The former "Full House" star will join the Beach Boys for their Christmas show at New York's iconic Carnegie Hall on Dec. 5.
John Stamos will join his friends the Beach Boys for a special Christmas concert in New York City on Dec. 5.
The musician and former “Full House” star promises the show at the iconic Carnegie Hall, featuring the Holiday Vibrations Orchestra, will be a “once-in-a-lifetime treat” that will leave fans of all ages with warm and fuzzy feelings.
“We need safe entertainment. We need a home-cooked meal. That’s what this is. Beach Boys is a home-cooked meal with a side of ‘Full House,’” he tells TODAY.com in a Zoom interview.
It will be a treat for the Beach Boys and for Stamos, too. For the former, it will mark the 50th anniversary of their debut performance at Carnegie Hall.
For Stamos — who will also join the Beach Boys on TODAY on Dec. 5 — it represents another opportunity to step onstage with the band he grew up idolizing. His first concert, in his early teen years, was a Beach Boys show. Stamos, 59, formed a friendship with the group during his days as an actor on “General Hospital” and has frequently collaborated with them since, making appearances on their tours, including this year at venues such as Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium and London’s Royal Albert Hall.
“I never forget how lucky I am. I never forget to say how grateful I am,” he says. “I never forget to thank them over and over again. They’ll say, ‘No, thank you, you did this …’ I’ve done nothing.”
That’s not quite true. Stamos takes pride in the fact that he helped introduce the Beach Boys to a new generation of fans when they guest-starred in a couple of episodes of “Full House.”
“When someone comes up to me and says, ‘I got turned on to the Beach Boys because of you and “Full House,”’ that makes me so happy,” he says.
Stamos has particularly fond memories of filming a Season Two episode with the Beach Boys in which the Tanner family joins the group onstage at a concert after D.J. wins a radio contest. He specifically recalls the scene in which the Beach Boys and the Tanners are singing “Kokomo” in the Tanners’ living room, transitioning into footage of the band performing it in concert.
“Talk about goose bumps,” he says.
Watching the scene back now is bittersweet. Stamos can be seen swaying his hips at the concert while standing next to a smiling Bob Saget, who snaps his fingers to the music. Stamos has honored his “Full House” co-star and dear friend, who died last January at the age of 65, at Beach Boys shows this year, and he plans to do so again at the Carnegie Hall date with a video tribute that will segue into a performance of “Forever.”
“Whenever I get the chance, I talk about him because a) he’ll do something to me from up in heaven if I don’t. It’s just my way of keeping him alive,” he says before shaking his head and adding that Saget’s passing nearly a year ago “doesn’t seem real.” (Stamos also salutes Saget and his legacy in the new season of the Disney+ series “Big Shot,” in which Stamos’ character, a basketball coach, loses a friend who receives an outpouring of love.)
In an emotional speech to the crowd at a Beach Boys concert in August, Stamos spoke of how Saget was “bombastic with his love,” before expressing his own love to his family, including wife Caitlin McHugh Stamos, with whom he shares a 4-year-old son, Billy. Stamos has posted photos of Billy at Beach Boys concerts, though it seems Billy is still young enough that he’s not in awe of the fact that Stamos is involved with a legendary band.
“He knows his other (friends’ dads) don’t play with the Beach Boys. He’s pretty cool around me with it,” Stamos says. He then jokes that Billy is a “smartass,” citing a comment his son made during a car ride that didn’t show quite as much appreciation for the Beach Boys as Stamos had hoped for.
“We’re driving and ‘Kokomo’ came on. I said, ‘That’s your dad playing. Isn’t that cool?’ ‘Dad, do you know the Beatles?’” Stamos, who appeared in the music video for the 1988 hit, recalls.
Stamos has encouraged his son to take up music, noting that Billy has been playing around with the drums: “Lately he’s been listening and then he’s starting to — the other day he started playing a beat along with the music.”
He’s clearly taking after his dad, who’s played the drums, among other instruments, with the Beach Boys. Aside from the Carnegie Hall show, Stamos is scheduled to perform with the Beach Boys in Syracuse, New York, on Dec. 7.
John Stamos will appear with the Beach Boys on TODAY on Dec. 5 before performing with them at Carnegie Hall that night. More information on the concert can be found here. You can also catch him in Season Two of “Big Shot,” streaming on Disney+. Stamos, a spokesperson for Arnold, Brownberry and Oroweat Breads, has also created a “Heartthrob Cobb” sandwich inspired by the Cobb salad at the Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant at Walt Disney World (he insists he didn’t come up with the name for the sandwich).
