Charter-member Mike Love leads the 2016 edition of the Beach Boys back to the Basie for a winter’s night of summer vibrations.
“The Count Basie‘s a great place to play,” pedigreed Beach Boy Mike Love told redbankgreen prior to one of the band’s frequent-flyer appearances in Red Bank a few years back. “We play new venues, and we play old places… we do 125 to 150 shows a year. Beats working!”
It’s been about 50 years since the American institution known for keeping the summer alive effectively split into two hemispheres during the landmark Pet Sounds sessions: the studio-sandbox residency of Brian Wilson (who’s scheduled to bring his golden-anniversary Pet Sounds salute to the Basie in September) and the hard-touring, crowd-pleasing roadshow skippered by Love. A polarizing figure, energizing frontman, and boosterizing flagwaver for a spectrum of environmental, political and spiritual causes, Love leads the Beach Boys back to Monmouth Street this Thursday night.
Having spent most of the new millennium as the sole surviving charter member of the band, Love continues to partner onstage with Bruce Johnston, the successful singer/ songwriter/ producer whose own half-century history with the band hasn’t stopped him from being “the new guy” at the head of a seven-piece lineup that’s included at various times the 1960s temp-Beach Boy David Marks, and Love’s own son Christian.
For the better part of the past decade, the Beach Boys combo has been anchored by another figure of vintage hitmaking pedigree: drummer-vocalist John Cowsill (whose family band the Cowsills gave us “The Rain, The Park and Other Things,” and who reappeared in the 1980’s as a member of Tommy Tutone of “867-5309 JENNY” fame). Taking the lead on such catalog classics as “Help Me Rhonda,” the singing percussionist is joined by guitarists Jeffrey Foskett and Scott Totten, bassist Brian Eichenburger, and keyboard guy Tim Bonhomme — instrumentalists whose lead/harmony vocal skills evoke the well-remembered sounds of Al, Brian, and the departed Wilson brothers Carl and Dennis.
Backed as they are by one of the most formidable treasure chests of classics in all of pop music, Love and company can be expected to deliver slick presentations of hits that range from the early-on “I Get Around” and “Fun Fun Fun,” to the latter-day “California Dreaming” and “Kokomo.” There’s also a chance that the Boys will pitch the odd curveball to the audience, such as an a capella salute to their 1950s-era influences the Four Freshmen, or possibly even Love’s arrangement of East Coast beach-bum Bruce’s “Hungry Heart.”
Tickets to Thursday’s 7:30 p.m. concert ($39 – $120) are available here.
