Beach Boys at PACER Annual Benefit, Convention Center, Minneapolis (11 May 2019)

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After seven consecutive months of snow and an extraordinarily long winter, summer has officially come early–

courtesy of The Beach Boys who brought warmth, sunshine, and almost sixty years of hits to PACER Center’s 37th Annual Benefit, presented by Starkey Hearing Technologies, held this past weekend at the Minneapolis Convention Center, to support the work PACER does for families of children with disabilities and children who are bullied.

The mission of PACER Center is to enhance the quality of life and expand opportunities for children, youth, and young adults with all disabilities and their families, so each person can reach his or her highest potential.

PACER, headquartered locally, serves families nationwide, as well as those in-state and operates on the principles of parents helping parents, supporting families, promoting a safe environment for all children, and working in collaboration with others.

The current incarnation of the legendary group is a tight nine-piece band, fronted by original vocalist Mike Love and Bruce Johnston (keys/bass/vocals) who joined in 1965. Love’s son Christian is on rhythm guitar and sings lead on a few songs, and Apple Valley, MN native Brian Eichenberger has re-joined on guitar and high vocals, replacing an ailing Jeff Foskett.

With a stage decorated appropriately with several palm trees, a video screen behind them, and supporting screens on each side, the band entertained the convention center auditorium crowd with a jukebox-like hit parade of twenty-two songs spanning six decades, in just over sixty-five minutes.

The band got the crowd in the mood with a short video montage before opening with 1968’s ‘Do it Again’ (which the band remade in 2011 when Brian Wilson briefly rejoined for their 50^th) with 1962’s ‘Surfin’ Safari’ following close behind.

Love, with silver beard and mustache wore his own Beach Boys cap and a shirt with numerous peace signs emblazoned on it, still the signature voice in a unique musical sound that is so much a part of our lives, it’s hard to imagine a time when it didn’t exist.

As the hits continued, more and more people stood, several in tropical shirts, to dance in the aisles, bop inflatable beach balls around the crowd, and head up front to get a closer look. For ‘Surfer Girl’, Love had everyone hold their cellphone lights in the air, creating a firefly look to the crowd (“it looks like the Milky Way” Love remarked), as he recalled their early area appearance at a ballroom on Lake Minnetonka in the early 60’s.

Eichenberger took lead vocals for a swinging ‘Don’t Worry Baby’ resulting in some hometown applause, and Love introduced ‘Be True to Your School’ as dedicated to people in uniforms… cheer-leading uniforms. Classic ‘God Only Knows’ was performed with Christian Love on lead, taking over the original vocals from late drummer Dennis Wilson and the last third of their set kicked things higher with nothing but monster hits, beginning with ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’.

‘California Girls’ was changed to ‘Minnesota Girls’ a few times on the chorus and Johnston took the lead over for 1965’s ‘Do You Wanna Dance’. The crowd sang back to the band on ‘Help Me Rhonda’ and the band urged everyone to be snowbirds next year and escape the Minnesota chill, to travel to ‘Kokomo’. The trippy electro-theremin of 1966’s ‘Good Vibrations’ still shows how revolutionary that song was fifty-plus years later, and everything ended on a high note with 1964’s ‘Fun, Fun, Fun’, with everyone on their feet, dancing and clapping along.  

Almost sixty years on, the California Sound is still alive and well with The Beach Boys, able to bring warmth and sunshine to even the coldest corners of Minnesota; and on this night supporting a great cause of anti-bullying and promoting a safe environment for all children and young adults and enhancing the lives of people with disabilities, courtesy of the efforts of PACER Center.

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