Review + Photos: Brian Fest Live at The Fonda

Reuben Merringer April 7th, 2015 - 3:17 PM

Shot for mxdwn by Sharon Alagna

Magic can be seen as something too hard to pin down in rational terms. The same can be said of the smile-inducing life’s work of Brian Wilson. This is all the more apparent when seeing nearly thirty of his songs performed by dozens of artists from the past fifty years, all of them sharing the stage for a night in the spirit of charity and an infectious love for the music of one man. Whatever inspiration–be it hormonal, chemical, or divine–brought those tunes into being, is difficult to call anything but magical, by any definition, even for the most spiritually inert. Song after song after song, some performed true to their origins, others as fanciful interpretations, revealed the common stroke of genius running through them, and what is eminent in all great art: that no matter what form it takes, in able hands the original genius shines through and ignites that same primeval memory of the first experience. On Monday, such an opportunity availed itself at the Fonda for two hours of steadily dispensed pop magic and mastery from one of American music’s most hallowed figures.

Carried by the already hefty house band The Cabin Down Below Band and several members of Wilson’s own band, a rolling roster of artists both current and classic–including Wilson himself–took the stage and kept an impressively steady pace thanks to smooth transitions, enthusiastic performers, and adept emceeing by house band bassist and Rolling Stone writer Austin Scaggs. Things got cooking two songs in with “Surfin’ Safari”, and after that the long list of special guests began. First up was Jess and Holly of the synth-pop band Lucius coming on for a dreamy rendition of “Til I Die”, with unexpected shocks of reverberant guitar discord that brought to mind Sonic Youth covering the Carpenters, while Mattel-brand vocal harmonies transmitted the zen musings of distant death through a carefree crescendo. A quick change and actors Danny Masterson and Adam Busch came on to take a comically leisurely stroll into a exuberant raw delivery of “Be True to Your School” that threw light upon the cave walls. From there the pace held steady, Scaggs never letting silence take the room as he announced and lauded each additional guest. Performances ranging from the surprising–Devendra Banhart dressed as a carrot accompanied by an ear of corn and a peapod for a cover of (what else?) “Vega-tables”, complete with carrots chewed as percussion (celery must have been in short supply)–to the soaring, like when surprise guests the Punch Brothers, with their assortment of folk instruments, five-part vocal harmonies, and two vintage-sounding condenser mics took the intoxicating “Surf’s Up” into a serene wooded realm that flared with heartwrenching violin squelches.

There were no real highlights, since it seemed like every song was a highlight. That said, Local Natives did a two-song set that exploded with their faithful interpretation of “I Get Around” that had the audience clapping with every second line of verse. The Flaming Lips’ Steven Drozd and Wayne Coyne did an (of course) psyched-out version of “Good Vibrations” that (of course) involved giant balloons, in this case spelling out “WE LOVE YOU BRIAN” in gold mylar. One surprise was when Scaggs ushered “one of our favorite pop stars” Ke$ha on stage for a rendition of “California Girls” that (of course) sent cellphones into the air to capture video. It was interesting to see the juxtaposition of artists of recent memory joined by legends like Boz Scaggs, Ann Wilson of Heart, and former and current Beach Boys collaborators Blondie Chaplin and M. Ward, and of course Wilson’s daughters in Wilson Phillips run down the list of so many great songs. Al Jardine and Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino had great chemistry for a moving performance of “God Only Knows”.