Singing about how they don’t smoke marijuana and “don’t take no trips on LSD,” was not a regular occurrence for the Grateful Dead. But neither was playing with the Beach Boys. And the Dead did both only once, on April 27, 1971, at the Fillmore East.
At the top of the American music scene through most of the 60s, by the early seventies, the Beach Boys were deeply out of favor. So much so that in 1970, the band hired radio DJ Jack Rieley to manage and resurrect them. Rieley encouraged them to write lyrics, ideally socially conscious ones, with more substance that would appeal to modern rock sensibilities. And he made sure that Surf’s Up, the legendary lost tune from the unreleased album Smile, not only made it onto the next album, but also became the title track.
Before the album even came out, Rieley had the band ditch their matching uniforms, grow their hair out, and take on a scruffier look. He also pushed, through the record labels, to get the Beach Boys on stage with the Dead to burnish his band’s countercultural credibility. And so we end up with the Dead doing Okie from Muskogee on stage with the Beach Boys, without Brian Wilson even in the lineup.
Rieley’s plan also brought the Beach Boys a new round of success. Surf’s Up peaked at #15 on the album chart. And the Beach Boys became a top grossing act. ABC-TV aired the concert Good Vibrations from Central Park on August 19. And they played an acclaimed show at Carnegie Hall in the fall. To cap off their rise, Rolling Stone even put them on the cover of the October 28, 1971 issue.
It sounds like the Dead crowd at the Fillmore East had not yet received the message about the Beach Boys here in April; after Jerry introduces “another famous California group, it’s the Beach Boys,” notable boos arise from the audience. But those are put aside for the moment as they all launch into Searchin’ with Pigpen singing lead. Then we get a funky rendition of Cell Block #9 with wailing, psychedelic sirens. At that point, Jerry says, “We’re going to let them do a couple of tunes,” and the boys cede the stage.
The crowd starts to get a little surly as the Beach Boys take a while to get into Good Vibrations. But the audience seems pretty into hearing the iconic song. Towards the end, while attempting to get the crowd to sing along, one of the Beach Boys tries to make cool saying how awesome it was when they sang the same tune all high and drunk on the bus with Buffalo Springfield. The comment certainly didn’t win them any fans. And from that point onwards, the band is practically begging the Dead to come out and join them again as they launch into I Get Around.
The Dead do return to the stage somewhere in the midst of the next tune, Help Me Rhonda. And then we get that incredible Okie from Muskogee. The Dead playing that tune alongside the Beach Boys at the the Fillmore East is a moment of high comedy and another inimitable moment in the history of the Grateful Dead. Afterwards, the boys – the beach variety and the Dead ones – blast through a “good boogie” of a Johnny B. Goode before the guests leave the stage.
The Beach Boys are rightly revered as one of the most influential bands – and Pet Sounds as one of the most influential albums – in rock and roll history. But at the time, few musicians would have taken the band too seriously, much less be seen on the same stage as them. Perhaps Jerry and the rest of the Dead were once again on the cutting edge, recognizing the Beach Boys’ importance in the birth and evolution of rock and roll before the rest of the industry.
Leave a Reply