I got e-mail telling me Buffalo Springfield did not play at Fordham University, they canceled.

I’ve got a very good memory.  But that doesn’t mean I can’t be wrong.  I asked the naysayer if he was at the Fordham gig.  He said yes.  And then when I a second e-mail came in, stating that the Chambers Brothers replaced the Springfield and opened for Arlo Guthrie, the headliner, I knew they were right, because I remember the Chambers Brothers playing "Time Has Come Today", as well as the closer, the Union Gap, playing their huge hit "Young Girl" twice and Arlo saying there were three versions of "Alice’s Restaurant" and we didn’t know which one he was going to play, and we didn’t, and he didn’t play the famous one involving trash and Thanksgiving but another involving LSD and then President Johnson saying he was paranoid…

But I was sure I’d seen Buffalo Springfield.  I knew they were booked twice at gigs I was scheduled to see.  And that they’d canceled one.  But I thought the other was as an opener for Sly & The Family Stone at the Garden.  But then the blocks in my brain rearranged themselves and I remembered.

It was at Fairfield University.  Stephen Stills said someone was sick.

I just read online it was Bruce Palmer.

And I also read online that the date was November 20, 1967.

It was a five act bill.

Four musical groups and a comedian in between, who I also couldn’t remember, but just read online was the Pickle Brothers.

Huh?

Who knows.

But I do know the other four acts.

There was the Strawberry Alarm Clock.

Yes, they played "Incense and Peppermints".

And the Soul Survivors.  Who did an explosive version of "Expressway To Your Heart" that just about blew the roof off the joint.

And Stills sang "For What It’s Worth".

Don’t get the wrong idea, it wasn’t hits only, the gig went on until just about midnight, I remember using the pay phone to call my dad to pick us up, every act played a set, if not full, comprising many numbers.

And the headliner was the Beach Boys.

When they were no longer hip.

They’d had the last hurrah the year before, with "Good Vibrations".  But rock and roll has a short memory, especially back in the sixties.

But I was the biggest Beach Boys fan on the planet.  I bought every album.  Even "Wild Honey", which was released shortly thereafter and not only contained the title track but a killer cover of "I Was Made To Love Her"…no one could sing like Carl.

Actually, I passed on the follow-up, "Friends", and couldn’t find it for years, didn’t own it until the CD era, but I was sick of getting shit for being a fan of this has-been band.

But they were my favorite.

The Beach Boys are why I live in California.  It’s the land of possibilities.

And after skipping "Friends" I started buying again.  With "20/20" and then the surprising "Sunflower" and then the album that brought them back, made them cool again, "Surf’s Up".

Then again, they started to be cool once more when Bill Graham chose them to help close the Fillmore East, which was simulcast on FM and was even more important than watching the video feed of Bonnaroo and Coachella because it was the last one.  Nothing ends anymore.  They just wait a while and repackage it, everybody needs the money.

The concert was in the gym.  The Springfield was good.

But the Beach Boys were transcendent.

Before we knew Mike Love was a Republican, never mind a narcissist.

When Dennis was just the drummer, never mind the coolest cat on the planet, dating Christine McVie yet befriending Charles Manson.

And when Carl Wilson was still alive.  The glue keeping the old band together.

Yes, Al Jardine sang "Help Me Rhonda".

But I needed to hear the surf hits.  And the car hits.  And they played both.  And Mike Love even broke out the theremin.

Back before Katy Perry ripped off the uncopyrightable title and changed the spelling to be hip, we certainly wished they all could be "California Girls".

Nothing popped out of the transistor like that before.  I’d have the radio strapped to the handlebars of my Raleigh and when I’d hear that orchestral intro, with the horn flourish, my heart would start to palpitate, I’d begin to swoon.

And then when the jaunty organ intro prefaced the verse I’d start to smile, believing life was all about possibilities, and if something could sound this good life would truly be an adventure.

Yes, you can go see the progenitor in ever-decreasing halls and he’ll play the music but you won’t be able to see the most important thing.  The creativity.  The writing.  The direction in the studio to get the players to lay down what he heard in his head.

A genius is someone who digests all the influences and creates something brand new.

Brian Wilson is a genius.

But the Beach Boys were a group.

And when they played this music on stage my entire fourteen years stood in relief.  From getting the gumption to ask Jill Philipson to dance to the strains of "Do You Wanna Dance?" at Camp Laurelwood to hearing "I Get Around" on the jukebox at the Nutmeg Bowl to trying to comb my hair just like theirs, mimicking Dennis’s doo on the back of "Surfin’ USA".

They say that that was a singles era.  But a true fan always bought the albums.

I knew every note.

I was elated that cold almost winter night in ’67.

And when the music pours out of the speakers today, listening to "California Girls", I’m just as happy.