Brian Wilson has announced a 15-date Greatest Hits Live! tour that will see him travel alongside collaborators Al Jardine and Blondie Chaplin. The Beach Boys mastermind also launched a new website that features a trove of archival material ranging from outtakes to rarities and beyond.
The Greatest Hits Live! tour begins on August 29th in Long Beach, CA before a month-long gap, after which the tour gets into full swing in Huntington, NY (10/5). A healthy Northeastern run takes Wilson and company through Port Chester, NY (10/6); Wallingford, CT (10/8); Lowell, MA (10/9); Rochester, NY (10/10); Albany, NY (10/12); Morristown, NJ (10/13); Washington, D.C. (10/15); and Atlantic City (10/16). The tour then heads through the midwest with stops in Reading, PA (10/17); Greensburg, PA (10/19); Akron, OH (10/20); Nashville, IN (10/22); and finally Waukegan, IL (10/23).
Along with the tour announcement, Wilson has launched a newly revamped website. Besides housing relevant tour information, the website features an extensive timeline, cataloging Wilson’s life in music. Beginning at his birth in 1942, the timeline parcels off significant portions of his life including entire sections on his most prolific periods in 1962–1965, 1966, and 1967–1969. Each section houses a detailed history alongside various rarities and studio outtakes, some of which are available now for the first time.
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The tour and website launch comes as the latest in a flurry of activity for the 79-year-old singer-songwriter. Last month’s Tribeca Film Festival saw the premiere of a new documentary, Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road. In the film, Wilson opens up to Rolling Stone editor Jason Fine on his six decades in popular music as the two drive back and forth between Wilson’s recording sessions.
Earlier this year also saw a major development in the decades-long public feud between warring factions of the Beach Boys, as the band sold off its entire catalog, likenesses, and intellectual property to Irving Azoff‘s Iconic Artists Group. While Beach Boys are far from the only artists to sell off their songbooks as of late, the California-bred surf-rockers situation is far more unique than that of Bob Dylan or Neil Young.
With all of their intellectual properties sold off, this can effectively put an end to the decades of infighting that has existed between Wilson and his cousin/former bandmate Mike Love. Years ago, Love won the rights to the Beach Boys name in a legal battle and toured under the banner with latter-era band member Bruce Johnston while Wilson toured with Jardine under his own name, despite being the principal songwriter behind some of the Beach Boys’ biggest songs.
Nevertheless, it appears that Wilson will continue to tour under his own name as he dishes out some of the Beach Boys’ greatest hits on his upcoming tour. The Iconic Artists Group deal has also given rise to rumors of a 60th-anniversary reunion tour in 2022, though no official announcement has been made and some members of the group are more open to the idea than others.
Tickets for all of the October shows on the Brian Wilson Greatest Hits Live! tour with Al Jardine and Blondie Chaplin go on sale on Friday at 10 a.m. local. A pre-sale for tickets is accessible now using the code “SURFSUP”. Scroll down to see the full list of tour dates. Visit Wilson’s website for more information and to see the new trove of archival material.