The desire to see what is arguably America’s first and best rock band live has been building up inside of me for...ooh I don’t know how long!

If I remember correctly it was while watching a film called Flight of the Navigator in 1986 when I was about seven years old that I heard my first Beach Boys song.

It was a catchy little number called I Get Around and it had been the group’s first Number 1 single in the US charts way back in 1964.

In the film the young hero David pilots an awesome alien spacecraft around the globe while rocking out to the song and proclaiming ‘now this is music!’.

Jump forward 28 years and even at the ‘tender’ age of 35 I still agree with David and indeed still picture myself at the controls of that spaceship zooming about while belting out Beach Boys hits.

There’s probably many things wrong about a man of my age striking exaggerated surfing poses and rocking out to songs from 20 years before he was born but to be honest I don’t care.

I know almost all of the words to almost all of the hits and in the warm summer air of Hampton Court’s grand Base Court was gleefully belting them out - happier than I’ve been in far too long.

As I said at the start, despite being in existence for over 50 years I’ve never seen this legendary group in concert. Purists will of course argue I still haven’t, as the current incarnation is vastly different from the line-up who first called themselves Beach Boys back in 1961.

It’s a long and not terribly savoury story best summed as saying founder member Mike Love has chosen to tour under the name of the group he holds the legal rights to without the support of fellow stalwarts Al Jardine, David Marks and most significantly his cousin Brian Wilson.

Brian’s fellow founding brothers Carl and Dennis passed away some years ago and his own battles with drugs and other demons have been well documented and seen him leaving and rejoining the band several times over the years.

The resulting fall-out has also been discussed at length in the media, possibly with a lot of misleading embellishments along the way, but trust me when I say that the Gallagher brothers have got nothing on this particular peer group!

Along for the ride with Mike was Bruce Johnston, who first joined the Beach Boys in 1965, and Jeff Foskett who didn’t come on board until 1979 - incidentally the year I was born.

Seeing the Beach Boys without Wilson, Jardine and Marks should be like Wimbledon without the strawberries and cream or Christmas without the presents - it shouldn’t work, and yet it does.

Brilliantly

The rest of the musicians on the night were mere babies compared to their senior colleagues but I’m happy to say were certainly no less accomplished.

And what a start they made, ripping into Do It Again to kick the show off and then reeling off a further five hits including Little Honda and Surfin’ Safari with barely a pause for breath in between.

At this point Love called for an intermission before Johnston joked they needed to make the last train home and then both promised to ‘stumble on for another two hours or so’.

In the end the set lasted for a fairly respectable one hour 50 minutes but what it lacked in quantity it certainly made up for in quality.

And to be fair, the fact most Beach Boys songs are famous for only being around 2-3 minutes long, you can fit an awful lot into a short gig. If it had been Pink Floyd or Led Zep up on stage they would probably only have got around a dozen tunes under their belts in the same time frame.

There were gentle touches of humour as Love proclaimed Little Surfer Girl to be a ‘cell phone participation’ number, only to then need help from a roadie to make his own phone light up ready to be swayed along in time to the music.

Onwards we ploughed with Don’t Worry Baby, Little Deuce Coupe, I Get Around and The Warmth of the Sun all drawing high praise from the packed out audience.

There was a genuinely moving moment when Love explained the thinking behind his long-time unreleased tribute to Beatle George Harrison called Pisces Brothers because they both share the same star sign.

The resulting song was reflective and sombre and served to prove that Beach Boys songs can be about more than just sunshine, BBQs and having a good time.

Carl Wilson was featured on the big screen to sing along to God Only Knows and this was followed by more hits including Good Vibrations, Kokomo, Sloop John B and Wouldn’t it be Nice.

You really do find that you can instantly identify almost any Beach Boys song just by listening to the first few opening bars and by the time the band starts singing, you’ve already blurted out the first verse without waiting for them!

Hitting the home straight saw the audience up and jiving to Dance Dance Dance, California Girls, Help Me Rhonda, Do You Wanna Dance and Barbara Ann before it was surfboards to the ready one last time for a spot of Surfin’ USA.

All too soon the sun set on a triumphant show which was repeated the following evening and will also be taken to several British racecourses later in the year.

There was just time for a drop of Wild Honey and a triple of Fun before the Beach Boys 2014 headed off into the night.

It is impossible to know if the latest rift between the famously fractured foursome will be healed again in time for one last reunion tour so all I can say is, if you are like me then for goodness sake take the opportunity to experience at least one third of this legendary group before its too late.

God Only Knows you’ll be glad that you did.