The devastating news that Brian Wilson has died at age 82 hit early Wednesday afternoon, and we’re all in a state of shock. “We are at a loss for words right now,” his family wrote in a statement. “Please respect our privacy at this time as our family is grieving. We realize that we are sharing our grief with the world.”
Wilson had been in failing health for quite a long time, and the family revealed he was suffering from dementia last year, requiring a conservatorship to handle his affairs. But it somehow seemed like he’d live forever after everything he’d survived throughout his long and difficult life. He was one of rock & roll’s ultimate survivors, somehow outliving both of his brothers, Carl and Dennis, by more than a quarter-century.
In the late Nineties, Wilson stunned fans by hitting the road as a solo act for the first time in his career. He was backed at the shows by a group of Beach Boys super fans, the Wondermints, who lovingly recreated the lush, complex arrangements of the original Beach Boys recordings with amazing precision.
“We really wanted to do the music justice,” Wondermints multi-instrumentalist Probyn Gregory told Rolling Stone in 2024. “I think everyone gave it their A-plus shot, and really focused, and really tried to emote, and tried to break down the fourth wall as much as we could. We wanted to make sure that we gave [Brian] as solid a bed as we possibly could so that he could thrive.”
A couple of years into the run, they started playing Pet Sounds straight through with local symphonies. Shortly after that, they shocked the world by resurrecting Brian’s lost 1967 masterpiece Smile, both on the road and in the studio. It was a peak moment that was impossible to top, but Wilson and the Wondermints continued to tour heavily practically every single year throughout the 2010s and early 2020s, pausing only for the brief Beach Boys reunion in 2012, and Covid in 2020.
The final tour was a double bill with Chicago in the summer of 2022. It was a difficult time for Wilson, who often seemed distant and unengaged onstage, leaving his band — including original Beach Boy Al Jardine — to carry much of the weight.
“It was a little tough,” Gregory told Rolling Stone. “We’ve seen that over the years, that sometimes he’s really pumped and all there and ready to do a show. At other times he’s scared and he’s heard voices or he’s just not feeling up to it. And I’m afraid to say that a lot of 2022 he wasn’t feeling up to it…. People love to ring the bell and extol his virtues when he’s on, and that’s great. But when he’s not engaged, it can seem really bad. And I feel bad for everyone. The audience, they want to get the good Brian, and we in the band want everyone to be pleased, but we can’t control everything.”
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The last show took place July 26, 2022, at Pine Knob Music Theatre in Clarkson, Michigan. Like every show on the tour, it was heavy on Beach Boys classics like “God Only Knows,” “Good Vibrations” and “Sloop John B.” But there were also deeper cuts, including “Long Promised Road,” “Sail On, Sailor,” and “Wild Honey.”
Check out fan-shot footage of “California Girls,” “Good Vibrations,” and several other songs from the show. It’s sad on some level, since Wilson is clearly struggling, and he barely participates in “Good Vibrations.” But take a look at at the joyous crowd perched near the stage, singing along to every word of those all-time classic songs and having a blast.
Brian was dealt many difficult hands in life, including a brutish father and severe mental illness. But he spent the last few decades of his life watching music that he created spark joy in thousands of people, night after night. That’s a pretty magical way to go out.
From Rolling Stone US
