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As many a Brian Wilson song is wont to point out, there’s an intensity about the first time that you’ll spend the rest of your life vainly trying to replicate. So perhaps it was inevitable that Wilson's return to the Festival Hall was not quite an ephipany to rank alongside his previous Smile and Pet Sounds tours. On the first of 11 UK shows pegged around a freshly-minted song-suite called That Lucky Old Sun, there were no grown men crying at the harmonic sunburst of Help Me Rhondda; scarcely a “we are not worthy” gesture directed at the architect of the Beach Boys’ sound. Following those previous UK tours, now it’s getting to be like a yearly visit from a well-loved if slightly batty uncle.

Now, when Brian Wilson shuffles in a yellow top, like an aged Charlie Brown and introduces Sloop John B by saying, “This one’s about a BOAT! A BOAT!”, an indulgent smile spreads across the auditorium. He fired off hits at a velocity that stretched his voice beyond its capabilities. For Good Vibrations, he left the high notes to guitarist Jeff Foskett whilst, all around him, his crack team of Californian sessioneers channeled the spirit of his dead brothers with unalloyed Muppet joy.

Of course, this hour spent accruing goodwill from the floor also served to clear space for That Lucky Old Sun. There was no getting around a communal sense of trepidation. No-one expects a new masterpiece from a 65 year-old Brian Wilson. Yet, first impressions of songs such as Going Home and Good Kind Of Love suggest he may have delivered one. With lyrical assistance from multi-instrumental sideman Scott Bennett and linking narratives written by Van Dyke Parks, Wilson’s extended love letter to California elicited a gathering sigh of relief that not even a backdrop showing tacky, over-literal computer animations could obscure. An unabashed paean to the American Dream, Californian Role, saw Wilson sing, “Living under this sun, disappointment is never as bad as it seems,” while a pan-harmonic music hall fantasia seemed to cocoon his childlike outlook.

In Wilson’s voice is a faith in teenage emotions that shines in defiance of what life really teaches us. That was presumably why, he introduced California Girls and not, say, Heroes & Villains by asserting that it was his favourite Beach Boys song. And why the former was more moving than the latter when he played it.

Future generations – unburdened by our nostalgia – will truly be able to judge how the new songs stand up to Wilson’s past. But you couldn’t help feeling that if Sgt Pepper represented an attempt by The Beatles to create something mythical out of their own Britishness, that Lucky Old Sun has done something similar with Wilson’s California.

Pepper was, of course, also the album that inadvertently helped derail Wilson’s Smile when its young creator decided he couldn’t top it. All of which compounded the surprise when Wilson returned for the encore and declared his intention to play She’s Leaving Home. That said, some baggage may remain. When Wilson got around to singing it, his inexplicably jaunty treatment of the song amounted to an act of sabotage.

To Sunday. Box office: 0871 6632530. Then touring nationwide.

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