Beach Boys play Sarasota, with Love but without Wilson

Most Beach Boys fans will tell you that Brian Wilson was the Beach Boys. Though the other band members were no musical slouches, Wilson wrote or co-wrote most of the songs, created those gloriously distinctive harmonies and produced their records.

And although Wilson is still touring, and played a memorable concert at the Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg a few months back, he’s no longer an official Beach Boy.

The Beach Boys, without Wilson, will be in Sarasota Monday for a concert at the the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall.

Mike Love, the lyricist of many of the band’s hits and one of the singers from the classic Beach Boys lineup, owns the Beach Boys name and has been touring the country playing Beach Boys favorites. The current beach Boys lineup also includes Bruce Johnston, who has been a Beach Boy wince 1965. (Brian Wilson’s band actually includes more Beach Boys than the the current beach Boys, with Al Jardine and Blondie Chaplin joining Wilson.)

There’s been a lot of tension over the years between Love and Wilson, but in an interview with the Bradenton Herald earlier this year, Wilson said he was glad that Love and Johnson were carrying on the Beach Boys name, and that they’re “doing a great job.”

Besides their feel-good summer songs from their early years and their more substantial music from a slightly later era, the Beach Boys were known for one of the best pop-rock Christmas records ever made, “The Beach Boys’ Christmas Album.” Given that the concert is less than two weeks before Christmas, you can probably count on hearing “Little St. Nick” alongside “Surfer Girl.”

Details: 7:30 p.m. Dec. 12, Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, 777 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. $71-$81. 941-953-3368, vanwezel.org.

This story was originally published December 7, 2016 at 4:53 PM with the headline "Beach Boys play Sarasota, with Love but without Wilson."