| Tour by the Beach Boys, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi | |
 The group with the Maharishi at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, January 1968. From left: Al Jardine, Dennis Wilson, Mike Love, the Maharishi, Carl Wilson, and Brian Wilson. | |
| Location | United States |
|---|---|
| Associated album | Friends |
| Start date | May 3, 1968 |
| End date | May 6, 1968 (originally scheduled to end on May 21) |
| Legs | 1 |
| No. of shows | 5 (24 further shows canceled) |
In May 1968, the American rock band the Beach Boys undertook a concert tour of the United States with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, their Indian meditation guru. The tour preceded the release of the Beach Boys' Friends album, which similarly reflected the influence of the Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique on the band, and was a commercial and critical failure. The program comprised a set of songs by the Beach Boys, followed by a lecture from the Maharishi on the benefits of meditation. Twenty-nine concerts were originally scheduled, many of them in college venues, but the venture was abandoned after three days of low ticket sales and hostile audience reaction to the Maharishi's segment. The guru's commitment to making a documentary film about himself, for Four Star Television, was cited as a further impediment.
The tour was initiated by Mike Love, who became devoted to TM in December 1967 and joined the Beatles for two weeks at the Maharishi's training course in India in early 1968. Given the Maharishi's popularity when the bookings were made, the Beach Boys hoped that the tour would alleviate the financial shortfall caused by an abortive tour they made in the US South, in April.[1] The Maharishi's spiritual pronouncements held little appeal for the group's fan base, however. Canceling their tour dates with the Maharishi cost the Beach Boys $250,000, and a commentator later described the pairing as "one of the most bizarre entertainments of the era".[2]
- ^ Gaines 1995, p. 197.
- ^ TDIM (May 3, 2014). "The Beach Boys opened their US tour with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1968—3rd May". mtvindia.com. Retrieved April 30, 2018.