The Beach Boys, the early 60's original version on those first few albums, made a mark. It's Brian Wilson's band, and became more so. I know everyone's supposed to worship Pet Sounds (and it's great, as are some of the others), but I'll always love those very early songs/albums (but I'm a first-wave surf guitar/culture nut, so I'm going to veer toward that whole thing more than the later experimental, denser stuff). I know they're not technically a full-on "surf band", but they latched onto that thing and road that wave (ha!) as strong as anyone (the hot-rod/car stuff too), until all that kinda fizzled out once those guys from England started coming over. But 1960-1964 was really great, and the heyday of that surf stuff I love so much, and they were certainly part of it (even though I'm more into instrumental bands of that era).
I saw the Beach Boys here in town in the early 80's and it was pretty bad. Brian wasn't with them and it was a bunch of ringers/touring musicians on stage, in addition to the core of Love, Jardine, Johnston and Carl Wilson. I can't remember if Dennis Wilson was on drums. He died in 1983 and this was before this (I was in 6th or 7th grade, which would've been 1980-1981, so I assume he was. But all the songs were tuned down a bit, nobody was really hitting the notes, Mike Love wouldn't shut up, everyone in the audience was drunk/high (I saw a girl puking red liquid about five feet from me).
Needless to say, not my most fun concert. And I went because I loved them, from all my parents albums. But I just didn't take into account the ~15 years of time since the stuff I loved. They were just older guys on the road, sloppy, disengaged and kinda half-assing it, frankly.
But I will
always love those early-mid 60's albums/songs.