Live Review: The Beach Boys

Californian legends The Beach Boys have reunited for a world tour to celebrate their 50^th anniversary – an incredible milestone – and it's sobering looking around to think that only the most elderly of the aging throng moving into BEC were into them at the outset, so even most of the older fans here tonight were relative Beach Boys newbs 30 or 40 years ago. Not that there's any stigma attached to being a late adopter for a bands this iconic, and there's plenty of younger fans here to soak up the classics as well. The air is rife with anticipation from the outset, until the lights dim and the band are introduced one by one, before Mike Love – the de facto master of ceremonies all night – introduces Do It Again and those sublime harmonies fill the air, the timeless music pulsing through the room like a wave and leaving only smiles in its wake. Apart from the five remaining Beach Boys there are nine musicians onstage so the music is lush and full, and there's a big screen behind them that flashes montages of surfing, sunsets and beaches as they kick off with a run of beach-inspired tunes, Little Honda leading into Catch A Wave, Hawaii, Surfin' Safari and Surfer Girl. It's during this last tune that we get out first glimpse of Brian Wilson on the big screen – he's looking a little haggard and worse for wear, and even though he seems alert and into proceedings you can't help wonder how gruelling this massive world tour regimen has been for him. Still, it's slightly surreal seeing him onstage with Love, Al Jardine, David Marks (who hasn't really been a Beach Boy since the early-'60s when he was still in his early-teens, until now) and Bruce Johnston, his genius shining through most brightly with the people who he wrote these amazing songs for in front of him doing his bidding. They rotate turns doing lead vocals, and the first set includes a great cover of The Crystals' Then I Kissed Her, an amazing rendition of Don't Worry Baby with vocal hooks galore, Little Deuce Coupe getting the crowd on their feet and  a brilliant version of I Get Around to usher in the interval.

These guys have earned a break after 80-odd minutes, and on their return Marks offers a solo guitar version of the Pet Sounds instrumental before the gang gather around Brian at his piano, trading verses of Add Some Music To Your Day in a touching moment of camaraderie before the fabulous Heroes And Villains sees Wilson perk up noticeably, before offering a gorgeous I Just Wasn't Made For These Times. We're at the juncture now where the band traded pop hooks for substance and complexity and a different vibe takes over, the onscreen footage of the band cavorting back in the day during Sloop John B fascinating. The crowd get back on their feet for Wouldn't It Be Nice, before they air That's Why God Made The Radio (one of only two tacks played from their new album, nice job) and dedicate Forever to the departed Dennis Wilson and God Only Knows to his deceased brother Carl, complete with moving montages. From here it's a veritable cavalcade of hits – Good Vibrations, California Girls, Help Me Rhonda and Surfin' USA rounding out the set, before they make Brian suffer through the interminable Kokomo and end with the classics Barbara Ann and Fun, Fun, Fun. This band might be long in the tooth, but their three-hour wander down memory lane is an epic experience, and those incredible voices, harmonies and songs make an indelible impression on all who made the effort to witness it.