up and then the track started to fill up. Beach balls were everywhere.

It was a fun show: The Beach Boys opened with this song and played everything you’d want to hear. And when we got home, we learned that we had been part of a Fairgrounds record crowd: More than 17,000 were estimated to be in attendance.

As it turned out, that record lasted six hours. That night, The Beach Boys somehow drew 51,000. They showed video from a helicopter, and people ringed the entire track. There was no report on how much of the crowd at either show was part of “the bad element,” but I can vouch for at least two of them, Mr. Watt.