The Last Beach

"The Beach Boys In Concert" is a double album of excellent performances of old and new Beach Boys songs in front of enthusiastic crowds on the group's 1972 and 1973 tours. With drummer Dennis Wilson sidelined from his drum set with a broken hand he now freely roamed the stage with a microphone. The fragile peace of the Beach Boys all being in one room at the same time was thrown into chaos each night usually by mid-show. Dennis, often drunk or high, spent the majority of the concerts demanding that people sing along – he would often thrust the microphone into the faces of people in the crowd. As the de facto frontman Mike Love found the unwelcome presence of this loose cannon irritating. Still, whatever drama was playing out on stage every night took a back seat to the one thing the Beach Boys had going for them: their golden song catalog. But that legacy was being tarnished by sloppy singing and playing and infighting amongst the group members on just how many old songs they could stand to play.

The members of Widespread Panic seem to have contented themselves with the notion of the band's audience being exactly what it is. Given the records they've issued in the last couple of years, they no longer seem ambitious about growing to reach anyone else…