The Worlds Greatest Bar Band

Just got home from seeing The Beach Boys at a local outdoor venue. Well, calling them The Beach Boys is akin to calling Roger Daltry “The Who”. By that I mean there is only one original member of the band still around and even though he was an integral part, It still wasn’t like you were seeing the real thing. Don’t get me wrong, I had a real nice time, it’s just that it seemed almost like a cover band. These guys have a better excuse than most bands that go out with only one original member, of the three Wilson Brothers that helped start the band, two are dead and the third has little to do with the band anymore.

It struck me as odd that the concert started at 6 instead of the normal 7:30, all I could figure was that these guys are old and maybe they just couldn’t stay up too late. Either way, it was a good thing I saw the earlier time in the paper. So a friend and I went early enough to get a prime spot on the lawn and we were all set for a show of some of the most popular music in history.


They started just a couple minutes after six and started right up with a number of their early surf tunes. After running through a number of these tunes, lead singer Mike Love took a few minutes to talk to the crowd. He announced that they had just played eight songs and mentioned how large an amount of songs that was without a break. I looked at my watch and it still wasn’t 6:30, they hadn’t even played for 25 minutes. Of course they can play so many songs in such a short time, the average Beach Boy song, especially the early ones were barely over two minutes. I don’t know, it just seemed that Love wasn’t really comfortable talking to the audience. I don’t think he had anything preplanned to talk about and his adlib skills left a lot to be desired considering he’s been doing this for close to 50 years.

Don’t get me wrong; they played all the songs you expected them to play and then some. They hit my two faves, the ones that are on the playlist that is probably playing while you read this, God Only Knows and Don’t Worry Baby but I just didn’t feel any real connection with them. At the end of God Only Knows, Bruce Johnston dedicated the song to Carl Wilson. He being the original lead singer when the song came out a generation ago. That was the only mention of any of the Wilson Brothers and that left me cold. If you’ve read any of my previous posts you know what a fan I am of Brian Wilson and to not even get a mention just seemed wrong. He wrote and produced most every hit the band had and it was disappointing, to say the least.

The crowd didn’t seem to mind and I saw more beach balls in one place than I’d ever seen. It was like a beach party and I guess that’s what one expects at a Beach Boy concert. To me, I don’t know, they seemed almost like a cover band. A good cover band, but still, a cover band.