By Chuck Darrow
Any time a member of the Beach Boys takes the stage, you can be sure a jukebox-worth of hits from the legendary band’s prodigious songbook will fill the air. But charter member Al Jardine, who is scheduled to perform April 11 at the Scottish Rite Auditorium in Collingswood, New Jersey, has been digging deeper into the musical vault.
Jardine, 83, has been using his concerts to highlight many of the 14 songs that comprise the Beach Boys’ relatively obscure 1977 album, “The Beach Boys Love You,” which, coincidentally, was released April 11, 1977. At a concert last month in Sarasota, Florida, an entire set was devoted to 12 of the LP’s 14 tracks.
As Jardine explained it during a phone call, the idea to break out this material predated the June 2025 death of Beach Boys’ guiding light Brian Wilson at age 82.
“It was something we talked about when Brian was touring with [the Beach Boys],” he recalled. “We always said, ‘Why don’t we do something really esoteric and different?’ And then the ‘Love You’ album came up time and time again, but it just never happened. So now it’s just time for it, I guess. And it’s really charming.”
As has been well-documented, there has been a decades-long schism in the Beach Boys’ camp, primarily the result of long-standing animosities between Jardine and fellow band co-founder Mike Love, who continues to perform under the Beach Boys banner. Jardine explained that touring on his own is a far better alternative than sitting around his California ranch.
“I got sick of staying home,” he said with a chuckle. “We wanted to get out there and spread the word, and to bring the Brian Wilson Band back into action. And then Brian passed away, of course, but we had already planned to do this before he passed. We really wanted to get out and work again and bring the music to the folks.”
As he noted, Jardine’s sonic support is being provided by the same group of musicians (including Jardine’s singer-percussionist son, Matt) who backed Brian Wilson on his solo tours. The unit has been dubbed The Pet Sounds Band after the Beach Boys’ epochal 1966 album.
Actually, Jardine continued, the original idea was to include Wilson in the project.
“I was hoping Brian would be there to help us to some degree, but it wasn’t meant to be. So, we’re out there now as a tribute to Brian’s music, because it’s so important, especially now.”
To be clear, there is more to the set list than the “Beach Boys Love You” material, which has been presented in its own segment. For instance, the Sarasota set list also included numerous Beach Boys signatures, including “California Girls,” “Surfer Girl, ”God Only Knows” and, of course, “Good Vibrations.”
Touring hasn’t been Jardine’s only dip into musical waters the past year or so. In 2025, he released a four-song digital EP called “Islands in the Sun,” which includes the track, “My Plane Leaves Tomorrow (Au Revoir),” which features Neil Young on vocals and Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ bassist Flea, who plays the “Taps” sequence on trumpet. The song was recorded in 2010. So why did Jardine wait 15 years to make available to the public the track about a soldier heading off to fight in a war?
At first, he simply said, “I don’t know” when the question was posed, but ultimately added that, “There was so much going on in the Beach Boys’ world” at the time of its recording. However, he did offer his reason for releasing it when he did — around the time of the first U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran.
“When I released it,” he said, “there was a lot of stuff going on [in the Middle East]. I thought, ‘We better get this out there now,’ because in the beginning of the song, you hear the BBC commentator say, ‘The president cannot start a war with Iran without congressional approval.’ It’s an actual recording that I took from the BBC [in 2010], and I thought, ‘Wow, that thing’s never changed.”
For tickets, go to etix.com.
Anka at Borgata
Al Jardine isn’t the only octogenarian pop-music immortal headed our way this month. On April 18, the indefatigable Paul Anka performs at Atlantic City’s Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa.
The 84-year-old Ottawa, Canada-born singer-composer has had an unprecedented, almost 70-year career that has had several lasting impacts on popular culture:
He began as one of the members of the original generation of teenaged pop idols in the late 1950s with such smash hits as “Diana,” Puppy Love” and “Put Your Head on My Shoulder.” In 1962, he composed the theme song for the Johnny Carson-hosted “Tonight Show.” And, of course, in 1968, he wrote “My Way” specifically for Frank Sinatra.
He has also been responsible for launching the glittering careers of Grammy-glomming record producer David Foster and superstar pop crooner Michael Buble, and he wrote the Tom Jones signature, “She’s A Lady.”
And, according to his wonderful 2013 book, “My Way: An Autobiography,” Anka and Buddy Holly had made plans to collaborate before the latter died in the Feb. 3, 1959 plane crash that also claimed the lives of Ritchie Valens and J.P. (“The Big Bopper”) Richardson.
The point is that Anka is a legitimate pop-culture titan and an artist who should be seen at least once by anyone and everyone.
For tickets go to ticketmaster.com. ••
