Led by Mike Love, the iconic band kept the years at bay and fired up a sold-out crowd. West Michigan musician Ben Zito provides the Local Spins guest review.
Fun, Fun, Fun: Mike Love led The Beach Boys’ through a night of hits at Meijer Gardens on Thursday. (Photo/Anthony Norkus)
I made a conscious decision some time ago to see any living-legend performer live should I get the chance.
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I’ve managed to see several, including Bob Dylan, B.B. King, Jeff Beck, Ringo Starr and his All-Star Band, and more.
After years of singing, smoking, drinking and general rocking, your typical living-legend performer has the warbling remnants of a voice ravaged by time. Usually, these aged rock stars step down their tunes to a key they can manage in order to mask the obviously weakened vocals.
Adroit Accompaniment: Mike Love and Bruce Johnston with the rest of the band on Thursday. (Photo/Anthony Norkus)
Otherwise, they rely on impressive instrumentation, or bring in guest stars, or use some combination of these strategies.
So while I was eager to see The Beach Boys live, I was curious to see if the crux of their art, aka, complex vocal arrangements, would suffer after so many years.
As part of a sell-out crowd at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, I was poised to find out exactly how Mike Love, 73, and Bruce Johnston, 72, intended to sell their brand of doo-wop singing through quavering old man voices.
One thing was certain: These concertgoers were going to enjoy themselves whether “Little Deuce Coupe” was 3 steps down or not. I’ve never seen so many Hawaiian shirts in one place in Michigan. That in conjunction with the fact that I was at least half the median age of this audience, made me feel a little like a guy wearing a parka at the beach.
You wouldn’t know it by looking at the crowd, but it was a very rainy Thursday. That’s until, as if by some Beach Boy magic, the sky cleared and the sun beamed down, creating a perfect summer night moments before the band took the stage.
To my amazement, Love still carries a tune as well as he ever did. His signature high and nasal vocal lead cut through as pure as a recording. And what’s more, unless my ears deceived me, all of the songs were performed in the original key. How was this possible?
KEEPING THE VOCALS SHARP WITH SOME DEFT ARRANGEMENTS
Upon closer inspection, I found that the other “non-original” members of the band were deftly handling the higher harmonies. Specifically, bassist Randell Kirsch, rhythm guitarist Jeffrey Foskett and lead guitarist Scott Totten filled out the vocal lines to create The Beach Boys’ signature sound.
(FYI: This touring version of the band doesn’t include Brian Wilson or Alan Jardine.)
Beyond trading in and out for high harmonies, Totten and Foskett both sang lead on particularly high songs. It was when they sang lead that I realized what Love was doing. He was protecting his voice by preserving it over the course of two hours of performing – and furthermore, protecting The Beach Boys brand.
Surf’s Up: The happy crowd at Meijer Gardens. (Photo/Anthony Norkus)
The Beach Boys, of course, are driven by vocals. And trading in younger and more nimble voices at well-timed spots in a show is a strategy that can help keep those vocals sharp.
The group also performed a touching rendition of “God Only Knows” accompanied by a recording of the late Carl Wilson singing lead.
The result? A well-protected brand and sound that will keep selling out venues as long as these strategies work.
And they worked like a charm on Thursday.
Everyone in the crowd was having a great time, dancing to tunes that sounded just as good as if they had spun them at home.
It may have been the most raucous crowd I’ve ever seen at Meijer Gardens, and even I couldn’t help but get into the spirit of it.
I even left the venue singing “I Get Around” … without hitting a single note.
THE BEACH BOYS: THE LOCAL SPINS PHOTO GALLERY
Photos by Anthony Norkus
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