The first official posthumous Brian Wilson release. Live at the Roxy Theatre revisits the show that kick-started Phase II of the great man’s career and it’s clear: He was loving every moment of it.
Release Date: 7th November 2025
Label: Oglio Records
Formats: CD / Vinyl / Digital (see below for further details)
FIRST POSTHUMOUS RELEASE
There’ll be a veritable flood – of that there’s little doubt – but this 25th Anniversary Edition of Brian Wilson’s debut live solo album, Live at the Roxy Theatre, is a worthy winner of the title of Brian Wilson’s first posthumous release.
The great man passed away in June of this year, of course, and Live at the Roxy Theatre is a timely reminder of just how deeply Brian Wilson’s genius flowed. Recorded on 7th and 8th April, 2000, at the intimate Roxy Theatre on LA’s Sunset Strip, the album was originally released in June of that year- initially for sale just at Brian’s concerts, then given general release 12 months later. The shows represented a significant milestone in the career of Brian Wilson and these recordings capture him performing right at the very start of his comeback – his reappearance after over three decades of mental health-induced hiatus.
IT ALL STARTED (AGAIN) HERE…
He was, of course, to go on from here. During the years that followed this performance, Brian Wilson would resurrect and complete his ‘lost’ 60s masterwork, SMILE, he’d produce excellent albums like Lucky Old Sun (2008) and he would manage something that the Beach Boys could never effectively pull-off: convincing live performances of the seminal Pet Sounds album. But, for Brian Wilson, it all started (again) here, at The Roxy Theatre.
Brian had enlisted a stellar 10-piece backing band for these shows. The lineup included Jeffrey Foskett on vocals and guitar, Bob Lizit on bass, Probyn Gregory on vocals, brass and (inevitably) theremin, Darian Sahanaja on vocals and keyboards and Paul von Mertens on saxes and flutes. The band are tight and forceful and they breathe vibrant new life into a host of songs that you’ll certainly know and definitely love.
EVERY SONG IS A SHOW-STOPPER
The setlist for the shows was a mix, heavily weighted towards Beach Boys’ classics but also including several lesser-known, more recent songs like The First Time and This Isn’t Love and, as I’ll explain shortly, just about every song is a show-stopper.
This 25th Anniversary Edition marks the first time that this particular recording has been available in vinyl format. In fact, potential purchasers of the album have a range of formats from which to choose, as the following list demonstrates:
- Original (2000) 2xCD, 28-track issue, first sold at Brian’s shows;
- The 2001 Oglio Records 31-track, 2xCD reissue set;
- 2025 digital/streaming option (34 tracks);
- 2025 3xLP vinyl box set (35 tracks) and;
- 2025 2xCD 40-track issue – the most comprehensive option. Includes the complete Roxy concert plus additional ‘on-tour’ recordings from 2000-2009.
A LITTLE GLIMPSE OF VULNERABILITY
The 2025 ‘physical’ editions of the album are rounded off by Beach Boys’ chronicler David Leaf’s comprehensive liner notes.
Those readers familiar with the earlier versions of Live at the Roxy Theatre will be aware of the astonishingly good sound quality of the recordings. Indeed, these are recordings that are fully befitting of The Beach Boys’ reputation for exemplary production. Brian’s band are tight, respectful and utterly dynamic and the vocals are right on the nail. OK, so Brian’s voice may sound a little world-weary on occasion, but there are so many good reasons for that and, in any case, a little glimpse of vulnerability just adds to the charm of these classic songs.
JUST FLAWED ENOUGH TO SOUND REAL
He’s clearly having a great time, too, as the passion of his singing and the sincerity of his dialogue with the audience demonstrates over and over again. This isn’t Brian being wheeled out as some kind of circus act to line other people’s pockets; this is Brian Wilson singing his songs because he loves them – and he knows that his audience loves them too.
The highlights are almost too numerous to mention. Don’t Worry Baby is breezy and airy, Do It Again pulses like a sledgehammer and I Get Around is indistinguishable from the peerless original. God Only Knows is almost perfect (no mean feat for one of the finest songs ever created) yet just flawed enough to sound real, and Good Vibrations hammers home, one again, the sheer magnitude of Brian’s genius.
DID WE MISS A TRICK?
The joyful “Are you making fun us?” intro to Caroline No almost brings tears to the listener’s eyes and Barbara Ann rocks solidly and ecstatically. As the concert draws to its close, Brian asks the audience: “How long can you clap without hurting your hands?” as they set the pace and rhythm for a blistering Help Me Rhonda, before Brian and the band wind things up with a clean, punchy, blast through Fun Fun Fun.
Back in February 2022, at The Barrier ran a feature: At The Barrier’s Favourite Live Albums of All Time. To our shame, we didn’t include Brian Wilson Live at the Roxy Theatre. Perhaps we should have done; Live at the Roxy Theatre is a cracker!
Watch Brian Wilson perform The First Time, live at The Roxy Theatre, below:
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