Beach Boys: It’s yesterday once more

While the kids are rediscovering the surprising charms of Filipino bands, their parents and grandparents have embarked on a massive nostalgia kick. It is said that a generation takes on the past 20 years to look back to but this recent case surprisingly has people looking back to the last 40 years or even further. And don’t say they are not, because how else will you account for the fact that Ramon Jacinto regularly goes on board to talk about the ’60s and plays songs from that period? And people listen and watch! RJ is also now on TV.

More so, how can you account for the massive popularity today of The Cascades? This is a so-so group with one album to its name that specializes on saccharine love songs. Pinoys fell in love with its songs in the early ‘60s like Shy Girl and The Last Leaf and mourned its "death" for many years until it turned out that its members were very much alive. I don’t think they made it to the Philippines when they were younger but these guys certainly more than made up for that lapse recently with two performing visits which turned out to be very successful.

So what do you think can happen after these? The answer is the Beach Boys. Now, the Beach Boys in its heyday was certainly bigger than The Cascades. It was made up of Mike Love, Al Jardine and the brothers Wilson, Brian, Carl and Dennis, teenagers who liked to hang out and sing together. All of them evolved into extraordinary artists and producers, particularly Brian, but whose problems with his weight and drug addiction later splintered the band. Carl died of cancer in 1998 and Dennis drowned in 1983.

How great were the Beach Boys? They gave the Beatles very stiff competition and even influenced many of the British foursome’s big sellers. With hits like Surfin’ USA and Good Vibrations, they introduced the world to a Californian lifestyle that was about, girls, surfin’, cars and fun, fun, fun. The impact they made was so tremendous that their music now epitomizes an era considered the last innocent time for the baby boomer generation.

Lushly harmonic, extremely danceable, very romantic, the Beach Boys’ music alternated between fun, Surfin’ Safari to the sincere, Don’t Worry Baby to one the most profound expressions of true love ever written, God Only Knows.

Some of the group’s other hits were California Girl, Fun, Fun, Fun, I Get Around, Barbara Ann, The Warmth of the Sun, Surfer Girl, Help Me Rhonda, Little Deuce Coupe, Do It Again, Wouldn’t It Be Nice, and the biggest of them all Kokomo, from the soundtrack of the motion picture Cocktail.

The Beach Boys Live in Manila will be staged at the Araneta Coliseum on Friday, Oct. 7. Arriving for the show will be Mike Love himself who did vocals in most of the Beach Boys hits and co-wrote most of the songs. He will be with Bruce Johnston, who replaced Brian during problematic periods, on vocals and keyboards, Mike Kowalski on drums, Randell Kirsh on guitar and vocals, Chris Farmer on bass and vocals, Tim Bonhomme on keyboards and vocals, John Cowsill on keyboards, vocals and percussion, and Scott Totten on guitar and vocals.

Tickets to the show are available at the Araneta Coliseum box office, SM Department Stores and at Ticketnet outlets. For details, call 532-8883. Tickets are priced at P3,500, P3,000, P2,500, P1,500, P800 and P300.

The Cascades’ Album

And now back to The Cascades. Since the group was here, its one and only album is now available on CD. So save the vinyl and play this in the car. Entitled Cascades, of course, it has Shy Girl, The Last Leaf, Angel on My Shoulder, Let Me Be, Dreamin’, Lucky Guy, My First Day Alone, Punch and Judy, There’s a Reason, I Wanna be Your Lover, Was I Dreamin’ and Rhythm of the Rain.

And if you think that getting the Beach Boys and The Cascades one after another in the same year is already enough, brace yourselves for more of the same romantic nostalgia. The Stylistics will be here in December again and the Lettermen in January. If Henry Mancini and Ray Conniff were alive, they would be winging it back to local shores. Has anybody thought of looking up the Dave Clark Five or the Searchers?