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Brian Wilson and Jeff Beck's Odd Pairing Works On New Tour

10/18/2013
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(Radio.com) The pairing of Brian Wilson and Jeff Beck for a co-headlining tour (which hit Montclair, New Jersey's Wellmont Theatre on October 16 night) was an interesting one. While both are icons of '60s music their approaches (and amount of time spent on the Billboard singles charts) could not be more different. Wilson, of course, is a former member of, and genius behind, the Beach Boys, and wears that proudly.

Wilson reunited with his former group in 2012 for one of the year's hottest tours, before being unceremoniously dismissed by bandmate Mike Love, the guy who owns the name of the band. Beck, on the other hand, was a member of seminal '60s British invasion band the Yardbirds: he replaced Eric Clapton in the group, but was fired a few years later. He has rarely looked back at that era of his career. After the Yardbirds, he formed the Jeff Beck Group with a young Rod Stewart and Ron Wood, releasing two classic hard rock albums.

But most of Wilson's set is rooted in the '60s, while Beck's set pretty much ignores his most celebrated history, and sticks with relatively recent material. Wilson's stage is covered with microphones, in an attempt to match the soaring vocals of the old Beach Boys records. Beck has one mic so he can say "hi" to the audience. As different as they are, their sets complimented each other well, culminating in a wonderful, collaborative encore.

Wilson's large band started off with an a capella song from the Beach Boys catalog, "Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring," before launching into the more familiar "California Girls," after which he thanked the audience for the first of many times. Wilson's band clearly loves him and the material, and it comes through in their performance. Wilson mainly just sits behind his piano, sometimes barely playing. But his band is able to replicate the sound and spirit of some of the Beach Boys' greatest hits, so Wilson doesn't really have to do the heavy lifting, and the man was visibly enjoying himself during the show. The set contained some of the band's most celebrated classics, including "Don't Worry Baby," "Wouldn't It Be Nice," "I Get Around," "Help Me Rhonda" and "Sloop John B." But the set also featured some lesser known songs like "Little

Bird," "Darlin'" (which Brian called "One of the best songs I ever wrote") and "Marcella." They also mined the Americana songbook with a medley of "Old Man River" and "Cottonfields." Another highlight, though, was Chaplin joining the band for "Sail On Sailor." More including photos

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