Beach Boys’ concert warms chilly night

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The surf was most definitely not up Friday night when the Beach Boys brought their 50th anniversary tour to Cricket Wireless Amphitheatre in Chula Vista.

What was up, alas, was a numbing wind that intensified the unseasonable evening chill, as temperatures dipped into the low 50s (but felt even colder). So, instead of the shorts, aloha shirts and light summer dresses that have been de rigueur at most Beach Boys’ shows in Southern California for decades, many concertgoers were instead bundled up in ski jackets, scarves and winter caps.

“Thank you so much for coming out in this snowstorm,” said lead singer Mike Love, only half in jest, after the Beach Boys dashed through their first six selections in a heart-racing 11 minutes. “Damn, it’s cold up here! I thought the closer you got to Mexico, the warmer it got.”

The frigid weather could have been a major bummer, especially for a band whose best-known songs celebrate the joys of youthful abandon and chronicle seemingly endless summers that transcend time and place. But the Beach Boys, touring together with long estranged band mastermind Brian Wilson for the first time since 1996, generally made the best of things.

True, the 20-song opening set tended to coast on auto-pilot at times, but there were some highlights. These included such favorites as “I Get Around,” “409” and the show-opening “Do It Again,” along with lesser known gems like the shimmering “Please Let Me Wonder” (which concluded with a gorgeous a cappella flourish), the hot-rod fueled “Shut Down” and “Marcella.”

Happily, the five Beach Boys, augmented by 10 skilled accompanists, seemed re-energized after intermission. They delivered an additional 20 songs with commendable spunk, expertly kicking into high gear on a frosty night that might have found many less hardy young and veteran bands opting to beat a quick retreat.

Wilson, 69, is the most gifted and fragile of the five surviving Beach Boys. His two brothers and former band mates, drummer-singer Dennis and singer-guitarist Carl, died in 1983 and 1998, respectively. Friday’s concert featured both deceased siblings assuming led vocal duties on one song each, via video — Dennis on “Forever” and Carl on “God Only Knows.” Brian, seated at a white grand piano on the far right of the stage, kept his head down and did not look at the enormous vintage film footage of his late brothers projected onto the center-stage screen.

A victim of beatings and psychological torment from his father as a child, followed by years of drug abuse and nervous breakdowns as a shattered adult, Brian only sometimes seemed fully engaged at Friday’s concert and his periodic lead vocals tended to waver. But when he connected with a song, as he did with the still futuristic-sounding “Good Vibrations,” the prophetic ballad “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times” and 1967’s epic “Heroes and Villains,” he came to life, visibly and audibly, after almost seeming like a bystander.

Then again, Love’s singing prowess has also ebbed with time, though not his enthusiasm, while Bruce Johnston’s brief moment in the spotlight near the end of the stirring “Add Some Music to Your Day” was almost wince-inducing. Only Al Jardine – who sang lead on “Help Me Rhonda,” the gospel-tinged Lead Belly classic “Cotton Fields” and a spirited cover of The Crystals’ “And Then I Kissed Her” – sounded reasonably undiminished at a concert in which the ing of time underscored virtually every song.

For “Wouldn’t It be Nice,” the Beach Boys were ed by the concert’s opening act, Foster The People, whose bassist, Jacob “Cubbie” Fink, grew up in Encinitas and is a La Costa Canyon high graduate. The tow bands met when Foster The People and Maroon 5 accompanied the Beach Boys during February’s Grammy Awards’ telecast at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

The multi-generational audience, which filled less than half of the 19,444-capacity venue, gave Brian Wilson the biggest cheers. It was an acknowledgement, not only of his return — at least for this one tour — but of the fact that, as a songwriter, performer and producer, he had guided the band to sublime heights other groups can only dream of achieving.

Yes, nostalgia filled the air (as did pot smoke, in the rear sections of the sprawling amphitheater). And, yes, the titled track of the Beach Boys’ new album, the Wilson-penned “That’s Why God Made The Radio,” is crafted to evoke some of the band’s songs from the 1960s, in particular “Surfer Girl” and “Sail On, Sailor.” But Wilson’s best songs sound as sublime now as they did then, and if the audience was applauding the memory of those songs as much as their actual performances on Friday, it did nothing to diminish the music’s grandeur or emotional resonance.

Throughout the concert, the group’s trademark, five-part harmonies were bolstered significantly by the vocals of at least six of their backing musicians. Guitarist Jeffrey Foskett, a veteran of both the Beach Boys and Wilson’s solo bands, deftly handled the high parts and sang lead in a pure, sure voice on “Don’t Worry Baby.”

David Marks, a Beach Boy in the early 1960s, contributed biting surf-rock guitar breaks throughout (slyly quoting “Pipeline” during “Little Honda”) and sang lead on the seldom-heard “Hawaii.” Love’s 16-year-old daughter, Ambha, a student at San Diego’s Cathedral High School, handled lead vocals on “Sail On Sailor” (co-written by Brian Wilson, the original version was sung by Blondie Champlin, who briefly ed the Beach Boys in the early 1970s, then left — like more than a few other former — under acrimonious circumstances).

Nervous at first, Ambha sounded more assured as “Sailor” continued. Still, having any teenager sing such dramatic lyrics, without a corresponding diminishing of dramatic impact, is a risk: — Always needing, even bleeding / Never feeding all my feelings / Damn the thunder, must I blunder? / There’s no wonder all I’m under / Stop the crying and the lying / And the sighing and my dying / Sail on, sail on, sailor.

In 1973, “Sailor’s” lyrics about perseverance in the face of adversity sounded wise before their time. On Friday, they sounded like a grizzled survivor’s vindication. For Brian Wilson, if not the Beach Boys as a whole, that’s exactly what they are.