Bruce Johnston (left) and Mike Love at the San Diego show, 2024 (Photo by Thomas K. Arnold, used with permission)
Sixty-three years after their first single, “Surfin’,” was released on the tiny Candix Records label, the Beach Boys are still a hell of a lot of fun, fun, fun.
Let that sink in for moment. John F. Kennedy was president, the Berlin Wall was being built and the Beatles were still playing the Cavern Club in Liverpool.
And before Kennedy was shot, the wall was finished and the Fab Four played The Ed Sullivan Show, the Beach Boys were “sitting on top of the world,” as they sang on “Catch a Wave,” off their third album, 1963’s Surfer Girl.
The Beach Boys’ nearly two-hour show on Sept. 1. 2024, at the Rady Shell, a gorgeous amphitheater on the shores of San Diego Bay that can accommodate up to 10,000, saw what’s known as “America’s Band” do what they’ve done pretty much nonstop for the last 50 years: perform their rich catalog of early hits, with occasional deep cuts and covers (including the Ramones’ “Rockaway Beach”), to three generations of adoring fans.
Mike Love, San Diego, 2024 (Photo by Thomas K. Arnold, used with permission)
They’re delivering the California dream, with the promise of sun, surf, and endless summers, just as they did in the early 1960s, when they rode that promise to unsurpassed popularity. All told, the Beach Boys scored 37 Top 40 hits on the U.S. pop charts, more than any other American band.
Related: The story behind “Good Vibrations”
Watching the Boys today, on their “Endless Summer Gold” tour, is a bittersweet experience. None of the three Wilson brothers are still with the band—Dennis and Carl are dead, and Brian is said to suffer from a major neurocognitive disorder—and over the years there’s been lots of bad blood over songwriting credits, memoirs and rights to the Beach Boys name.
Watch the Beach Boys perform “Help Me, Rhonda” at another 2024 show
But Mike Love, who sang lead on, and co-wrote, many of the band’s early hits, and Bruce Johnston, an underrated singer-songwriter who first joined the band in 1965, deserve a lot of credit for keeping alive not just the spirit of the original Beach Boys, but also the sound. Almost from the very beginning, there have always been two Beach Boys: a recording group, led by Brian Wilson and consisting mostly of the Wrecking Crew and other session musicians, and a touring group, which after each album was tasked with recreating the Beach Boys sound on the concert stage.
Wilson’s much-ballyhooed “genius” period didn’t last very long, peaking with 1966’s Pet Sounds album, and as both the quality and the quantity of his songwriting diminished, the other band members stepped up, particularly after 1977’s inconsequential The Beach Boys Love You LP, which was supposed to be Brian’s big comeback recording. The touring group stole the spotlight, and it’s been that way ever since.
Jon Bolton (Photo by Thomas K. Arnold, used with permission)
Love’s tenor is as strong as it’s ever been, while Johnston’s vocals are an essential part of the Beach Boys’ harmonies that are still very much intact. And while the Brian-über-alles crowd might not agree, the current touring group is probably the finest one yet, particularly with the recent addition of drummer and singer Jon Bolton, a scene-stealing showman whose rendition of “Darlin’” was one of the evening’s many high points. The Energizer Bunny has nothing over this guy, and the audience reacted in kind, rising to its feet to give him one of the evening’s most enthusiastic responses.
Christian Love, 2024 (Photo by Thomas K. Arnold, used with permission)
A special callout must be given to Christian Love, Mike Love’s oldest son, who through a stroke of luck, talent or genetics—maybe all three—channels the late Carl Wilson, his dad’s cousin, with passion, finesse and aplomb. His angelic vocals on “God Only Knows” were positively chilling, and he more than did justice to what many consider Brian Wilson’s finest song. He repeated the feat with “Good Vibrations,” the complex masterpiece hailed by critics as one of the most important songs in rock ’n’ roll.
Christian Love’s versatility came into play when he sang lead on two other songs by ex-Beach Boys: “Help Me Rhonda,” originally sung by Al Jardine, and “Sail On Sailor,” sung by brief Beach Boy Blondie Chaplin for the band’s 1973 Holland album. He also shone on his own “Sum Sum Summer,” a catchy song with a calypso feel that appears on his 2023 solo album, Only Alibis.
John Stamos at the 2024 show (Photo by Thomas K. Arnold, used with permission)
Part-time Beach Boy John Stamos, the ageless actor best remembered for TV’s Full House, also did a stellar subbing job for Dennis Wilson on “Forever,” a remarkable ballad from 1970’s Sunflower album, as well as a duet with Mike Love on “Sloop John B,” a Bahamian folk song the Beach Boys interpreted on Pet Sounds.
Backing the singer were keyboardist Timmy Bonhomme, a veteran of the touring band since 1995; saxophonist Randy Leago; rhythm guitarist Brian Eichenberger; bassist Keith Hubacher; and guitarist John Wedemeyer.
Watch Stamos sing “Forever” at a 2023 San Diego show
The Beach Boys’ set didn’t focus solely on such early chartbusters as “Surfin’ Safari,” “Surfer Girl,” “I Get Around,” “Good Vibrations,” “Little Honda” and “Fun Fun Fun,” the show’s final song. They also performed such deeper cuts as “It’s OK,” from 1976’s 15 Big Ones and a cover of “I Can Hear Music,” originally recorded by the Ronettes, from 1969’s 20/20.
Watch the Beach Boys perform “Don’t Worry Baby” in San Diego, one year earlier
Appropriately enough, the concert opened with “Do It Again,” also off 20/20. At the time, the band’s popularity was plummeting, and the song was a call back to their earlier positioning as the “No. 1 Surfing Group in the Country,” as their second album cover proclaimed.
Let’s hope they keep doing it—again, and again, and again.
Watch the band perform “Do It Again” on a previous 2024 show
Tickets to see the Beach Boys are available here.
11 Comments so far
Jump into a conversationWhat BS! Brian Wilson was and remains the soul of The Beach Boys; Love is a pariah.
I agree 100%. This cover band is awful !!!!
The statement “Almost from the very beginning, there have always been two Beach Boys: a recording group, led by Brian Wilson and consisting mostly of the Wrecking Crew and other session musicians, and a touring group, which after each album was tasked with recreating the Beach Boys sound on the concert stage” is inaccurate.
Brian Wilson used studio musicians to augment the regular Beach Boys group on recordings from 1963-1965.
He used them more or less exclusively on two albums: PET SOUNDS, released in 1966, and SMILE, released in 2011.
Just watched the ‘Do It Again’ video. Between John Stamos strutting around the stage like a rock star (which he isn’t) and Mike Love’s terrible vocal, I couldn’t stop shaking my head in disbelief. This isn’t the Beach Boys. It’s Mike Love and a cover band. Nothing more, and it’s a disgrace to the REAL Beach Boys!
Is Love singing in another key on “Do It Again?” After that wonderfully strung out, glorious into, that was like falling off a cliff.
Yes, he started out in the wrong key, but he quickly corrected himself … to being mostly out of tune in the right key.
“Wilson’s much-ballyhooed “genius” period didn’t last very long, peaking with 1966’s Pet Sounds album, and […] both the quality and the quantity of his songwriting diminished” is a heck of an assertion. While there were certainly a number of tracks on “Surf’s Up” that I would prefer to skip over, the title track (a collaboration with Vandyke Parks) is one of the greatest works of rock music ever created. And “Sail On Sailor” and “Trader” on Holland are among the finest of the BB’s output. Sure, the albums are uneven and spotty, so maybe the “quantity” part of your statement has some basis in fact, but not the “quality” part.
You are absolutely correct . Carl and Dennis must be spinning in their graves about this horrendous cover band.
I agree, this Thomas Arnold character knows nothing about the beach boys and their history
So where is Al Jardine??
He doesn’t perform in this lineup.