It’s like a crescendo that never ends – the tentative release dates, the whispers that he would be completing it at last. In the nearly forty years since Brian Wilson began work on Smile, the never-finished record has come to be seen as no mere turning point in The Beach Boys’ career, but a defining “fork in the road” for popular music. As envisaged in Lew Shiner’s ode to mid(dling)-life crisis, Glimpses, it’s a window into some kind of Alternate Pop Universe – a world where #1 records are bursting with boundless creativity. To these fans, Smile’s ambitious incorporation of Schubert’s lyricism, Ives’ experimentalism and Twain’s wry wit was about the possibilities of pop music to reach people and inspire them.

In truth, I was one of those people. I came to see the record’s collapse as signaling the death of that ideal – and with its replacement by the frankly-inferior Sgt. Peppers’ (and its token nods to classical and pop art) as the definitive album of 1967, the dream had ended. Whether it was merely coincidence or reflective of an evolving culture and industry, a good case could be made that Ambition—the kind with a capital A—no longer had a place in popular music once Smile fell apart.

And so, upon learning that Wilson would be taking the late, great album on tour, it can be said that I approached the news with a rather serious measure of caution. Aside from my Red Soxian skepticism that it would even happen at all, the mere idea that “The Definitive Lost Album,” as Stylus recently deemed it, would receive its premiere not with an official release, but rather a live performance by an artist so far past his prime struck me as, well, kind of anticlimactic, if not outright depressing. For one, I’d had virtually no interest in seeing Wilson’s performance of Pet Sounds Live a few years ago, preferring to let my associations with the original remain unencumbered by the impression of a catatonic old man bleating tunelessly in front of a crack orchestra.

This time, however, the stakes seemed a little higher; indeed, part of what made Smile so compelling was its very lack of definition – the way its brilliant vignettes, melodic and vocal fragments sort of floated in the ether in an unknown state of completion, only vaguely attached to any gravity-inducing framework. How did all those modular fragments fit into Wilson’s vision of “Heroes and Villains” anyway? Was “Wind Chimes” really the “Air” section of the “Elements Suite” or was it the rumored (and never heard) atmospheric piano snippet Wilson claimed? With so many unsolved mysteries still fueling endless debate among the ever-growing numbers of faithful, the tour had the potential to not only demythologize the record, ruining what is essentially one of the most gorgeous uncut diamonds in the history of popular music.

Lest we get overly dramatic, suffice it to say those concerns are largely unfounded.

I’ll leave it up to the endless debates at fan-site Cabinessence and BrianWilson.com to debate the particulars—of what fits where and so forth—but on the basis of a bootleg that appeared on the Internet within hours of the first show’s performance, Wilson’s SMiLE tour (new capitalizations and all) is really quite a remarkable achievement, leaving the record’s conceptual integrity intact. Yes, Wilson’s voice sounds worn. Yes, this project never would have happened without musician/admirers like original lyricist Van Dyke Parks driving the project creatively. And yes, giving Smile formal definition (if not definitive definition) does diminish the unknowable magic of the surviving recordings some.

But its revelations replenish that well and then some. For one, the performance is fairly brilliant, with the arrangements of what were extraordinarily complex studio recordings stunningly recreated. And Wilson’s voice, while by no means the angelic instrument it once was, generally rises to the occasion (and where it can’t, as on “Surf’s Up” remarkable vocal appoggiatura, he gets help from the band). He sounds energized, which in turn energizes the music itself.

And, of course, there’s the much-ballyhooed smattering of newly completed lyrics and melodies Wilson wrote with Parks. Among them, the once-skeletal “Do You Like Worms?” and “I Love To Say Dada” benefit the most, with the former gaining a vocal “Woo-woo!” choo-choo train chorus in and a new verse about an ocean liner. The latter’s Lord’s Prayer-esque lyrics during the creepy “Water Chant” section are slightly more dodgy (perhaps too explicitly referencing brother Dennis’s 1983 drowning). But overall, none really distract.

Largely, though, it’s just the same brilliant music Smile always was, here organized sensibly and compellingly. The show divides the songs into three mini-suites: the first based on “Heroes and Villains”, the second’s theme the “Changing of the Guard”, and the last being the Elements suite. The first incorporates all the Americana material, folding the manifest destiny premise of “Do You Like Worms?” into the industrialization themes of “Cabinessence.” The second suite collects the childlike wondermint (heh) of “Wonderful” and “Child Is the Father of the Man,” with Parks’ stunning torch-passing prose on the epic “Surf’s Up”. The last is the least conceptually coherent, as it starts with the Elements material, like the furious “Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow” fire section, using the absurdist health ditty “Vege-tables” to pivot onto Brian’s “fitness” songs, like “I’m In Great Shape”.

Does the result, as one Internet poster mused, end up sounding like a “High School Play written by a very talented 16-year-old”? Given the structure, which certainly boxes Wilson’s ambition in some, perhaps more so now than before. But this is one play I wouldn’t leave once my kid’s scenes were over (besides, I’ve never heard any high-schooler write a melody like “Wonderful” or “Surf’s Up”).

And in any event, this particular high school play is being performed by a 62 year-old man with enough mental problems to place him out of senior year psych. Putting aside for a few moments the whole “Definitive Lost Album” stuff, the mere fact that this is happening at all—that Wilson was able to find a way to put aside all his demons, personal and legal, to make this tour happen—is nothing short of astonishing. Because by all rights, this ought to be terrible. It’s not, though. In fact, it’s pretty damned good.

Does all this make up for lost time? Hardly. The same soul-killing music industry that for all intents and purposes killed Wilson in 1967 is far worse now, one reason I’m not holding my breath that the newly completed recordings will be seeing the light of day anytime soon. But this does nicely, serving as a friendly reminder that Ambition does have a place in pop music after all – it’s just not on the radio. For us Yanks, here’s to hoping that place isn’t just Britain.