Pet Sounds Live

Few would have predicted that Brian Wilson, legendary troubled genius/recluse and creative leader of the Beach Boys would take to the road with a new band after 30 years in the wilderness. Fewer still would have dared imagine just how incredibly brilliant and memorable those shows would turn out to be. Anyone who witnessed his astonishing performance at Dublin’s Point last February certainly won’t forget the experience in a hurry.

With his superb 10-piece band, featuring LA pop geniuses the Wondermints at its core, the recent shows featured songs from throughout his career. But the highlight for many was a complete performance of The Beach Boys 1966 masterpiece Pet Sounds. Recorded in London’s Royal Festival Hall in January, Pet Sounds Live offers this segment of the show in all its transcendent glory.

Wilson’s self-obsessed songs run the gamut of emotions from the joyous, ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’, and the gorgeous, ‘God Only Knows’ to the post-adolescent dislocation of, ‘I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times’ and the pained melancholia of ‘Don’t Talk Put Your Head On My Shoulder’. Highlights are impossible to pin down when the quality is this high but the sheer blissful transcendence of ‘You Still Believe In Me’ and the album’s closer, the evocative ‘Caroline No’, would melt even the hardest of hearts.

The arrangements, while largely faithful to the studio originals, are not overly reverential and there are instrumental and vocal variations, ‘Caroline No’ is extended to include a repeat of the chorus. If anything, the live sound is more expansive, the exquisite harmonies even more spine-tingling and the instrumentation more deftly executed. Wilson’s voice, while shaky and off-key at times still possesses a timeless innocence and fragility that brings these songs alive.

Fans will definitely want to own this one but for a fuller picture of Wilson’s rejuvenation, also check out the recently released companion disc, Live At The Roxy.