While the concert industry remains upended by COVID-19, some long-standing musical traditions have managed to survive the pandemic. Among them are the ever-warring factions in the Beach Boys as the band looms ever-closer to the 60th anniversary of its first-ever single, “Surfin'”. The past week has seen yet another flurry in speculation among divided band members on whether they will be able to set aside their differences and celebrate the milestone.
Though the surviving members of the band—Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston, and David Marks—did reunite in 2012 to record a new album and launch a massive 50th-anniversary tour, and linked up again in 2018 for a panel discussion, relations have been icy since then. Following the 2012 reunion tour, the Beach Boys nexus split up into two warring camps with Love and Johnston touring as the Beach Boys and Jardine joining on with Wilson’s solo band. This past year has seen tensions escalate further as Love played concerts under the Beach Boys banner at a trophy hunting convention in Nevada and a Donald Trump fundraiser in California, much to the chagrin of Wilson and Jardine.
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Recently, however, Jardine appeared on Rolling Stone‘s 500 Greatest Albums podcast, where he discussed the upcoming anniversary. For his part in all the speculation, Jardine appeared rather hopeful when asked about the possibility of a reunion tour, though the uncertainty of the entire situation still shined through.
“I do believe we will. Well, not a tour. We’ll hit some very important … 10 or 20 areas of the world,” Jardine said. “Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky and have a renaissance, and present some of this great material again. It’s difficult to say, but it makes sense. I know there’s something in the works. I just can’t tell you when or where.”
This comes after similar comments from Jardine which appeared over the fall in the Chicago Concert Reviews. Following the publication of those remarks, Rolling Stone reached out to Love who vaguely remarked, “I know he mentioned that.”
“He didn’t ask me about it; he just said it,” Love said. “But I think [it] would be good to do something noting that it’s a pretty remarkable milestone. I don’t know what, exactly. I think a TV special would be really nice, honestly.”
As for whether Love would be open to doing a tour, he said, “I don’t know. I don’t think [so]. That hasn’t come up yet.”
In the midst of all this confusion there lies the unfortunate reality of the tragedies that abound within the sunny California demeanor of the Beach Boys. Two of the three Wilson brothers—who started the band with their cousin Mike Love and friend Al Jardine in Hawthrone, CA in 1961—are deceased. Dennis Wilson drowned in 1983 at the age of 39, and Carl Wilson died of lung cancer in 1998 at 51. Meanwhile, their brother and the band’s principal songwriter Brian Wilson is apparently in the dark on all of these plans.
“There is nothing on the table at this point,” Wilson’s manager Jean Sievers said. “No one has spoken to us about it or reached out.”
[H/T Yahoo!]