All of this seems like pretty farfetched speculation. There doesn't seem to be any hard evidence that Jeff would even want to lead the Beach Boys band, let alone that the Beach Boys would want that to happen. I agree with the person that said that Al would make a good frontman, although I'm not sure he'd want to tour as extensively as Mike & Bruce do.

The Beach Boys, no contest. I'd estimate that I listen to them 362 days out of the average year. I can't imagine listening anyone else half that much.

I've had the impression for many years, and this is just my gut/guess, that Mike and Bruce for many years now have had a bit of a Johnny Carson/Ed McMahon sort of relationship, which is to say they appear on stage together night after night and banter on stage, but then have little contact or socializing outside of anything connected to work (in this case "touring" work).

It appears that in some (if not most) cases Bruce hasn't even been heavily involved in studio sessions for solo Mike stuff. I don't know if Bruce is even singing on much of the circa 2004 "Unleash the Love/Mike Love Not War" recordings, for instance. I wouldn't be surprised if any upcoming Mike solo album has far more Foskett and Totten vocally than Bruce.

This has also been my impression. I have a vague memory of a small family celebration earlier this year where Mike invited family, a few friends, David Marks, and Brian (who did not attend). Bruce and Al were not present, and presumably not invited. On the other hand, I've heard Mike say in an interview that Bruce was a good friend as well as a band mate. FWIW, I've never seen them interact with each other postage in the many times I've been backstage. There definitely doesn't appear to be animosity, nor a best friend/confidante relationship, just a cordial professional relationship and mutual respect for each other's talent.

If these were available digitally, I'd definitely buy them.

So for those who've heard them: what's better: the 2012 C50 do it again, or the Mike Love 2016?

In my opinion C50 is one hundred times better. The C50 version sounded like THE BEACH BOYS which is huge of course, and also I thought the production was good. I thought Mike and Brian both sounded really nice on it too. Mike's solo version....I can say I do like hearing Bruce loud and clear on the "hey now" part, but overall I think Mike's voice is weaker than the C50 version and the overall sound is demo-ish.

Thanks! I'll wait for this to pop up on eBay or something, but definitely not going to go out of my way for it! I used to be a completist with officially released stuff, but I'll have to settle with being a 99%ist instead.

If these were available digitally, I'd definitely buy them.

So for those who've heard them: what's better: the 2012 C50 do it again, or the Mike Love 2016?

Are the re-recorded tracks the same as on the 1996 catch a wave promo CD that Mike released?

I was just playing with my brother's Xbox. "Kinetic Adventures" and in one of the featured games the background music was the instrumental track to "Our car club" aka "Rabbit's food"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhFZhg66OdM

Wow, that actual works really well for that game!

I've always liked Summer In Paradise. I don't care what anyone else says! I used to list it in my top ten BB albums. I don't think that's the case now (maybe more like top 20).

I had never heard anyone other than hard core fans talk about it, and I had never heard a track from it in a public setting, until I heard Hot Fun InThe Summertime at a bowling alley a couple years back (2013?) My mind was blown....How did it make it to that playlist some 20+ years later??

Here's a link to the 5-CD set at "Give to NPT":

https://secure.wnpt.org/index/summer-surf-beach-music-we-love-5-cd-set.2136085?tab=gift&view=detail

That's actually a pretty cool collection, and I know that I'd be helping PBS, but $156 is pretty steep.

Has anyone tried Shazaming it?

Way too many to list or even think of, but here are a few that pop into my mind (other than #1, these are not in order):

1. All This Is That
2. Love Surrounds Me
3. The Trader
4. Full Sail
5. From There To Back Again
6. Angel Come Home
7. Hot Fun In The Summertime
8. Your Summer Dream
9. Lady Lynda
10. Lonely Sea
11. Please Let Me Wonder
12. Girl Don't Tell Me
13. Diamond Head
14. Busy Doin' Nothin'
15. Cotton Fields
16. Disney Girls
17. Feel Flows
18. Keepin' The Summer Alive
19. Still Cruisin'
20. Surf's Up
21. It's About Time
22. At My Window
23. Slip On Through
24. You Need A Mess Of Help To Stand Alone
25. Roller Skating Child
26. Matchpoint Of Our Love
27. Let Him Run Wild
28. Little Pad
29. Summer's Gone
30. Stoked
31. Boogie Woodie
32. Moon Dawg
33. I Do Love You
34. Summer Means New Love
35. Can't Wait Too Long
36. Ol Man River/Old Folks at Home
37. It's A Beautiful Day
38. Break Away
39. Here She Comes
40. We Got Love (live)

I wouldn't mind some of the Still Cruisin songs cracking the setlist at a Mike and Bruce show. 

I think they did Still Cruisin at the RAH show at the end of C50. 

I love hearing the title track live! Always a treat!

According to a birthday post just weeks before, she was the last remaining Beach Boys parent.

Condolences to family and friends.

I'm reading that M. Ward opened for Brian last night at the Hollywood Bowl, which might explain why Brian and the band may have done a shorter set.

I've never really understood the appeal of having an opening act. I enjoyed the show, but would have enjoyed it more had it featured Wake The World, Funky Pretty, etc rather than an opening act. 99.9% off the audience is there for the main performer, and anyone that takes away from that time...well it just doesn't make sense. I used to cringe whenever this one comedian would open for Mike & Bruce in the early 2000s. He wasn't funny, and I knew to expect a shorter set.

The only time I've seen people there more for the opening act, it was when Foster the People opened at a C50 show, and even then, it was probably 5-10% of the audience.

Summer of love
Airplane (live)
Everybody Wants To Live (my former roommates laughed so hard at this many times)

Yeah, just saw that on Mike's page...thought it was a bit misleading as well that they showed the full clip from the GMA appearance (same day as my C50 show) from 2012 with that lineup.

Anyway...saw the Coney Island setlist...am I the only one that's in a state of bewilderment that "Pisces Brothers" has stayed in the set all this time, yet "Wild Honey" lived in the set for about a year? And even worse...they've added "Summer in Paradise" to the opening set for the best several gigs? 

In all honesty, I'd rather see Summer in Paradise than Goin to the Beach. 

And I'm with you about retiring Pisces Brothers.   The two times I've seen Mike and Bruce in the last year, that song grinded the concert to a halt. 

Looking at the Coney Island set, the could have done two classics to fill those spots that I'm sure would've kept the pace going that more people would be familiar with. "Don't Back Down" could easily replace "Summer in Paradise". "Pisces Brothers" being more of a ballad (I use that loosely) could be replaced by "Kiss Me Baby", "Please Let Me Wonder" etc. songs more people know, albeit not everybody.

There are two songs that have never worked in concert of all the times I've seen any configuration of the band: Pisces Brothers & All This is That.

I think that at all shows that I've seen Pisces Brothers done, that the vast majority listened respectfully. As for All This Is That , It's one of my favorite songs to hear live. People seemed to like it too, but yeah there's sometimes a little chatter. But the same could be said for other songs like The Warmth of the sun, which is an undeniable classic.

I could definitely see Diamond Head being used in a movie.

Does anyone know why Brian does Row Your Boat at his concerts? Is it always planned? It seems weird to do it in the middle of his pet sounds rendition portion of the show.

I feel like he does it to either break whatever tension people might be feeling, or to just purposely be funny and quirky.

For decades, I've always thought that the transition from GOK to IKTAA is too jarring.  I'd switch it with LGAFA, and sequence it as follows:

WIBN
YSBIM
TNM
DTPYHOMS
IWFTT
IKTAA
SJB
GOK
LGAFA
HT
IJWMFTT
PS
CN

After a few listens, I realized that for me, From There To Back Again was their best song since All This is That.

Do we have any confirmed recordings or first hand accounts of "School Days" in 1996. That seems intriguing and odd!

Here's the setlist I was referring to.
http://members.tripod.com/~fun_fun_fun/9-27-96.html

I think I asked the contributor about it, and he confirmed it. This was years ago. I lost many of the original emails from the early days of the setlist archive when they automatically deleted one of my email accounts after not logging on for 30 days.

My recollection is that "Surfin'" (the SIP album arrangement anyway) dropped off the setlist first, then "Hot Fun in the Summertime" (in 1993 I believe), with "Boardwalk" and "SIP" staying longer, with "Boardwalk" eventually dropping as well (I believe in 1995). SIP is the only track that survived more than a few years/touring seasons.

It seems the SIP songs stayed in the setlists much longer than the songs from SC, BB85, KTSA, or LA. Getcha Back being the exception - they performed it up through 1987; it was gone in 1988. California Dreamin' was still in the setlist in '87; also dropped in 88. But they did replace those with some good ones - This Whole World comes to mind.

I think the SIP sings mostly had a normal "new album" life span in the setlist. Two songs survived past 1993, and one song survived past 1995.

On "LA", "Good Timin'" was in the setlist through 1979 and 1980 (and perhaps early '81 gigs before Carl left), then was brought back into the setlist in 1982 when Carl returned, dropped by the end of that year. That was the only LA song that survived past 1979.

On KTSA, "School Days" stayed in the setlist through 1982; all the other KTSA songs dropped throughout 1980.

"California Dreamin" remained a fairly regular setlist inclusion pretty much throughout the 90s and in fact is still regularly played by Mike's band now (and was rotated in and out of the 2012 C50 setlist).

I think even "Still Crusin" had a similar setlist lifespan. The title track popped in and out over the years, while other stuff like "Somewhere Near Japan" and "Island Girl" were done sporadically through 1990 and then dropped.

I've always thought that Keepin The Summer Alive (the song) should have been brought back at some point. bizarrely enough, there is at least one known performance of "School Days" in 1996.

I've always enjoyed Hot Fun In The Summertime live. The title track isn't bad either in a live setting.

Who was singing the lead on 'Rhonda' in the Mike and Bruce show before? 

Phil Bardowell from 1998-2000, John Cowsill from 2000-2015.

I saw M&B last night and I have to say, it felt like they'd stepped up their game since the last time I saw them.

When I saw them last year it was pretty obvious they were playing with a lot of prerecorded tracks but yesterday, as far as I could tell, it was mostly, if not all, done live on stage.

The addition of the woodwind/brass player really helped fill the band out and they sounded great. Their set was focused more on mid to late 60's songs and they didn't dwell on the surf and car stuff for nearly as long as I'm used to. Mike didn't ramble too much and sounded good (except for his lead on Help Me Rhonda... I feel like Bruce or Jeff should take that one). Bruce was participating more, he took several leads, played some audible keyboard parts and talked to the audience. I was disappointed that their Pet Sounds portion of the show wasn't as exciting as I've seen them doing some other nights. They started it off by turning the stage lights out and playing the audio track to "Pet Sounds" (were we supposed to think they were playing it?) into Sloop John B, Wouldn't It Be Nice and then the Carl Wilson led God Only Knows.

It was nice seeing them end their main set with Good Vibrations, that song is so good and so powerful it always seemed odd they'd play anything after it, it's the perfect closer.

Overall good show, though I would have liked to see them do some more deep cuts. A few nights earlier they did Here Today, All This is That and Disney Girls '67... I was really hoping to hear those!

I'm not sure what made you think they were playing with prerecorded tracks last year, but other than Carl's and Dennis' vocals on the tributes, and maybe the opening note on Sloop John B, everything is performed live.