What a good idea the Beach Boys are.
If all they’d ever done was sing that Chuck Berry-style rock ’n’ roll about surfing and cars and girls, they’d have earned some kind of immortality.
But by deepening and darkening their approach – introducing themes of loneliness, insecurity and alienation to the AM radio dial while exploring lush, multi-part harmonies and new instruments and song structures – the Beach Boys ended up creating some of the most interesting pop music of the 20th century.
They rode in on the surf boom of the early ’60s, but there never really was any other artist like them. They invented their own space in American culture, which now seems unimaginable without them. And now they take the show on the road each year, a fixture of summer, bringing that warm California sun to generations of fans.
The party – Mike Love, Bruce Johnston and a gang of sidemen who do a decent job of replicating the vocals of Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson – rolled into the Kennedy Center here on Tuesday, joined by the National Symphony Orchestra for nearly three hours of classics.
Conducted by Vinay Parameswaran, the orchestra prepared the crowd an overture that excerpted some of Brian Wilson’s richest material: “God Only Knows,” “In My Room,” “Good Vibrations.” Love, Johnston and the rest strode onstage to pound out a workmanlike “Do It Again,” then took off with a run of early surf hits: “Surfin’ Safari,” “Catch A Wave,” “Surfin’ USA” and “Surfer Girl.”
The setlist proceeded more or less chronologically through the Beach Boys’ catalog. After surf hits came psychedelia. The emotional centerpiece was the six-song run through “Pet Sounds,” the group’s 50-year-old masterwork, with highlights including “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” “Sloop John B.,” “Caroline No” and “You Still Believe In Me.”
Other high points: A rocking “Darlin’,” with longtime sideman Jeffrey Foskett nailing the lead vocal, and “God Only Knows,” with the band singing and playing along with a vintage recording of the late Carl Wilson.
Like many of their peers, the Beach Boys sound better onstage now than they did in their 1960s and 1970s golden age. Modern technology has given bands more control of their live sound. Touring band members Foskett, Brian Eichenberger, Scott Totten and John Cowsill were skilled at reproducing the harmonies on the records, and Love’s voice – slightly adenoidal, as it ranges across octaves – remains remarkably unchanged.
Unlike their peers, the band spent little time on nostalgia. A large video screen behind the orchestra mixed footage of hot rods, surfers and women in bikinis with vintage clips of the band, but in his limited stage patter, Love spoke more about safeguarding the environment for the future than dwelling on the past.
He did offer an interesting musical lesson that helped illuminate a source of the band’s distinctive sound. He spoke of his cousin Brian Wilson’s obsession with the Four Freshmen, and then led the group in an a capella version of that combo’s “Their Hearts Were Full of Spring,” a 1961 tale of love and loss that provided a clear prototype for the kind of harmonies that Brian Wilson would soon be exploring.
Another interesting diversion: Love’s unreleased “Pisces Brothers,” about his friendship with George Harrison, and their 1968 trip to India to study with the Maharishi – the trip during which the Beatles would write the bulk of the White Album.
The National Symphony Orchestra was fine on the early rock, but they were there for the more sophisticated pop: “California Girls,” “The Warmth Of The Sun,” and, of course, “Good Vibrations,” which came out exactly as you’d want: bright, sun-kissed, booming.
Setlist:
Do It Again
Surfin’ Safari
Catch a Wave
Surfin’ U.S.A.
Surfer Girl
Why Do Fools Fall in Love?
When I Grow Up to be a Man
Darlin’
Be True To Your School
Kiss Me Baby
California Dreaming
California Girls
Then I Kissed Her
Summer in Paradise
Don’t Worry Baby
Little Deuce Coupe
Their Hearts Were Full of Spring
Here Today
You Still Believe in Me
I’m Waiting for the Day
Caroline No
Sloop John B.
Wouldn’t it Be Nice
The Warmth of the Sun
Disney Girls
God Only Knows
Pisces Brothers
Do You Wanna Dance
Kokomo
Help Me, Rhonda
Good Vibrations
Barbara Ann
Fun, Fun, Fun
