When do a pop or rock band become an institution? The Beach Boys are rather like the Rolling Stones. Some of the original members may no longer be in the band, but as long as the sound is right and the current line-up can still wow audiences with faithful reproductions of such classics as “Surfin’ USA” and “Good Vibrations”, they still qualify as a “lovable anachronism”. The Beach Boys are living testimony to that great era when they were locked in a creative battle with the Beatles to develop the simple rock that started their careers into true pop art.

Indeed they trod the same path that Swiss artist Adrian Weyermann has trodden thirty years later: from the power pop of “Crank” to the reflective songs on “La Poeta”, which, by elegant coincidence, were largely written in the Californian sunshine.

Martin Schäfer