Nov. 13, 1974 Review: The Beach Boys in the Niagara Falls Convention Center

 

Beginning with this date, the kings of surf rock catch a Western New York wave. 

Nov. 13, 1974

Surf’s Still Up for Beach Boys 

NIAGARA FALLS – There’s a certain delicious vindication for old fans like me in seeing the Beach Boys riding high again on an unexpected revival and selling out the Niagara Falls Convention Center.

          It’s a revenge made keen by all those psychedelic and heavy metal years when you’d get abused without mercy for any hint of affection for the kings of the early ‘60s surf sound.

          But the scoffers weren’t out Tuesday night. They’ve grown up and stayed home. Instead, the median age is about 15 – high schoolers sneaking their first cigarettes and guzzling illicit beers in the traffic jam on the way up.

          The kids come because the Beach Boys resonate with the passions of youth. They stand for fast cars, yearning romances, the beach, the sun and the fun, fun, fun of endless summers.

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AND THEY keep singing, even though they’ve grown as old as their fans of 12 years ago – Mike Love and Al Jardine in their early 30s now, wearing spiffy hats to hide the thinning hair on top.

          So backstage Love hugs his fiancée, a dark Hawaiian lady in a full-length mink, and talks about how Transcendental Meditation (he and Jardine are certified TM teachers) has relieved the stress of the year. And Dennis Wilson shows off the plush motor home he’s rented for the tour.

          But onstage, in a jungle of potted plants and flowers, they’re kids again, celebrating the joys within “Little Deuce Coupe” and “Surfin’ U.S.A.”

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ALL THIS despite the departure of Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar, Dennis playing drums for the first time in three years and a TM native of nearby Olcott, Ron Altbach, formerly with King Harvest, taking over the piano after just one rehearsal.

          This being the first stop on an abbreviated fall tour, they start late, the arrangements aren’t quite crisp and the 95-minute show, once a gourmet menu of old, middle and latter-day favorites, has been infused with unfamiliar cuts.

          Like the shimmery TM number, “All This Is That” and the old lonely “Warmth of the Sun” and “I’m Waitin’ for the Day” off the “Pet Sounds” album and one called “Catch a Wave” (“and you’re sittin’ on top of the world …”).

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THE KIDS tolerate these and later hits like “California Saga” and “Heroes and Villains.” They uncork for “Sloop John B,” “I Get Around,” “Good Vibrations” and “Barbara Ann,” all endless summer sagas, all eternal youth.

          Unadvertised openers were the Raspberries, who borrow the Beach Boys’ high harmonies in their hits “Go All the Way” and “Overnight Sensation (Hit Record).”

          But the hits didn’t hit and the four were not nearly as fresh as their records. They struck two rhythms – one fast, one slow. Though they’re only maybe 22 or 23, they sounded the way the Beach Boys never sound: Old.

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IN THE PHOTO: Ticket stub from the Niagara Falls show.

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FOOTNOTE: Band at this point included founding members Mike Love, Al Jardine, Carl Wilson and Dennis Wilson, plus rhythm guitarist Ed Carter, singer and keyboardist Billy Hinsche, keyboardist Carli Munoz, vocalist and percussionist Bobby Figueroa and bassist James Guercio, former producer of Chicago who soon became their manager. The most famous founding member, Brian Wilson, did not return until the “Brian’s Back” tour in 1976.

          As for newly-added keyboardist Ron Altbach, he stuck around, touring, writing songs and doing sessions. He played on the group’s “L.A. (Light Album)” and co-produced the “MIU Album.” He left the Beach Boys at one of their low points in 1979, then was executive producer of a concert album and TV show in 1983 that included the Beach Boys, America, Ringo Starr and Three Dog Night. He also was a member of Celebration, originally Waves, a group of musicians who had toured with the Beach Boys that was put together by Mike Love to promote TM.

          The son of a physician in Olcott, Ron started playing piano at age 4. In a college band at Cornell University, where he was a pre-med major, he played frat parties. When it disbanded, everyone in it migrated to France and reunited in Paris, where Ron had gone to study piano with the legendary Nadia Boulanger. They became King Harvest, named after a song by The Band, and had one big hit, “Dancing in the Moonlight.” Ron is responsible for its signature electric piano intro.

          King Harvest was playing clubs in the Buffalo area in 1974 until Ron left to become a professor at the Maharishi International Institute in Iowa. In an interview with a Beach Boys blogger, he explained what was happening:

          “I had met Mike Love in the Spring of 1973 in New York. Then in 1974 I sailed over to Toronto (his father was commodore of the Olcott Yacht Club) to see the Beach Boys when they played at the CNE. There was talk of me joining the band, but when I met Carl it seemed he really didn’t hear anything from those guys for several months, until some time in October. I had just arrived in Switzerland to spend some time with the Maharishi and then go to Nepal with him to teach TM. But the day I arrived in Switzerland I received a call from Rick Nelson, the Beach Boys’ road manager, and was asked to come on the next tour.”

          When his father died in 1991, Ron was living in L.A., but he came back to the East Coast to be a merchant banker in Manhattan. He went on establish his own firm, Regeneration Capital Group, in 2008.

          He still is very much a piano player and it’s a bit of a miracle. As he explains in the notes on bandcamp.com for a 2011 recital, available as a free download, he was partially paralyzed after surgery in 2010 (a mitral valve in his heart was repaired) and he was unable to use his left arm. Through concentration and practice, he recovered enough to play this concert of classical pieces on the first anniversary of his procedure. He then continued to give an annual classical recital for small audiences in New York. The one from 2014 is available in its entirety on YouTube.

          He played a King Harvest reunion in Olcott in mid-July 2012 that coincided with a Newfane High School all-class reunion. Earlier that month, he and vocalist Dave “Doc” Robinson joined Huey Lewis & The News onstage at Artpark to perform “Dancing in the Moonlight,” which can be seen on YouTube. They came together in Olcott again in 2013 to pay tribute to Doc, who died in late 2012. Ron wrote a song about him for the occasion. A 2021 article by Kiki Dy in beltmag.com notes that Ron has a home in the south of France, a Manhattan apartment in Chelsea and a summer place in Olcott.