Pop legend Brian Wilson went under the knife for an emergency back surgery this week. The good news? The surgery was a success. The bad news? He was forced to cancel the remainder of his May tour dates, including his “Pet Sounds: The Final Performances” tour May 20 at the Pompano Beach Amphitheater.
“I know that my agents are already in the process of rescheduling, and we will have some of the makeup dates to announce very soon,” Wilson posted on his website this week. Dates in Washington, D.C., Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia and Florida were postponed, with the notification to “Please check back for make-up date.”
South Florida Beach Boys fans might not want to hold their breath, however. Kay Renz, the publicist for the Pompano Beach Amphitheater, led off her press release this morning with the notification that “unfortunately, this show will not be rescheduled.”
If that’s true, it’s what we concertgoers refer to, in technical terms, as a major bummer. The tour, celebrating arguably the greatest album in the history of popular music, has been running for two solid years; it’s taken Wilson and his exceptional live band that long to make it to South Florida. Pompano Beach would have been the tour’s final stop. I even managed to snag a phone interview with Wilson earlier this year to promote the concert (spoiler alert: he didn’t say much).
If it’s any consolation, Wilson is still scheduled to perform in South Florida by year’s end. On Dec. 12, he’ll be visiting the Hard Rock Event Center in Hollywood to perform the Beach Boys’ classic “Christmas Album” live, alongside Al Jardine and Blondie Chaplin, both of classic Beach Boys lineups. It’s not “Pet Sounds,” to be sure, but we can use holiday cheer any time of the year.
