The Beach Boys set to bring good vibrations to new Ford Amphitheater in Colorado Springs
Courtesy of Jim Trocchio
This summer, Mike Love is back on tour, leading The Beach Boys around the U.S. on a tour that will visit more than 70 cities.
At 83, Love is the last member of the classic 1960s Beach Boys lineup still touring with the group. He owns The Beach Boys name and oversees the band’s business.
The Beach Boys will perform Friday at Ford Amphitheater in Colorado Springs.
The only other touring member with ties to the early edition of The Beach Boys is Bruce Johnston, who in 1964 joined the group to replace Brian Wilson, who had decided to retire from touring to focus on his role as the main songwriter and producer of The Beach Boys music.
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Ostensibly, The Beach Boys are touring to celebrate a pair of projects. One is the 50th anniversary of “Endless Summer,” the greatest hits album that revived the band’s career in the mid-1970s after The Beach Boys’ popularity had waned in the years after the groundbreaking 1966 album “Pet Sounds” and the innovative follow-up single, “Good Vibrations.”
“We probably do 18 of the 20 songs on that album in our concert,” Love said in a phone interview this summer.
The group also is touring behind a new documentary titled simply “The Beach Boys” that’s streaming on Disney+.
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The documentary has been dinged in some reviews for glossing over or omitting some less positive elements of The Beach Boys history, including the drug use of several members of the band, Brian Wilson’s struggles with drugs and mental health that initially culminated in a breakdown following the completion of “Pet Sounds,” and the controversial role psychiatrist Eugene Landy took in the years that followed in managing Wilson’s life. In addition, the deaths of Dennis Wilson from a drowning accident in 1983 and Carl Wilson from cancer in 1998 are only referenced with a note at the end of the documentary.
But Love likes how the film came out and feels it touches on aspects of the group’s history that some of the many other documentaries on The Beach Boys didn’t highlight.
“I think it showed a bit more of my involvement than has been in other projects, and there have been some fallacies said about me, like I didn’t like the ‘Pet Sounds’ album, which was stupid because I named the ‘Pet Sounds’ album and I went with Brian to present it to Capitol Records,” Love said.
“I think this documentary really (depicts) how it was, how it really was, with the harmonies and the family connection and it a bit more accurately told the story of the making of the music.”