Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night have all been of musical interest for me. Starting with Tuesday, I saw the Magic Numbers in Portsmouth. The Magic Numbers have opened previously for Brian Wilson, and they are consistent of siblings, in this case a two pairs of brother and sister. They play an energetic but harmonic brand of pop rock and the show certainly reflected a passion for performing and a lot of energy. They are promoting their second album Those the Brokes, which I haven’t heard apart from the lead single, Take A Chance which is an infectiously catchy tune that has seen some MTV rotation. My overall favorite is Forever Lost, their first hit which does showcase the joy of family harmony in the same way as the Beach Boys.
On to Wednesday night and it was back to London for Paul Weller, the Modfather. Weller has had an interesting career, starting in the height of punk with the Jam, seeing the Jam develop into a great pop rock outfit that became the biggest band in the UK in the early 80s, breaking up the band for the jazz pop of the Style Council before becoming a succesful solo artist. My favorite moments of his music were the Jam, especially the later period where they were simply a great rock band, as well as the more introspective and melodic bits of the Style Council. Songs like Spring  Summer Autumn, Spin Drifting, It’s A Very Deep Sea and The Picadilly Trail in the Style Council era tapped the same emotional well as Pet Sounds and Today and it is probably no coincidence that the band performed California Girls in concert.
But Wednesday night saw Weller go almost full circle to a punky energetic show that showed that, even after these years, he hadn’t lost the energy of 1977. The sound was a bit muddy and one could see they were trying to sort it our during the show. However, it was a great chance to see on my favorite artists and the closing of the great Jam hit A Town Called Malice made it all worthwhile.
So on to Thursday where I watched the Channel 4 broadcast of the UK music hall of fame where Brian was inducted. It was an interesting choice of David Gilmour doing the introduction- Pink Floyd are one band one doesn’t associate too much with the Beach Boys (apart from the vocals on The Wall) but interesting that David said that they were initially inspired by the Beach Boys harmonies. Also great to see Bono talk about Brian -a fascinating comment about the God Only Knows proving that there were angels! Brian was clearly nervous but I thought the performances of God Only Knows and Good Vibrations were solid and Brian seemed to show great joy in them. One oddity was during the film about Brian all the songs co-written with Mike were specifically listed as written by Brian Wilson/Mike Love -was this a lawsuit avoidance strategy?
Amongst the other inductees, I most appreciated Dusty Springfield and George Martin and was glad to see them there. Just a few final comments – Dusty seemed to have the same perfectionist streak as Brian while George Martin must be one of the genuinely nice people of music history and really deserves the accolades that he gets.
So after all that, on to the challenge of some actuarial conferences…
