For the Beach Boys, the Summer Never Ends (Part 2 of 2)

Continued from Part One…

Created with a briefly returning Brian Wilson, the group’s last new studio album of all-original music, That’s Why God Made the Radio, was released in 2012. These days, the Beach Boys are primarily a performing unit; the group—Love and Johnston plus a top-flight array of younger musicians, including lead guitarist John Wedemeyer—continues to tour, bringing the sentimental sounds of surf, sun and sand to modern-day audiences. And in tacit acknowledgment of the compilation that revived the band’s career, the current Beach Boys tour is branded as “Endless Summer Gold.”

Mike Love says that concerts on this tour feature 18 of the album’s 20 songs. “And we’re still getting amazing audience response,” he says. “All kinds of demographics, all age groups come out and have a great time, and I think that’s a wonderful thing.” He readily concedes that the release of Endless Summer 50 years ago last month gave the Beach Boys a shot in the arm that continues to pay dividends today. “As time goes on,” he observes, “you have a resurgence, then your career subsides a bit, and then you have another resurgence.”

Love cites attendance figures from some of the band’s most historically notable shows—an estimated 900,000 in Philadelphia in 1985, half a million at the Washington Monument later that same day—and makes the point that his group’s appeal endures. “We’ve had our highs even in the midst of our lower-selling albums,” he says. “And we’re doing fantastic right now; we have thousands of people singing along to our songs.”

A longtime friend of the band, television actor and sometime musician John Stamos is a featured performer with the Beach Boys on this tour. He plays drums alongside main drummer Jon Bolton. And like every member of the touring unit, he sings.

Love is enthusiastic about the tour, and about the new Disney+ documentary, The Beach Boys. Like Endless Summer, this officially sanctioned chronicle of the group’s history focuses on the sun and fun more than the dense, ambitious studio works of the mid ’60s. Love makes the point that since late 1964, there have effectively been two parallel versions of the group. “One is the recording group, of which Brian was absolutely in charge,” he says. “And then there’s the touring group. My cousin Carl was in charge of that musically, but I was in charge of agency and management. I’ve always preferred the live music part of it.”

Carl Wilson passed away in 1998; these days his place in the touring group is filled by Wedemeyer, who joined in May 2023. Though he lives in Las Vegas, Wedemeyer is a Los Gatos native with a long South Bay history; for years he led adventurous trio group WHaT. Though his formative musical years were immersed in the blues, he says that when he belatedly discovered Pet Sounds, everything changed for him. It struck a chord with the musician, who describes himself as “in love with pop music and great songs.” Between covers of Frank Zappa and Howlin’ Wolf, WHaT could launch into a note-perfect reading of the Beach Boys’ 1973 classic “Sail On Sailor.”

Wedemeyer came to the attention of Mike Love during his time playing with Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers. With that group, he had shared an occasional bill with the Beach Boys. “I was happy to be on the periphery of the Beach Boys,” he admits. “I never dreamed that [an offer to join] would come up.”

But it did, and Wedemeyer has since played hundreds of dates with the band. And the versatile guitarist says that when he joined, he had a clear goal. “I decided that my mission would be to play the parts as close to the original recordings as I could,” he says. “My ear just wants to hear those classic Carl Wilson, Tommy Tedesco, Barney Kessel and Glen Campbell guitar licks.”

Along with singing harmony in the band, Wedemeyer works hard to get just the right guitar tone and effects to match the vibe of each classic Beach Boys tune. “It’s not a guitar gig,” he emphasizes. “It’s about the songs.” And while he’s a generation younger than the group’s leaders, he remains in awe of their stamina and work ethic. “The PR on Mike Love is that he’s one of the biggest assholes in rock and roll,” he concedes. “He gets a bad rap. In fact, he’s the nicest, most accommodating guy. And trying to keep up with a couple of 80-plus-year-old guys is fascinating,” Wedemeyer enthuses. “The minute you start to complain, you look at Mike all raring to go, and you think, ‘Okay, I’m gonna shut up now!”