They were a band. Take them for all in all. We shall not look upon their like again. With apologies to Shakespeare, watching The Beach Boys perform Saturday night, July 7, 2012 at the Grand Canyon University Arena, one felt as if they were witnessing history. Here was The Beach Boys, Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, David Marks and the new kid who joined the band in 1965, Bruce Johnston, reunited on stage for the first time in decades for their current Fiftieth Anniversary Reunion tour. Historic? Yes. Epic? Yes. If they never do it again, they will have left on top.
Fifty years signifies gold and it was the gold standard that The Beach Boys hit. Whether the coincidence in numbers was planned or not, The Beach Boys played fifty songs over two hours and forty five minutes that covered their history from their first hit single “Surfin’” to their latest one “That’s Why God Made The Radio.”
Even with a fifty song set list, not everyone’s favorite song was covered. However, the song selection was a good cross section of what The Beach Boys have accomplished during the last fifty years. Sprinkled among the mega hits like “Surfer Girl,” and “Good Vibrations,” were lesser known songs such as “The Ballad of Ole’ Betsy” and “All This Is That.”
