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The Beach Boys Fiftieth Concert Tour Hits London

Thursday 27 September 2012
It was the most amazing concert ever!  James and I met at noon.  A tad early, he was all suited and booted; we ambled over to The Albert Hall to see what we could do with our VIP passes. This ended up being rather a stressful thing and we eventually got them at 6.45 pm but we made the most of it and had a wonderful day. We took a wander through Hyde Park and found a restaurant in the middle by the river and had fish and chips. Then James took me to the Natural History Museum. I had never been there before, it is a hell of a place where they have life-size dinosaurs hanging out – a huge blue whale.  We sat and chatted about David Sandler and ‘Sweet Mountain’ and the Eddi story which he didn’t know about.

Then it was back to the Albert Hall a few more fans had arrived by then so we had a chat with them, tried again in vain for the passes, Liz arrived at 5.30 and we went inside. The concert started at 7.45. It started with ‘Do It Again’ which took the roof off the place and the audience didn’t really sit down all night – Liz certainly didn’t.

I’m sure someone will post the set list somewhere but they played 61 songs.  Highlights for me were, ‘Cotton Fields’, always loved that one, ‘Kiss me Baby’, ‘All This is That’, ‘Californian Dreamin’ was great. Gosh far too many really to mention, oh Brian did ‘This Whole World….’. There was an amazing bit that brought me to tears when Brian did ‘I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times’, once he had finished there was this groundswell… people just got up onto their feet and gave him the most heartfelt ovation. It really was a magical moment, I could see Melinda looking all about her in wonder. Brian looked uncomfortable with it to be honest and Mike bowed down and looked really proud of his cousin…

They did two encores and then we were allowed downstairs…. Carrie Marks was there, we hadn’t met but she gave me a lovely hug and made sure that David signed my copy of ‘All Summer Long’, so it has every Beach Boy now except Dennis. David said he had actually played on that one, it just hadn’t got his picture on it.  Al crept past with his dinner and left, he looked tired, no wonder really…  Probyn came over and said hi. Nelson was great as ever mingling and talking to everyone, Bruce appeared and I had a nice chat with him and he signed a piccie for me, it was just so cool, and then a while later Mr Love appeared and was mobbed  he seems so calm. He didn’t say anything really just signed everything he was very gracious and had his picture taken with me and then wandered off with my pen J. He signed a lovely black and white picture that I have that is now signed by Brian, David and Mike so very pleased with that.
I hadn’t met Scott Totten before, He did a wonderful version of ‘Ballad of Old
Betsy’ it was brilliant. I told him so and he said he wasn’t old enough to know that one, so told him I had been listening to that since I was 7 . Next John Cowsill, I hadn’t met him before he is AMAZING on those drums, really kept the beat going you could really hear it when it was his turn…  He was soo cute, he asked me my name shook my hand and then when it came for the piccie he really cuddled up and even gave me a kiss. It’s a great shot. 

So we didn’t leave till 1.30, poor Liz had been at work today and we didn’t get in till 2, we had a great taxi driver who told us of the famous folks he has had in is cab.  So a great end to a perfect day.

Friday 28 September 2012
Fast forward to gig number two.  I drove over to Wembley with two sat nav’s giving me two sets of instructions. Met Liz at the box office and she had bought me a lovely tour t-shirt. James joined us and we found our seats. Wayne Russell from the States had planned to come over with his family but sadly the airfares had stopped him as they were so costly. So he very kindly gave me his tickets, so we were much closer than I had anticipated being. I have to be honest it’s nowhere near as nice a venue as the Albert Hall, we were all crammed in like sardines…

The gig was still a thing of wonder though; everyone was up on their feet, not as much as the previous night’s gig though for some reason…  Al cracked everyone up by fluffing the first line to ‘Then I Kissed Her’, Rob Dean was sat behind us and said I wonder how many times he has sung that.

Standouts once again were ‘Cottonfields’, ‘Wouldn’t it

Me and James enjoying Wembley

be Nice’ and had everyone up on their feet. So many to name really, it was also cool that they had these huge screens so you could really see Brian’s wonderful natural expressions whilst he was singing.

Carrie had very kindly put by a couple of back stage passes for me. It was like big brother as we went into the room, wondering who else had passes. I saw the guitar player from the Paul McCartney band was there, David Slater and his wife, Mike and Jim, Harvey Paul and Ashley to name but a few. Bruce made a fleeting appearance and a lot of the band were there, John Cowsill was AMAZING. When John saw me he said Lucy and pulled a drum stick out of his back pocket which he had signed for me.  I said to him, ‘I couldn’t believe he could even remember my name and will treasure it always’.

Brian singing the very fitting ‘Summers Gone’

I managed to get pictures of Mike with them all as we said farewell and then it was all over. The doors closed behind us once more on this magical musical world. Will they ever open again with the cast…. only time will tell.

The other wonderful thing about this tour is that The Beach Boys have been supporting ‘Operation Smile‘ so whilst they played Kiss Me baby’ they played a wonderful film of a young girl before and after her operation, if you too would like to donate to this wonderful charity here is the link

http://www.operationsmile.org/living_proof/blog/2012/the-beach-boys-support.html

Me Probyn and John Cowsill’s Drum Stick 🙂

Me and Bruce

 

 

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