By the wedge.LIVE 💙 TO SHARE click icons at story’s end

Love was in the air in Kemptville last Saturday night, literally and figuratively. The climate was perfect and the bugs, oddly non-existent. Good fuel for love.

Original band member, Mike Love, led the recombined The Beach Boys through songs that made music history in the 60s at Kemptville LIVE Music Festival.

Love was very much his namesake on this beautiful evening in July–a disciple of it in his words, visuals and song. Love was on his mind through their set–a Lennonesque spirit in this last-Beach-Boy-standing at 77.

Mike Love, original band member, The Beach Boys, Kemptville LIVE PHOTO BY theWedge.LIVE

“Good Vibrations” already flowed from the massive crowd before this historic, commercial hit was performed. Love has reported that he wrote those lyrics in the car, dictating to his then wife and recorded the song one hour later. (That’s an iron-clad case for the virtues of “winging it,” which this writer has resorted to on more than one occasion.)

Cousin Brian Wilson and Al Jardine are no longer in the current Beach Boys band; Carl and Dennis have long ago passed away. Nevertheless, Love remembered Carl who succumbed to lung cancer in 1998 with love.

Mike Love remembers cousin, Carl Wilson, to the audience in kind words and on screen. PHOTO BY theWedge.LIVE

Their performance was a mix of elation and melancholy as we watched the original group on screen, young and vibrant: Brian Wilson, Carl Wilson, Dennis Wilson, Al Jardine and Mike Love. Youth lost, warm memories found.

The crowd was excited waiting for their appearance, but the Cooper Brothers stole our thoughts with their excellent performance early in the evening.

The Cooper Brothers perform at Kemptville LIVE to a large audience. PHOTO BY theWedge.LIVE

The grounds filled-up armchair-to-armchair in what seemed liked six football fields. The crowd likely exceeded 10,000.

Kemptville LIVE at its peak hour, peak audience and peak weather. PHOTO BY theWedge.LIVE

Kemptville LIVE at its peak hour, peak audience and peak weather. PHOTO BY theWedge.LIVE

2018 featured : The Beach Boys, Loverboy, Jann Arden, Honeymoon Suite, Dawn Tyler Watson, The Cooper Brothers, Trooper, The Commotions, Keith Glass, Emily Burgess, Terry Tufts, JW-Jones, Wicked Grin, Firebelly, Redfox, Southbound, Rob Baird & The Agency, and Downchild.

What will the producers of Kemptville LIVE Music Festival, Bob Besharah and Karen Bedard, do in 2019? Who will they bring to this now “Lovestruck” town?

How do you “get around” that?