‘The Beach Boys in Concert’ — The complete lowdown on the band’s legendary voyage

Beach Boys Mike Love, Bruce Johnston, Brian Wilson, David Marks, and Al Jardine pose with the formidable and very tall Jon Stebbins at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles on September 18, 2012, for a special 50th Anniversary exhibit. Image courtesy of Jon Stebbins

Released in the aftermath of the Beach Boys’ critically lauded 50th Anniversary Reunion Tour, The Beach Boys in Concert: The Ultimate History of America’s Band on Tour and Onstage appropriately recognizes the fractured band’s seismic impact upon modern popular music.

While the massive coffee table tome by Ian Rusten and Jon Stebbins is intended for research minded Beach Boys fans interested in pinpointing when and where a special concert occurred, there is much more available than meets the eye.

Rusten and Stebbins wrote their book in part as a thinly-veiled counter-strike to British author Keith Badman’s similar but sometimes improperly researched 2004 book, The Beach Boys: The Definitive Diary of America’s Greatest Band on Stage and in the Studio. Badman stopped short at arguably the band’s final hurrah featuring the original lineup — the nation’s bicentennial and the endless publicity machine surrounding the controversial “Brian’s Back” campaign exemplified on the 15 Big Ones album.

The 8.5” x 11” hardcover by Rusten and Stebbins differentiates from Badman’s tome by documenting nearly every known tour date played by the group through leader Carl Wilson’s death in February 1998. Selective dates from recent years, often muddied by various touring factions…