Barrington Theatre, Saturday 16 January
Review by Janine Pulford
Seeing the Beach Boys Band at the Barrington Theatre in Ferndown was a dose of nostalgia I’d been looking forward to and what a superb tribute act it was, immortalising the sound I remembered from my youth.
A few well-positioned palm trees and short-sleeved, stripy shirts put us in California, and when mixed with ‘Fun, Fun, Fun,’ The Beach Boys Band plunged everyone straight into the depths of iconic songs. Vocal harmonies were spot on and a little narrative between the songs gave some of the history of the music.
‘Help Me Rhonda,’ ‘Don’t Worry Baby,’ ‘I Can Hear Music,’ ‘God Only Knows,’ ‘California Girls,’ ‘Surfin’ USA,’ were easy to join in with and when it came to ‘Barbara Ann,’ the energetic and entertaining lead singer got men and women harmonising on the chorus lines.
Singing is one thing the Barrington audiences are good at, but getting bums off seats isn’t so easy, yet The Beach Boys Band managed it with some success. The dancers surfed through the songs in the aisles and after ‘California Girls,’ it was discovered that there was a California girl in the audience.
Classic Beach Boys’ covers ‘Johnny B Goode’ (Chuck Berry) and ‘Wipe Out’ (The Surfaris) really rocked and the drumming on the latter was exceptional – I can still hear it now.
Hawaiian shirts made an appearance in the second half bringing with them ‘Good Vibrations’ and another dose of ‘Fun, Fun, Fun’ as one of the encores.
If you want a night of music to lift your spirits and get you dancing, you won’t go far wrong with The Beach Boys Band.
