The long wait is over. After 13 years, Ocean Beach Street Fair headliner Big Mountain returns with a new album, “Perfect Summer.” Best known for their 1994 No. 6 hit, “Baby I Love Your Way,” Big Mountain has always been a major draw, particularly in outdoor settings, where their reggae music can be heard to full effect. “Big Mountain took a break in about the year 2003,” bandleader Joaquin (Quino) McWhinney explained. “I went back to school and settled into a career in teaching, and life just sort of took over. We made several attempts to rekindle the fire, but without a label or proper management, we couldn’t find the initiative to get the band back together,” he said. The new album has been composed and produced within the last three years. “It coincided with my move to Ensenada, where I now live with my family,” McWhinney said. Currently in the middle of album-release events, McWhinney is happy to be performing in Ocean Beach. “Ocean Beach holds a very special place in my heart,” he said. “I have always been easily seduced by the counterculture movement. My paternal grandmother was a hard-core hippie and a big influence in my life. “Ocean Beach back in the day was the closest thing in San Diego to [the] ’60s and ’70s. Being a teenager of the ’80s, I really resented how much things changed in our country in a matter of a few short years. Ocean Beach was the only way to escape the Reagan revolution that dominated my adolescence.” Ocean Beach also played a major role in McWhinney’s musical beginnings. “It was also where the reggae scene was pretty much based. My good friend Bill Winston opened up Winston’s Beach Club right in time for one of the first bands, Shiloh, to take the stage. We really honed our skills in the club.” That said, McWhinney gives the edge to outdoor gigs when it comes to performing. “It really depends on the gig,” he said. “Great clubs are very fun to play. But being in front of large crowds is also an exhilarating experience. In both cases, it’s possible to have a bad sound system, which really is about the only thing that can make a gig unbearable. We’ve even played in a typhoon once in Japan – and it was a blast!”