tubegroover---I also saw them on that 1972 tour, and you're right---they had become a very good live band by that point, much "heavier" than their 60's version. I couldn't get most of the musicians I knew to listen to Smiley Smile in '68, but they went over great with The Fillmore audience in '72. Of course, musician's are (generally) a snobby lot! Dennis' right (I think it was) arm was in a cast, and he played only some piano that night, on some songs just singing. Ricky played drums of course, and very well (he's a better drummer than Dennis). By the way, that's Ricky playing George Harrison in The Beatles parody movie The Rutles (done by Eric Idle of Monty Python and Neil Innes of The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. TBDDDB is the band playing in the basement scene in The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour movie).
As for Papa Doo Run Run---don't bother. That Mobile Fidelity album is the most lifeless, dead, boring version of The Beach Boys you can imagine. PDRR came out of Cupertino (both the original drummer Jim Shippey and The Chocolate Watchband---seen in the cult classic movie Riot on Sunset Strip---drummer Gary Andrijesavich played side-by-side in the Cupertino High School Marching Band!), and here's their story: In 1967 they were just another Cupertino Top 40 cover band (we had hundreds of them) named The Zu (later Goody Two Shoes), about average in talent. Jim got drafted, and The Zu invited me to audition for the job of Jim's replacement (I had been in a Group with Zu guitarist Mike McLemore in '65-6). I passed the audition (which took the form of a couple of live shows with them) and was invited to join, but declined. I was auditioning them too, and I was already in a far better Group, one whose set list included "Wild Honey" and "How She Boogalooed It", both from the Wild Honey album. How hip is THAT?! The Zu weren't the least bit Beach Boys fans, by the way.
Skip ahead to 1974, when I was working in a 30's-40's-50's Jump Blues/Swing Band. Our booking agent calls with a gig opening for the now-named Papa Doo Run Run at a San Jose High School. We get to the auditorium, and here comes bassist Jim Rush, staring at and walking directly to me. We reach each other, and while the other PDRR members are exchanging greetings with me, Jim says: "So Eric, we're both playing old music now. Except we make a lot of money". !?!? Somewhere along the line, they had gotten a great response to Beach Boys/Jan & Dean material at their shows, and decided to work up a whole set of it. That went over so well (think back to the new music being offered in '74---oy!), they decided to specialize at it. They have been doing Corporate parties ever since, and making, yes, a lot of money. But they are still just average at best. In fact, at Beach Boys vocal music, below average. And Jim is in Cupertino/San Jose widely considered to be an obnoxious a-hole. Jim is no longer in PDRR, nor is Mike. Rhythm guitarist/lead vocalist Steve Dromensk, a heck of a swell guy, died a couple of years back
Last Beach Boys story: In 1981 I was doing a little show at a dive bar in Venice (California, of course), and the band's guitarist, knowing I was a Brian Wilson "nut" (I had been playing Smiley Smile, or trying to, to every musician I met from '68 onward), came over to me on a break and said "Hey, there's somebody here you want to meet". It was Dennis, sitting alone at a little table, having a drink. I complimented him on Pacific Ocean Blue, and he actually got embarrassed. He couldn't have been a nicer guy.
