JULY 4, 1980 – The Beach Boys performed their first free concert on the mall in Washington DC to a crowd of half a million (500,000). Three years later to the day, Wayne Newton replaced the group for the annual concert after James Watt, Secretary of the Interior for the Reagan Administration, notoriously claimed that the otherwise squeaky-clean group would attract a “bad element.” In 1984, still banned, the Boys played the annual free concert in Miami with Ringo Starr as guest drummer, and finally in 1985, Jimmy Page joined the group onstage for their triumphant return to the White House celebration. The following year, they played the free concert in Philadelphia, with actor Mr. T inexplicably sitting in on drums.
