With the Beach Boys' 50th anniversary less than a year away, Mike Love has announced that he and Brian Wilson are to reunite the band. Love will set aside years of legal tanglings to perform with his cousin, the other band-members, and his son, Christian.
"It's been non-stop since [1961]," Love told the Las Vegas Sun. To a certain extent, this is true – Love continues to tour under the Beach Boys name, albeit without any other original members. "Now we're gearing up for the 50th anniversary, and Brian Wilson, who has been working on some unfinished Gershwin music project, will rejoin us. I'm sad that [Beach Boys co-founder] Carl Wilson passed away 11, 12 years ago from the same lung cancer problem that claimed the life of George Harrison. That was not a fun time for us. But I am happy that now my son Christian is in the group."
The Beach Boys were originally formed by Brian Wilson, his brothers Carl and Dennis, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Dennis died in 1983, Carl in 1998, but Jardine still performs as a member of Brian Wilson's band. Although Love has had his differences with all of them, the surviving members reunited for a press conference at the 40th anniversary of Pet Sounds, and contributed to Jardine's forthcoming solo album.
Be that as it may, Love's announcement should perhaps be taken with a grain of salt. He has always been the Beach Boys' best salesman, playing hundreds of gigs under the Beach Boys name even as he tussled with Brian Wilson over the right to do so. Even this week, when asked his favourite Beach Boys song, Love said it was Good Vibrations – the same track he once dismissed as "avant-garde shit". When it comes to a reunion, we await Brian Wilson's confirmation.
