O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : Beach Boys Ride Wave of New Spirit, Feeling at Amphitheatre

It was a revitalized Beach Boys that performed Saturday evening at the Pacific Amphitheatre. Of course, by Beach Boy standards, one can be “revitalized” simply by treading shallow water with a modicum of vigor.

Still, such an achievement is cause for hosannas compared to some past Beach Boy tours when--to continue the aquatic analogy--the group bobbed listlessly on the surface like someone’s little accident in the pool.

For at least the past decade, the performances of “America’s Band” (as it was introduced Saturday) generally have been lifeless, adventureless, out-of-tune and cynically pat. One Pacific show was so short that most fans literally spent longer getting out of the parking lot than they did watching the Beach Boys.

But this time, outside of the Boys’ hopelessly condescending front man Mike Love, the group--Carl Wilson, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston and a six-piece backup band--sang and played Saturday with a renewed spirit and feeling, likely sparked by a number of new additions to its 100-minute, 35-song set. True, those “new” songs were, on the average, some 28 years old, but at least they were lesser hits that hadn’t been slagged to death on the road for three decades.

The group didn’t forsake the old warhorses: “California Girls,” “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” “Help Me Rhonda,” “Good Vibrations,” “Fun, Fun, Fun” and the other requisite memories all were there. But even they benefited from the spill-over fun the band had doing “You’re So Good to Me,” “And Then I Kissed Her” (both of which had surprisingly passionate vocals from Jardine), “Shut Down,” “Dance, Dance, Dance” and Brian Wilson’s majestic arrangement of Bobby Freeman’s “Do You Want to Dance.”

The great advantage of the Beach Boys is that they could reach far deeper yet into their catalogue and still have splendid material with which to work. Such is songwriter Brian Wilson’s legacy to the band. But therein also lies the measure of how little the group now strives to attain. Wilson, the group’s former leader, raised the Beach Boys to a standard of quality, originality and adventure that few groups equaled in the ‘60s, making the two-decade-old stasis difficult to accept.

Years before the Beatles began to reach for such autonomy, Wilson was writing, arranging and producing his own material, even dictating the record cover art to his label. With brothers Dennis (who drowned in 1983) and Carl, cousin Love and neighbor Jardine, Brian forged a sound which ardently mythologized the California beach lifestyle.

In a breathtakingly short time, he went from doo-wop stylings and Chuck Berry borrowings to some of America’s richest songsmithing, fleshed out with complex vocal harmonies (though he was deaf in one ear) and an uncanny knack for production. It all culminated in 1966 with “Pet Sounds,” one of rock’s true masterpieces, a visionary, highly personal work that even after hundreds of listenings can reveal new facets and insights.

The party line on Wilson is that he did too many drugs and flipped out. Some biographers, though, contend he was damaged at least as much by the friction between his creative urge and the yoke of having to support the Beach Boys with commercial hits. As much as his fellow Beach Boys might rhapsodize about “Pet Sounds” now, some were less keen on it at the time, with Love reportedly nagging, “Where’s the hit, Brian?”

Whatever the cause, Wilson took a much publicized hike away from reality in the early ‘70s and has been in various stages of recovery ever since (remember the “Caution: I brake for Brian Wilson” bumper stickers?). There have been periods of brotherly support, and somewhat premature “Brian’s back!” Beach Boy albums. There also have been power plays, lawsuits and times of estrangement.

When Wilson did make his real comeback with 1988’s critically praised “Brian Wilson” album, it was without the Boys, and indeed it emerged in a spirit of sharp competition with them. But Wilson’s creative work sank from view, while the Beach Boys’ brain-dead “Kokomo” went to No. 1, which might just say something about the present state of the American spirit.

Anyway, the parties apparently are reconciled again, and Wilson performs with the Beach Boys when the mood strikes him, which wasn’t the case Saturday. They did have six jiggling beach bunnies, which wasn’t quite the same.

Accepted as a good-time oldies concert, the show was about as good as they get: The harmonies were fine-tuned, the backing musicians seemed to have a real respect for the music and most of the Beach Boys appeared truly to be enjoying themselves--something that’s always hard to tell with Love, who makes such a crass, pre-fab act of appearing like he’s having a good time (and talking down to the audience) that it would be hard to tell if a real emotion ever did lift him.

His hokey shticks and ultra-nasaly vocals--more a parody of his curious ‘60s vocal style than a real attempt at singing--were the only consistent debits to the performance. Other momentary lapses included “Kokomo,” the recent, retrograde “Still Cruisin’,” and Johnston’s vocals on “Please Let Me Wonder” and “In My Room,” which fell far short of the soul that Brian Wilson’s pipes had given the recorded versions.

A far better Brian-like vocal was rendered on “Don’t Worry Baby” by the group’s British backing guitarist, Adrian Baker. Jardine and Carl Wilson were excellent throughout, with Carl excelling vocally on “Darlin’,” “God Only Knows” and a cover of “Dancin’ in the Street.” He also applied a youthful verve to his Chuck Berry-styled guitar solos on several songs.

Before launching into a used-car lot of vehicular-themed songs, Love noted: “These songs are so old that when we started recording them, there were no imported cars on the roads of North America.”

As nostalgic and fun as the Beach Boys’ show might be, it also is emblematic of why our nation has become a parking lot for imported goods: The group goes for the easiest, short-return effort, basking in the memory of when it actually was on the leading edge, instead of daring the risk and creativity necessary to find the future. In that respect, they may indeed be “America’s Band.”

Opening act Terrell’s hard rock seemed entirely at odds with the Beach Boys’ sound, not necessarily a bad thing. Terrell (the sole name he goes by) writes and sings surprisingly clever lyrics for the genre in which he works--with literate wordplay and some convoluted storytelling--but the Alabaman’s 48-minute show suggested that it may be a couple of years yet before his artistry matches his degree of attitude.