Uncanny

ALLMUSIC “The good side of this DVD collection lies in the sheer quantity, presenting no less than two-hours-and-twenty-minutes of footage of the Beach Boys in 1968 and 1969. Taken from television clips, promotional films, and a 55-minute film documentary of their 1968 European tour, the image quality ranges from good to excellent. The flipside to keep in mind is that, with the exception of the performances of "Do It Again" and "Good Vibrations" on their October, 1968 appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, all of the clips are mimed, not live. That goes even for the European tour documentary, where scenes of the band playing on-stage are matched to obviously unsynced official recordings; it also even goes for their nine-song show on Dutch TV in December, 1968. Too, Brian Wilson does not appear at all, though of course much of his music is heard (especially considering that records supply the bulk of the soundtrack). All that borne in mind, this functions best as a document of how the band were looking and acting in the late 1960s, rather than how they were sounding as a performing group. If you do enjoy mimed clips and promo films, however, it's hard to imagine a more thorough document, including some fairly obscure late-'60s songs like "Celebrate the News," "Break Away," "Never Learn Not to Love," "Cottonfields," and "Bluebirds Over the Mountain." (There are also numerous songs that aren't so obscure, including a bunch of their mid-'60s hits.) The European tour film does give a little glimpse of what they were thinking, in contrived sequences in which each bandmember does a little narrative about himself, as well as many shots of the guys horsing around backstage and in the various cities through which they traveled. Even at this point, however, they were starting to anticipate their future as an oldies band -- one imagines they might not have been overjoyed to be doing a mime to "Surfin' USA" on German TV in 1969, not even bothering (save Dennis Wilson) to appear with their instruments. If you're paying attention to what instruments they're playing, incidentally, one oddity to note is the "Celebrate the News" clip, where Dennis steps to the mike to mime his lead vocal and Carl Wilson (!) takes his place on drums.” – Richie Unterberger