On May 12, 2007, Brian Wilson headlined a benefit concert for the Count Basie Theatre Foundation in Red Bank, New Jersey.<\/p>\n
Recalling the evening years later in his 2016 memoir I am Brian Wilson<\/em>, the Beach Boys co-founder and living legend remembered that “the whole time we were playing our show, there was a guy sitting in a folding chair on the side of the stage. I sit on the side of the stage sometimes myself during sound check, so I was paying special attention to the guy. I couldn’t tell who he was at first. I couldn’t see very well from the stage. But he definitely was someone–everyone who walked past him shook his hand.<\/p>\n “It turns out it was Bruce Springsteen. He was so quiet there on the side of the stage. It was almost like he was taking notes. At the end of the show, he came onstage and sat in with us; he played guitar on ‘Barbara Ann’ and sang harmonies on ‘Love and Mercy.'”<\/p>\n We can only imagine what must have been running through Bruce’s mind that night. “There\u2019s no greater world created in rock and roll than the Beach Boys, the level of musicianship,” Bruce opined in last year’s documentary film, Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road<\/em>. “I don\u2019t think anybody\u2019s touched it yet.”<\/p>\n “Barbara Ann” was the more famous of the two songs Bruce played with Brian that night, but “Love and Mercy” was far more personal.<\/p>\n