BRIAN WILSON’S HORROR
It was the second show that freaked me out when Brian Wilson came back to London to do Smile. Before, IN THE SAME VENUE, seeing him do Pet Sounds, long awaited, dreamt of and never thought possible premiere, the heart flew. By the end even old grumps like Paul Weller where bouncing like giddy kids on a charabanc back home from a day at seaside, tummy awash with fizz and froth, head full of sunny idol /sun idyll memories. Hardened Fleet Street Editors were said to have shed salty tears. Sir Paul Macca was in da house! You felt a collective post (and post post) baby boomer whoop. But oh, the Smile sortie. And ah, oh, Christ on a bike, that first night. Oh no. Brian was the first cyrogenic popstar. A man bled and run dry. Divested of publishing, band, hitting the endless road to pay medical bills and fund a wife and family a whole industry of memoribilia, art and memories. A stunned Manchurian Candidate of pop. Pharmacetically programmed to make the cash registers ring. Thats how it seemed anyway, I’m sure the BBC 3/4 documentary spins the story differently. As any marketing exercise would. But I remember feeling that night that Brian was the dupe at the centre of some bizarre rite of which we were all apart. Something which, if watched objectively, by brothas and sistas from another dimension,say, would look kinda fucked up. It started with that folksy in the round round the campfire at night surf song singalong. Brian and the guys and gal on high stool. Real casua llike. K’know - as in A REAL PIECE OF HAM FAKERY THAT SUGGESTED, HEY, BRIAN’S REAL CLOSE AND CONVIVIAL WIT CHA ALL. BUT THE WILSON FACE MASK COULD NOT HIDE THEN, NOR AS THE SET PROGRESSED, INCREASING ABJECT HORROR AND FEAR. In fact the expression on his face soon came to resemble that of a well bred 14 year old lad in a very classy kitchen recently. The young lad’s mother was drinking sherry and talking to friends. He was busying himself with some housework when his mother was heard to tell the friends, “so that ’s when I’m taking the pole dancing classes”. It was the first the lad had heard of it. And his face was, like Brian, momentarily stalled, stuck in a state of shock, fear and horror-apprehension. A look that was anything but a Smile.
