Wonderous Stories Shows a 'Dark Side' at Jones Beach Boardwalk Bandshell

The sounds of chiming clocks filled the Jones Beach Boardwalk Bandshell straight from a sound sample on guitarist Tommy William's laptop. Several ticktocks and musical notes later, lead singer Kenny Forgione sang the last stanza of "Time:" "Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time/Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines."

Williams and Forgione are the front men for Wonderous Stories, who performed Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon" in its entirety on Aug. 13 as part of the Jones Beach Boardwalk Bandshell Free Summer Concert Series.

Thousands of enthusiastic fans of Wonderous Stories filled the boardwalk, bleachers and concrete area around the band shell on that clear but moonless summer night. Before and after recreating the 1973 concept album, the five-man Long Island band (along with backup singers) cranked out a medley of tunes from three other albums: The Who's "Tommy," Paul and Linda McCartney's "Ram" and Wings' "Band on the Run."

Throughout the night they peppered their sets with other classics songs, from "Born to Run" by Bruce Springsteen to "The Logical Song" by Supertramp to "Funeral For a Friend," with Mark Bonder letting loose the eerie wind and cathedral-like synthesizer sounds that introduce this tune as drummer Ricky Martinez did his best Elton John on lead vocals. The band's one constant is their spot-on, tight precision, with Kevin McCann severing as their backbone on bass.

Performing whole classic rock albums is a trademark of Wonderous Stories (named and spelled after a Yes song), whose members further pride themselves on never practicing together or following a set list.

"With the advent of downloading, very few people download a whole album — they mostly take a song or two from many different albums," said Williams, the musical director for 1980s pop star and Merrick native Debbie Gibson. "So the idea of an album as an entity that you listen to, it's become like an aging bottle of wine. It's much cooler to get one of those now."