Brian Wilson at The Calvin, Northampton, MA July 15, 2008

Last night I went to see Brian Wilson at The calvin Theater in Northampton. I went with our very own Brian Marchese and Jason Bourgeois. The Calvin is a beautiful old theater and we were seated up in the balcony. I didn't really know what to expect. I had never seen Brian Wilson before but I had heard that he's not really all there on stage.

He had a band of seven musicians behind him and he sat in the middle on a stool in front of a keyboard...that he only touched once for about fifteen seconds.

The songs, of course, are perfect. The singers in the band were pretty amazing and as I sat there, I thought how fun it must have been for them to work out all their parts. Snare hit here, tambourine there, organ there.

At lots of times during the show, though, I felt kind of like I was in Disney World watching an animatronic performance. Brian Wilson clearly does not have it together. It's obvious that he loves the music but it also seems as though he is going through the motions. I don't mean he seems bored on the stage and that he's phoning in the performance. It seems more like he's been trained to do the things he does on stage. I think he's going through the motions just in general, seems it's the only way he could make it through the day.

During a lot of the songs, his voice was buried in the mix. On others he didn't even sing lead, he just sang some of the backing parts. There he is on the stage, with the spotlight on him, singing a few notes here and there, while all the other musicians are dancing around and singing the main bits. It was really weird.

At one point during the show they suggested that the audience get up and dance. Later when they started Good Vibrations, Wilson said "be seated." The few remaining dancers froze and sat immediately like they had been commanded by god.

Creepy, but funny.

At the first ending, pre-encore. Wilson suddenly stood up and walked a few steps backwards, kind of bowed, and walked off stage while the band finished out the song. The way he stood up all of a sudden, it was like he was radio-controlled, or someone blew a dog whistle that only he could hear.

For the encore, all of the members of the band were introduced. The bass player gave a shout-out to our friend Ray Needs, which was totally out of the blue.

Soon, the encore songs were finishing, the dog-whistle was blown and Wilson stood up, walked back a few steps, kind of bowed and walked off the stage.

The whole scene was really strange. The room was full of people who came to celebrate the life and songs of Brian Wilson. They were ultra supportive of him. There were, pardon me, good vibrations all throughout the room, but I couldn't help feel that everyone was a little weirded out by the way he was treated like a delicate museum piece.

I'm glad I went.