Express & Star

After nearly 50 years in the business, The Beach Boys could be forgiven if their Good Vibrations were more than a little faded by now.

But the Californian rock and rollers entertained a capacity crowd at Birmingham’s NIA for three-and-a-half hours last night.

By the end of the epic show, the eight-piece band, led by founder member Mike Love, had the audience on their feet with their songs of summer, surfing and the girls of LA.

Mike, topped with his trademark baseball cap, joked with the crowd about his age and reminisced of growing up with cousin and original member Brian Wilson.

For much of the late 1980s and 1990s, the pair seemed to be at each other’s throats but all hostility seemed to be buried yesterday as Love shared stories of growing up and singing at family functions with his cousin.

Despite the success of the new line-up, whose harmonies were just as sweet as ever last night, and the well-documented drug troubles of his cousin, 67-year-old Love does not rule out a reunion with Wilson.

Brian, hailed by many as the driving force of the group, appeared in the second city himself last year when he performed the hits of The Beach Boys at Symphony Hall in September.

Speaking about the band’s former troubles, Love said: “Way back then, there were two factions in The Beach Boys. One was those who took non-prescribed drugs - everything imaginable - and the other was those who didn’t.

“It literally got to the stage where we took two separate planes.”

But thoughts of Brian took a back seat last night, and the band’s sound was just as fresh and authentic as it was back in the swinging sixties, despite the fact that only Love and Bruce Johnson were around for those original hazy days.

The audience, who ranged from middle-aged men in Hawaiian shirts to teenagers who had latched on to the band through their parents’ record collection, lost count of the number of hits performed by the time the lights went up at 11.15pm.

The group is now made up of Christian Love - Mike’s son - on guitar, other guitarists Randell Kirsch, Chris Farmer and Scott Totten, and Tim Bonhomme and John Cowsill on keyboards and percussion.