Wow. That’s all I can say. Last night I saw Brian Wilson on his Pet Sounds tour. Now I will freely admit that I’m not totally familiar with the Beach Boys catalogue. In fact, for years I hated them because they were that band that did Sloop John B that my crazy music teacher made me sing in Year 6 choir, where we had an argument with another school at the performance because they were singing the same song, and they were disputing our addition of the harmony “Bahama, bahama” as my teacher’s contribution to ‘improving the song’.

Anyway, I came to learn that Brian is deaf in his right ear, and that he prefers mono. Now this earns him big points from me, because I have this in common with Brian, albeit under different circumstances. I was born with unilateral atresia microtia, essentially missing my right ear and being deaf on that side. And thus I too, cannot hear stereo, and much prefer mono.

Last night, I felt that the mix of the music was, as Brian liked to say often, “just for me”, because for once there was none of that stereo trickery crap and I could actually enjoy the music without thinking that I was missing a little something here and there.

Thanks, Brian.