Brian Wilson
Brian Wilson
Posted: 11 Sep 2011
Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin
The Sage
10 September 2011
Beach Boys musical genius Brian Wilson has survived drug-addled times, and backed by what Sir Paul McCartney says is the best band in the world, the man who wrote the some of the best songs in popular music commands the stage like an elderly walrus directing the young pups around him.
The show is titled ‘Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin’ and the first 45-minute segment sees Wilson and the band glide through classic numbers such as ‘Summertime’, ‘Porgy and Bess’ and ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’. It’s a bit like being at a Bob Dylan concert in that, half way through each song, you realise which world-famous tune is being played. It works masterfully.
Wilson’s fans cover all ages and they weren’t disappointed if they’d come to hear his own hits. From the opening note of California Girls that began the much longer second part of the show, the greatest hits of the Beach Boys brought a bit of West Coast to the North East.
Sparing his voice by alternating lead vocals with his bandmates – of whom Wilson’s long term associate Jeffrey Foskett was outstanding – the 69-year-old delivered a show that was superb. Despite his voice declining, the genius remains and the band re-create the Beach Boys hits as perfectly as the original recordings. It’s a sharp contrast to the re-imagined Gershwin. The hits just kept coming and coming, including two lengthy encores. ‘Good Vibrations’ ‘Surfin’ USA’, ‘God Only Knows’,‘Sloop John B’, ‘Do It Again’ , ‘Barbara-Ann’ and the rest made it sunny inside even if it was raining outside. Emerging from The Sage it was still the Tyne Bridge ahead of you rather than the Golden Gates of San Francisco but it was certainly Golden Gates-head.
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