A very long concert, everyone on stage seemed to be having a blast. Randell Kirsch is definitely one of the better falsetto singers the Beach Boys have had (not quite up to Jeff Foskett or Matt Jardine, but well above Adrian Baker) and seemed to be having a great time; he played the “Surfin’ Safari” solo with the guitar behind his head and Mike Love yelled “king of the surf guitar!” Scott Totten’s guitar leads were fantastic as always, during the “Dance, Dance, Dance” guitar solo his strap came undone, but he managaed to still play a hot solo while holding his guitar up. John Cowsill seemed to be having a blast, and his vocals were spot on; his lead on “Darlin’” was very soulful and admirably close to Carl Wilson (but not quite!), his vocal on “Kokomo” was dead-on Carl, and his lead on “Help Me Rhonda” was spectacular. John was very interesting to watch as he would sometimes switch between percussion and keyboards many times during certain songs. Tim Bonhomme’s keyboards were excellent, he’s everything Mike Meros used to be to the Beach Boys as a keyboardist. Chris Farmer seemed to be having a good time, but didn’t say much; Mike Kowalski’s drums, as usual, lacked feeling and were competent at best (a new drummer has been needed for a long time… anyone who sees Bobby Figuerora play with Al or especially Jim Hines play with Brian can tell you that an expressive drummer can make a world of difference in the sound.) The vocal blend was perfect tonight, they really did pull off a classic Beach Boys sound. Bruce’s vocals were sketchy at the beginning of the concert, but he had everything pulled together by his most important vocal of the evening, “God Only Knows” (dedicated to Dennis and Carl.) Mike seemed to be having fun, not as “workmanlike” as he was when I saw the Beach Boys in March. However, I was bothered by how much attention he was paying to the high school girls that were selling popcorn in the stands, he invited one of the girls to “deliver popcorn to me personally at my hotel room” and he and Bruce made a crack about how they don’t know whether to propose or adopt girls anymore. The same girls, incidentally, were pulled on stage to dance and sing during “Help Me Rhonda,” “Barbara Ann,” and “Rock and Roll Music.” There were some other teenage girls at the side of the stage that I think must have been friends or family of the band, particularly a pretty blond girl that Mike talked to many times and pulled on stage to slow dance during “Surfer Girl.” Mike, Bruce, and John joked with these girls many times during the show and pulled them on many times to dance and sing. The setlist was very pleasing, as it had all the hard hitting crowd pleasers, but it also had some rarities that I most definitely wasn’t expecting. I’ve thought they should play “It’s OK” for years, so I was blown away and excited when Mike came in with the opening lines. “Still Cruisin’”, although trite lyrically, has always been a song that I’ve liked, among the last 5 “great songs” the Boys recorded (and released) after “Kokomo” (the others being “Somewhere Near Japan,” “Island Girl,” “In My Car” and “Strange Things Happen.”) The appearance of “Surfin’” was also pleasing, although it’s not really a “rarity” it doesn’t seem to be performed that much. The band had a lot of fun during that one, with Chris completely blowing the first line, causing the others to tease him and laugh.
The “setup” for “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?” seemed to last much longer than last time, the intro was done 3 times, and Bruce and Mike did a boy band parody while Tim played some stupid cheesy processed keyboard parts. Mike’s son Christian called Mike on his cell phone after, I think, “When I Grow Up” and Mike had the crowd yell “Hi Christian!” which was pretty funny. All in all, it was a great concert, the band was very on, and they did a great, crowd pleasing 40 song (!) set.
Contributed by: Tommy McCord