A band called “the Beach Boys” performed at an ultra-exclusive fundraiser for Donald Trump at the Newport Beach estate of virtual reality mogul Palmer Luckey on Sunday, but Brian Wilson, the founder and creative force behind the original group, made it clear that he and fellow Beach Boy Al Jardine were not involved.
“We have absolutely nothing to do with the Trump benefit today in Newport Beach. Zero,” a rep for the pair told Variety. “We didn’t even know about it and were very surprised to read about it in the Los Angeles Times.”
The performers at the Trump soiree, which donors paid $2,800 per individual to $150,000 a couple to attend, were vocalist Mike Love’s Beach Boys. Love got a license to tour with this version of the band in a settlement with Brother Records in 1998, and it’s more closely associated with “Kokomo” and part time drummer John Stamos than with Pet Sounds or any of band’s other groundbreaking records.
This isn’t the first time Love has been happy to associate with the Trumps—nor is it the first time Wilson has disassociated himself from his former band mate, who he hasn’t performed with since 2012’s 50th reunion tour. In February, both Wilson and Jardine threw their weight behind an online petition to boycott Love’s lineup when they agreed to serve as the entertainment for the Safari Club International Convention in Reno, where Donald Trump Jr. was the keynote speaker.
“This organization supports trophy hunting, which both Al and I are emphatically opposed to,” Wilson said in a statement. “There’s nothing we can do personally to stop the show, so please join us in signing the petition.”
Meanwhile, it sounds like yesterday’s performance could have been minimally rocking at best, since Trump only stopped by for an hour and a half. His motorcade arrived at the Oculus Rift founder’s Lido Beach mansion at 12:11 p.m. and ditched at 1:46 p.m.
Hundreds of people lined Via Lido ahead of Air Force One’s arrival, with most of them telling the Orange Country Register that they were there to urge Trump’s help in ending the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh territory in the Caucasus Mountains.
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