Brian Wilson takes the title of his Something Great From '68 tour seriously.
While co-stars The Zombies are performing that year's Odessey and Oracle album in its entirety, Brian is featuring songs from his 1968 Beach Boys album Friends.
Bandmate Al Jardine tells AzCentral.com, "We were basically looking to change our direction... So we gathered around the piano -- like friends would do, you know -- and we just started writing new music."
Less acclaimed than its predecessor Pet Sounds, and even less commercially successful, Friends was recorded at Brian's home -- which famously had its piano located in a sandbox.
Friends featured songs such as "Wake the World," "Busy Doin' Nothin'" and "Little Bird," as well as the harmony-packed title track. Jardine thinks of it "like a little home movie that got onto the big screen." And like The Beach Boys' Smile, which went unreleased for decades, he says "it took a while for it to matriculate... It’s just a little bit before its time, you know?"
Brian Wilson and The Zombies play the Comerica Theater in Phoenix tonight (Friday). They'll be at New York's Beacon Theater on September 26th.
Yes drummer Alan White will sit in with Wilson on September 16th when his show plays the Paramount Theatre in Seattle, where White lives.