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A review by Rick Mannor:
The Michigan Theater was full, and my wife and I were sitting in the 6th row. Steve Dahl opened the show by introducing Brian, and this segued into a 15 minute video detailing Brian's life up to this point.
The video was made up of clips from various specials, only about 10% of it was new to me. The crowd applauded when clips were shown of Carl and Dennis. They also applauded when the Pet Sounds album was shown. There were some interesting inclusions in the video, such as "I'm In Great Shape" from the Endless Harmony Soundtrack.
After the video, someone led Brian to his place on stage. He looked pretty nervous at first, but he relaxed after a few songs. His weight is way down, and he's looking really good. He was wearing a black short-sleaved dress shirt and black pants. His voice was strong and he sang confidently.
The stage was pretty small. Brian was center stage, sitting on a stool behind a keyboard. Jeff Foskett was to his right, playing guitar. As Todd mentioned, Jeff seemed to be directing the band. Jeff was wearing a pin with a picture of Carl on it. Joe Thomas was on Brian's left, playing a baby grand piano. Behind them were the Wondermints, 3 backing vocalists, Steve Dahl, and several additional musicians (including Paul Mertens who played some awesome flute and sax solos). The whole band had a great sound with excellent backing vocals.
They played two 45 minute sets with a 15 minute intermission. Brian got a standing ovation after almost every song, and the audience stayed on their feet for most of the second set. There was one encore, and the crowd went nuts for about 10 minutes trying to get another one. Jeff doubled Brian's lead vocal on about 30% of the songs. On the rest, Brian was up front on his own and did a great job. I think my favorite song of the night was GOK, where Brian turned in a beautiful lead and took the second part in the round at the end.
There were two prompters of some kind, one in front of Brian and one to his right. They looked like a big wooden box with an angled piece of clear plastic over them. You could see through the plastic, so I'm assuming they were like a two-way mirror and the words were projected on the back side (Lauri?). I didn't notice that Brian was using them until the show was about 1/2 over. The only songs where he seemed to rely on the prompters were the ones from Imagination. He shifted his gaze from one prompter to the other, which made it much less obvious.
I believe Brian's keyboard was mixed out, most if not all of the time. At one point he was plunking silently away during an extended drum solo.
I met TR Gerard at the concert. It was neat to converse with a fellow lister face-to-face, and TR is a very nice person.
I also met David Leaf during the intermission. He was very friendly, and said he would tell Brian that we were enjoying the show. He indicated that tomorrow's show would be taped with an eye toward producing a live album.
They were selling Brian Wilson merchandise at the concert. A kinda-plain tee shirt for $20, a cool hat for $20, and a cool sweat shirt for $40. (I bought the hat)
Well, I need to hit the hay. It's nearly 4:00 AM. My ears are ringing, my voice is gone, and I'm extremely happy.
Rick