Brian and Al's show in Indio, CA seems to have gone over well enough. The strangest aspect of the show was that, for some reason as yet unknown, Matt Jardine was not able to make it at the last minute and the band found a stand-in in the form of Chad Odhner of "The Fendertones." Reviews suggest he did a good job for a last-minute stand-in. Keeping in mind this was the entire band's first gig in nearly two months (and they only did the two gigs in July previously this year), and this was Odhner's first ever gig with the band and done with little prep time, it appears they pulled it off quite well.
The setlist saw nothing shocking added, following a similar pattern to the 2013/14 setlists. It's easy to be come jaded about the depth of setlists. This was still a pretty decent setlist for a one-off show done at a casino-type venue:
1. California Girls
2. Dance Dance Dance
3. Catch a Wave
4. Hawaii (Brian & Al?)
5. Shut Down (Al)
6. Little Deuce Coupe (Al)
7. Cottonfields (Al)
8. In My Room
9. Surfer Girl
10. Please Let Me Wonder
11. Girl Don't Tell Me
12. Then I Kissed Her (Al)
13. Pet Sounds
14. Heroes and Villains
15. Darlin' (Darian)
16. Do You Wanna Dance?
17. Don't Worry Baby (Chad?)
18. Do It Again
19. Marcella
20. Sail on Sailor (Scott)
21. Wouldn't It Be Nice (Chad?)
22. Sloop John B (Brian & Al)
23. God Only Knows
24. Good Vibrations
Encore
25. All Summer Long
26. Help Me Rhonda (Al)
27. I Get Around
28. Barbara Ann
29. Surfin' USA
30. Fun Fun Fun
The lead vocalists are not necessarily 100% accurate, as elements of this setlist are taken from the useful but far from reliable "Setlists.fm" website.
In any event, I can't say I wouldn't have been a bit bummed to catch this show with no Matt in attendance, and with a nice but predictable setlist.
But at this stage, Brian's band is a bit like Al's band has been over the past decade-plus. When you only do one-off shows or short spurts of shows, you have to rely on the "meat and potatoes" numbers that don't require intense additional rehearsals. Lucky for us, a "standard" Brian setlist still has some relative "rarities." But they could certainly (and hopefully will) make things more interesting on future shows. They will presumably have some "new album" stuff to work in at some point (latest rumor/indication is an October release for Brian's new album), and I would hope they could perhaps switch out a few tired selections like "Do You Wanna Dance" or "Hawaii" or "Shut Down" for something more interesting. Al always sounds stellar on things like "Then I Kissed Her" and "Cottonfields", but he's been doing these tracks at nearly every C50 or Brian show since 2012. How about "Lookin' at Tomorrow?" Even varying small things would be cool. Let Darian sing "This Whole World" perhaps. Let Matt Jardine sing "Surf's Up."
We of course don't know what the future holds as far as the live shows, and whether Matt Jardine will return. The next scheduled show is the recently added September 27 date in Paso Robles, CA.
