Brian Wilson In Edinburgh

Take my word for it; this is Brian Wilson in Edinburgh last night. He was at the Festival Theatre on his mini UK tour to premiere his new song cycle That Lucky Old Sun. When I say 'his' it was co-written with Scot Bennett from Brian's band and Van Dyke Parks wrote some spoken word pieces that go with some very cool AV material that intersperses between the songs.

But before the new work there was an hour of Beach Boys classics, all the usual suspects. California Girls, Surfer Girl, God Only Knows, Good Vibrations, Heroes and Villains and Sloop John B. There were also some lesser-known or played like Do It Again, She Knows Me Too Well, The Little Girl I Once Knew (A favourite of mine), Sail on Sailor and When I Grow Up To Be A Man. They also previewed That Lucky Old Sun with an arrangement of the song written in the 30s by Beasley Smith and Haven Gillespie

After the break Brian and his ten-piece band were back along with the Stockholm strings, which included some nifty brass players.

Morning Beat
(Narrative - Room With A View)
Good Kind Of Love
Forever My Surfer Girl
(Narrative Of Venice Beach)
Live Let Live
Mexican Girl
(Narrative Of De Mayo)
California Role
(Narrative Of Between Pictures)
Oxygen
(Narrative Of Wilson Montage)
Midnight's Another Day
Going Home
Southern California

So what was it like? Brilliant, in a word. The new work is a classic piece of Wilson and no doubt the contributions of Scott Bennett an awesome talent have rounded out the piece. Midnight's Another Day, which you can hear on Brian's site, is very emotional, but live it transcended what you can here on line - simply beautiful. There's talk that Brian and the band are going to record it, we can only hope they do as it will be a lasting testament to Brian's return from the wilderness years. It evokes everything about Brian and his music that drew me to them in the first place. It is pure California.

It is a beautiful piece of work and you can check out two segments at Brian's web site. We were there courtesy of  Jeffrey Foskett who is a really cool guy and a VERY talented singer and musician who has been an integral part of Brian's band since he came back on the road. Unfortunately we didn't get to see Jeff to say hello, because he left with Brian and flew back to London straight after the show. Check out Jeff's work at his web site.