Knebworth Sands.

I have this performance of The Beach Boys song Lady Lynda on regular rotation when I listen to music on getting ready in the mornings and seldom skip it.
It's made all the better for the fact it was recorded at Knebworth Park - approximately six miles down the road from where I live (cue all those assassins trying to track me down to a less than ten-mile radius) - in 1980, less than a year before I was born, so if my family had lived in the house I grew up in by then, they could have potentially heard it from our window. I wish I could have been there myself, though if the gig was anything like Oasis' show there in 1996, it would have taken us a surprisingly long time to get home afterwards, despite the convenient location.

 When I went to see Brian Wilson perform Pet Sounds in Edinburgh last summer, he happened to have Al Jardine (who sung and co-wrote this) in the band, which was an added treat, and while he didn't sing my favourite of his Beach Boys songs at the gig, it was still lovely to see him. He no longer has the classic Eighties Beach Boys beard or the panama hat, but this didn't affect my enjoyment. I'm just grateful Mike Love wasn't in the band at the Pet Sounds gig, so his irritating attitude and general banter could be avoided. We all know that under his trademark baseball cap he has a full head of hair, or my name's not Vidal Sassoon; my name is that, isn't it?

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