Beach Boys.

By Joel Goldenberg
The Suburban

2025 is a year of milestones for the Beach Boys. It is the 60th anniversary of three of their landmark albums — Today!, Summer Days (And Summer Nights!) and Party!, and the standalone single The Little Girl I Once Knew.

But this past Feb. 19 also marked the 60th anniversary of the group’s first concert in Montreal, at the Maurice Richard Arena, where, according to the book The Beach Boys in Concert by Ian Rusten and Jon Stebbins, the show turned into a near riot as fans tried to mob the stage, while drummer Dennis Wilson “barely made it to his dressing room with his hair intact.”

Lead singer Mike Love, 84, in a phone interview with The Suburban last week, didn’t specifically remember that concert — he’s performed thousands of them for more than 60 years, after all. But he did say that he very much enjoys visiting and performing in Montreal.

“I remember Montreal being a fantastic city, the province of Quebec in general, Quebec City. In Montreal, I especially like the architecture, the fact it’s heavily influenced by France, in fact, there’s some areas of Montreal where you’ll never see English. It’s fascinating — like going to Europe, but a lot closer.”

Love said a lot of audiences were indeed wild in the early to-mid-1960s, and he expects a much calmer show than the one in 1965, when the Beach Boys perform June 21 at the annual Strangers in the Night gala, which is marking its 20th year, at Complexe Pointe Claire. Also performing are The Damn Truth and Exodus. The event raises funds for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which grants wishes to critically ill children, as well as the Montreal Children’s Hospital Foundation and the West Island Women’s Shelter.

Love points out that “we’ve done Make-A-Wish Foundation concerts many, many times, and we like it when our celebrity helps raise money and awareness for philanthropic groups, so it will be a really nice evening. I think it’s great if people turn out and support the Make-A-Wish Foundation.”

In terms of milestones, we also mentioned that this past April marked the 60th anniversary of Bruce Johnston joining the Beach Boys. Johnston, following a brief stint by Glen Campbell, replaced Brian Wilson, who stopped regular touring with the band in late 1964. Love and Johnston, with a wonderful band, tour as the Beach Boys nowadays — I saw this edition of the band in 2001, 2016 and 2018, and all the shows were superb.

“Bruce has been great,” Love says. “He has a Grammy for writing I Write the Songs, made famous by Barry Manilow. He’s been behind the scenes on a lot of songs — he got me working with Terry Melcher and we did Kokomo, which went to #1 and is probably our biggest selling single ever, and definitely the biggest singalong in our show. He’s been a good influence all along.”

At the time we spoke, Love was a week away from the Songwriters Hall of Fame induction ceremony in New York City, where he is being honoured for writing the lyrics of such timeless classics as California Girls, Good Vibrations, the gorgeous The Warmth of the Sun and many others.

“I join so many great artists who contributed so much to our musical culture. It’s a great honour to have my contributions to the Beach Boys recognized, finally.”

For more information on the Strangers in the Night gala, go to strangersinthenight.ca. For more of the musical aspects of our interview with Mike Love, that will be in an upcoming Retro Roundup. n