Brian Wilson at the Bowl: Not Just Nostalgia

If it was coincidence that Brian Wilson’s homecoming show at the Hollywood Bowl fell on a Sunday, it was a fitting one.

His Pet Sounds Symphonic Tour concert for a crowd of 10,000 went well beyond the nostalgia of performing a classic-rock album live from beginning to end.

It testified to the musical and spiritual revival--”resurrection” might not be too strong a word in this case--of a divinely gifted soul.

The centerpiece of the three-hour show was the performance during the second half of the Beach Boys’ 1966 “Pet Sounds” album, the masterwork inspired in large part by the Beatles’ “Rubber Soul” album and which, in turn, spurred the Fab Four to create “Sgt. Pepper.”

“Pet Sounds” wasn’t just a collection of 13 gorgeously written, arranged and sung tunes, among them “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” “God Only Knows” and “Caroline No.” In his relentless desire to push forward artistically, Wilson elevated the recording studio and the studio orchestra to equal-partner status with his cohorts in the quintessential ‘60s Southern California rock group.

“Pet Sounds” shattered notions of what had been considered possible within the confines of a three-minute record. Its musical and thematic cohesiveness also raised the bar on the possibilities for the still-young LP format, which before “Pet Sounds” had functioned largely as a roost for a flock of singles.

Reconstructing such a pop masterpiece live 34 years later, therefore, is no cheap stunt. Yet as thrillingly successful as Wilson, his 10-piece band and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra were Sunday in performing “Pet Sounds” as well as a bevy of Beach Boys hits and Wilson solo tunes, the evening transcended musical archeology.

It also gave a lesson in one man’s survival against staggering odds, given Wilson’s well-documented battles with personal demons and drugs, and in music’s ability to heal even in the most overwhelming situations.

In his solo concerts last year, his singing often was off pitch, but it was a minor miracle to hear him deliver Beach Boys classics and a few rarities as well as his solo material replete with the inventive, sophisticated arrangements that are his hallmark.

Since those shows, the 58-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Famer has grown ever more comfortable playing in public. He still showed at the Bowl some of the idiosyncratic mannerisms evident in public appearances in recent years, but his singing was significantly more assured. The richness of his vocal arrangements was stunningly rendered, at times by up to eight voices including Wilson’s. The band’s vocal and instrumental contributions exquisitely captured Wilson’s full-spectrum musical vocabulary.

The orchestra, under Charles Floyd, added the requisite massed grandeur to the Phil Spector-cum-Motown glory of “I’m Waiting for the Day,” a symphonic melancholy to the confessional “That’s Not Me” and a luscious sheen to Wilson’s pop-folk rendering of “Sloop John B.”

Ironically, the orchestra wasn’t nearly as effective in the concert-opening 20-minute Beach Boys suite conducted by longtime Wilson collaborator Van Dyke Parks.

It’s been said any number of times before, but in the wake of Sunday’s triumph, Wilson himself finally may be ready to hear it: Welcome back, Brian.