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Brian Wilson and Al Jardine of the Beach Boys will perform Dec. 13 at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles as part of the Brian Wilson Band.
Mike Love and Bruce Johnston will perform as The Beach Boys on Dec. 28 in Colorado Springs, Colo.
When they’ll all perform as the Beach Boys again is anybody’s guess.
Love, who owns the rights to the Beach Boys name, contracted to perform with his Beach Boys after the recent 50th anniversary tour. So he lightened the payroll and Wilson said he felt like he’d been fired.
The music director of that reunion tour, Jeffrey Foskett of Rancho Mirage, says he thought everybody wanted to keep that tour going in 2013.
“I know everybody wanted to, just in different ways in different times,” he said over lunch after returning home from the tour. “I think that’s what the issue was, probably: The timing.”
The demand is there for more concerts by the unit that incorporated the complex colorings of the Brian Wilson Band and most closely replicated the harmonies of the Beach Boys band with the late Carl and Dennis Wilson. Foskett was integral to those harmonies, singing Carl’s tenor and falsetto parts.
“I think the ‘Beach Boys 50’ configuration has a shelf life,” he said. “I think we could go back and repeat some of the bigger venues we did in certain markets and do some different venues. We barely got into the Midwest. We only did Chicago and Minneapolis and Wisconsin. We didn’t even get to Kansas City, St. Louis, and we didn’t go to Hawaii.
“I know we had offers to play the Honolulu Shell. I know we had offers to play in Phoenix, Ariz., at a festival. So there were definitely offers coming in. I think everybody would have been open to it. I don’t know now.”
Foskett has been touring and recording with the Beach Boys and members of the Beach Boys for more than 30 years. But he said he had the time of his life on this year’s reunion tour.
“I was in the Beach Boys that Carl Wilson said was the best Beach Boys band he ever played in, which was the ’80s band,” he said. “I played with Al and Dean Torrance (of Jan and Dean) and every surf band there is. But I had the most fun with the people (on this tour). I mean the crew guys, the techs, the guys on stage, the band (including) the two guys from Mike’s band that were integrated into Brian’s guys — Scott Totten, the guitar player, and John Cowsill. So I would like to see it happen again.”
Foskett’s favorite tour stops were at the Verizon Theatre in Dallas, where the band “clicked” on its second or third tour date, and the Royal Albert Hall in London and the Hollywood Bowl, which wants these Beach Boys to do two more shows in 2013.
His least favorite show was in a city he has conveniently forgotten, where they had to perform before 5,000 people in an empty swimming pool.
He also loved hanging out with Wilson, who has a home not far from him in Indian Wells.
Wilson was so well recognized around the world that he hated venturing outside. Fans would try to engage him in chitchat, said Foskett, and “that’s not in his makeup.” So Wilson, as is his nature, stayed in his room. At the Hong Kong Grand Hyatt Hotel, he and the other Beach Boys each got a three-bedroom suite with two butlers.
“The two butlers would come and, ‘Mr. Jeffrey, it’s time to wake up,’ and shake you gently,” Foskett recalled. “They wouldn’t have an alarm clock. They got really bummed if you called anybody. ‘Just tell me what you want and I’ll get it for you. Do you want me to have that washed?’ Just unbelievable. They wouldn’t accept a gratuity, so we comped them to the show on a no-comp tour (costing Foskett more than $100). The service was impeccable.”
Wilson doesn’t like to watch television, so he listened to the ’50s and ’60s stations on Foskett’s Sirius XM cell phone app via Bluetooth speakers.
“It was cool because he’ll tell you a story about every song because he knows the people — he recorded with them or was there when they wrote it, or whatever,” said Foskett. “He loves listening to those things and he loves telling those stories.”
Foskett is now working as the music director of a Beatles tribute show that will tour without him, and producing albums for Christopher Cross and Mark Lindsay, formerly of Paul Revere and the Raiders. But he’s looking forward to harmonizing again with those original Beach Boys.
“Al Jardine’s voice is absolutely essential to that blend,” he said. “Brian’s voice — when he’s singing lead with Michael and Alan and, for lack of Carl, me backing him up — it sounds great. When we’re playing with Brian’s band, it sounds really good. But when it has the original voices it just adds that air of authenticity that’s missing in all of the other bands.”
