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The Beach Boys? Well, sort of. Dennis and Carl Wilson are dead. Brian Wilson is far from well, despite much wishful thinking. Al Jardine is recuperating after a court battle with singer Mike Love who somehow owns the name.
So it was Love’s version, with David Marks (briefly a Beach Boy in the early Sixties), long-term touring stalwart Bruce Johnston, extravagantly gifted drummer John Cowsill and four faceless sessioneers, that played for three hours on Friday.
And what a strange but beguiling business it was. Marks disappeared for a full, unexplained hour; there were bonkers yet pointless versions of Why Do Fools Fall in Love? and California Dreaming; an unspeakable three-song interlude inspired by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Love’s financially secure, recently deceased guru.
Strangest of all was the variably voiced Love, a five-times married 67-year-old whose hideous baseball cap suggested he has still to fully embrace his baldness. Not without wit (the interval, he suggested, was an opportunity for “good libations”), he moved as if wading through treacle and left much of the singing to his bandmates.
With surprising oomph, they hurtled through magical hits (albeit omitting the more complex harmonies on I Get Around and Sloop John B) and aficionado-delighting choice album tracks such as ’Till I Die alike. Not quite The Beach Boys then but much more than a pale facsimile.
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