Three generations of music’s legendary Wilson family joined together with dozens of other friends and musicians in Agoura Hills, Calif., Thursday night for a charity concert saluting the Beach Boys, marking the first time since Brian Wilson’s death just over three weeks ago that there had been a public celebration of his music involving members of this particular tribe.
But the timing was somewhat coincidental, since the tribute concert had been in the works for this date since last year, as the annual event put together at the Canyon Club by The Tribe. That’s the name taken by a collective of L.A.-based singers and musicians that has put on a show around this time each year going back to 2015, working arm-in-arm with the Get Together Foundation to raise money for multiple charities. Thursday’s show included a lot of performers associated with The Tribe who don’t have a clear connection to the Beach Boys, but the many guest artists who are a part of the extended Beach Boys family ensured an especially sentimental night.
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Among the members of Brian Wilson’s family on stage during the 28-song show were Carnie Wilson and her daughter Lola Bonfiglio; Marilyn Wilson-Rutherford, who is Carnie’s mother and Brian Wilson’s ex-wife, teamed again with her longtime musical partner Ginger Blake as the duo the Honeys; and Leo Knutson, the son of Wendy Wilson and, of course, the second of Brian’s grandchildren to be on stage at the Canyon.
“It’s very bittersweet for me,” said Carnie Wilson backstage. “I mean, we planned this for the last six months, but who knew that my daddy would’ve passed away three weeks ago. So, really, I barely made it here tonight, but I’m here.”
The sweet part for Carnie was in having her mother and daughter both featured beside her. “It’s very rare — I mean, you can maybe count on one hand (the similar musical families that span) three generations. Like my friends, Ricky Nelson’s sons — you know, Ozzie and Harriet, and Ricky Nelson, and then Gunner and Matthew. I can’t think of too many more. And it’s a pleasure and a delight that my daughter Lola is going to open the second set with ‘The Warmth of the Sun,’ and it’s gonna knock everybody’s socks off. She sings anybody in my family under the table.”
Two former members of the Beach Boys also took the stage — Blondie Chaplin, who sang the hit “Sail On Sailor” during his tenure with the group in the early ’70s, and David Marks, who spent several years in the band during its mid-’60s prime and came back around later for reunions.
And then there was a veteran musician who might as well have been a member of the Beach Boys, for all intents and purposes: pianist Don Randi, who played on countless studio sessions for the group as a participant in what would later come to be known by everyone (except for a certain bass player) as the Wrecking Crew.
That still left room for plenty of unassociated frontpeople or featured instrumentalists, from actor Rob Morrow to ex-Wings member Laurence Juber to Immediate Family member Steve Postell to “American Idol” alumnus Carly Smithson. And Nelson Bragg, a longtime member of Brian’s touring band, was part of the house band and a lead vocalist as well.
The set was mostly made up of foreseeable Beach Boys favorites — primarily the ’60s standards plus “Kokomo” — but John McNeely did warn that there would be a few deep cuts as he stepped up to the mic. Sure enough, he sang “Student Demonstration Time,” the polarizing, counterculture-themed, early-’70s rewrite of Leiber & Stoller’s “Riot in Cell Block #9” that will sometimes show up on fans’ lists of least favorite Beach Boys songs… which, love it or hate it, made its rare appearance here all the more delightful.
The Beach Boys themselves had not performed “Student Demonstration Time” since 1973. But there was an even deeper cut than that: “Here She Comes,” from the 1972 “Carl and the Passions/So Tough” album, with a lead vocal by Blondie Chaplin. We asked him backstage: When was the last time he performed “Here She Comes”?
“I’ve never done that song live,” said Chaplin. Never? “No, that’s the first time I’ve ever done it — not even back then. It was a little shaky, you know what I mean? Bu I did it because Kevin (Wachs, who executive-produced the show with Mare Wachs) wanted me to do it.”
Chaplin has more recent memories of Brian than some, having been a part of his band on tour in the late 2010s. “He’s a good guy, man,” said Chaplin, still talking in the present tense. “I miss him. Tomorrow there’ll be some wet tears,” he noted, reiterating what many of the performers said, that there was too much camaraderie in the show to get too melancholy. “It’s sad, but he, he’s given so much. Everybody’s been touched by what Brian’s done — it doesn’t matter which musician.”
David Marks said he was a near-miss for the show, but the health fates favored him. “Ginger (Blake, from the Honeys) called me a couple months ago and I couldn’t do it; I wasn’t feeling very well. But Nelson talked me into it, and I started feeling better, so I made it just in time for rehearsals last week,” he recounted.
“I guess the timing is pretty good, to remember Brian and his brilliant music. The thing was planned way before Brian passed, so the timing of this event is great because he’s in all of our hearts.” He played guitar on the night’s car-song medley “because I was on those records” from the mid-’60s. Marks said it felt slightly strange taking part in a Beach Boys salute: “I told my wife, it’s kinda weird that I’m here paying tribute to myself! But I didn’t want to miss it.”
If Lola Bonfiglio seems familiar, it may be because she was seen as a contestant on “American Idol” back in March. She could have been having even more of a family affair if her father, Ron Bonfiglio, was on hand. but he is out on the road playing with Al Jardine and the Pet Sounds Band, who were set to start their tour on July 4. But it was still a lot of family support Thursday night.
“It’s definitely the first time in a while I’ve performed with my grandma and Ginger” (aka the Honeys), the 19-year-old said. “It’s so special and I love it, and it’s honoring my grandpa. It’s a cool thing that his legacy is so, so big, and that, I mean, all these people know who my grandfather is — it’s crazy. But I’m just trying to be on stage and not cry.” She made it through “The Warmth of the Sun” and the other numbers she participated in without tears, and closed her big number with a look skyward and an “I love you, grandpa.”
Said her grandmother, Marilyn WIlson-Rutherford, after the show, “It was wonderful singing with family —and this is our other family, The Tribe, with Kevin and Mary.” Added Ginger, “They’re incredible people, and we always love doing these shows for them because their heart is in the right place. And especially today, commemorating and paying tribute to Brian, Marilyn’s ex-husband.” (Wilson produced a series of recordings for his then-wife’s duo through most of the 1960s.)
The two songs the Honeys performed with help from the next two generations were “I Can Hear Music,” from the Beach Boys’ “20/20” album, and “Friends,” the title track of an album that Marilyn noted was Brian’s favorite of all his work, along with “The Beach Boys Love You.” (No material from that latter album was performed during the evening, but Al Jardine is planning to cover that base on his tour.)
Among the knockout numbers of the night at the Canyon Club, beyond any of the aforementioned, were two of the big ballads, Carly Smithson’s “God Only Knows” and Cara Lee’s “Don’t Worry Baby”; a Wachs-led “Sloop John B” that briefly turned into a reggae number just before the climax; and a “Feel Flows” that properly commemorated one of Carl Wilson’s signature numbers with an epic flute solo from one of the night’s instrumental MVPs, Fuzzbee Morse.
“Good Vibrations” lived up to its title as an all-cast finale, although Carnie Wilson looked to be having a slightly solemn moment as it started, putting her hands into a prayerful position and looking up, presumably sending some kind of thoughts out to the father who invented the phrase “a teenage symphony to God.”
Setlist for the Beach Boys tribute, July 3, 2025:
Set 1
California Girls — John Pratt
Fun Fun Fun — Lauri Reimer
Darlin’ — Ken Stacey
Kokomo — John McNeely
Student Demonstration Time — Michael Stern
Car Medley (Surfin’ Safari, 409, Little Deuce Coupe, I Get Around) — Pacific and David Marks
Caroline, No —
I Can Hear Music — the Honeys, Lola Bonfiglio, Leo Knutson
Friends — Carnie Wilson, the Honeys, Lola Bonfiglio, Leo Knutson
Wouldn’t It Be Nice — Terrell Edwards
Set 2
The Warmth of the Sun — Lola Bonfiglio
In My Room — Rosemary Butler
You Still Believe in Me — Jaynee Throne
God Only Knows — Carly Smithson
Rock ‘n’ Roll Music — Rob Morrow
Surfer Girl — Alex Jules
Marcella — Freebo
Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder) — Alice Howe
Don’t Worry Baby — Cara Lee
Do You Wanna Dance — Laurence Juber
Feel Flows — Jeff Allen Ross
Here She Comes — Blondie Chaplin
Sail on Sailor — Blondie Chaplin
Help Me Rhonda — Nelson and Carnie Wilson
Sloop John B — Kevin Wachs
Surfin’ USA — Goddard
Good Vibrations — the Wilsons
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