Beatles Tribute Acts | Page 6 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

don-w @The Hippie Chick 

Rain is quite good. I’ve seen them and was very pleased – relief spread through my veins the instant I saw that “Paul” was left handed.

@Bongo My Brother has seen 1964 and and said they were fantastic. They are on my bucket list.

More about the show I’ll be attending.

Unlike tribute bands who sport wigs and period costumes to recreate a Beatles concert, The Fab Faux instead features some of New York’s top studio musicians playing songs rarely or never performed live by the Beatles. The Fab Faux will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1966 release of the groundbreaking recording “Revolver ” – performing the album in its entirety along with other fan favorites accompanied by the Crème Tangerine Strings and Hogshead Horns.

The good, the bad and the ugly in regard to Saturday night’s performance of The Fab Faux.

As I wrote previously, Zag and I saw them perform several years ago and I thought they were a very tight band that sounded very much like The Beatles, more than any other tribute band I had seen. On Saturday they were to play Revolver in its entirety, adding string and horn sections not ordinarily featured in their show. They did that, followed by a break and then came back on to play random Beatles songs. 

I was encouraged by the opening of ‘Taxman ‘. The dual count-in accompanied by background chatter and that little guitar slide at the end of it was spot on perfect. I wish they had stopped there. For the rest of the song, they sounded like just another tribute band sounding like they wanted to be identical but failing. They did not end the song where the original one ended, instead adding a flourish of their own that quickly made me realize this was not going to be Revolver , but rather the music from the album slightly rearranged. To be fair, ‘Taxman ‘ does fade out at the end and that would be hard to duplicate, but this version sounded like they didn’t put much thought into how to overcome that. 

Next up was ‘Eleanor Rigby ‘. Knowing the album the band was going to play, there were two songs in particular that I was looking forward to; this one and ‘Tomorrow Never Knows ‘. It started out so well with the string section playing so nicely, the tempo was perfect and the opening harmonies were beautiful. Then we got to the second verse. The singer botched the lyric by forgetting about Father McKenzie’s sermon writing and skipping ahead to him “wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave”. If that wasn’t bad enough, we suffered through his mumbling lyrics as he was frantically trying to work out how to get out of this lyric and into the correct one. I know of the old axiom “the show must go on”, but would have forgiven them if they stopped right there and started over. What a let down.

Other disappointments included, but were not limited to:

This one may be on me more than anyone else, but my expectation going in was they were going to play the songs on the album all the way through as closely as possible to the original record. As mentioned above on my view of ‘Taxman ‘, they added their own touches to several songs. In addition, they stopped in between songs to either introduce a band member or tell a story about the song, etc… To me, that killed the flow and feel of the album that I have grown to love over the years.

The band was not nearly as tight as I remember them being the first time around. The singer chosen for each song (they all sing) sometimes sounded identical to the corresponding Beatle. Most times, not so much. At one point, front man Will Lee thanked the audience for being there by saying “without you guys here, this would be nothing but a rehearsal”. I failed to hear the difference, whether we were there or not. 

There are many superlatives that would describe the venue. Not among them would be the ability to see everything from every seat. This image from the internet shows you where we were sitting. 

The white sheet (?) on the stage gives you an idea of how narrow the opening is once the “curtain” is lifted. The two drum kits and the string players were tucked into the back of the stage and to our left. Among the three of us, I was seated farthest right. When there were two drummers, I could barley see the left drummer’s elbow and I have no idea what the string players looked like. 

There were people in every seat. I’m fairly certain they were alive. After all, I did have to wait in line to get in the door, at the cocktail kiosk and to get into the restroom. Unfortunately, those three locations were the most lively ones all evening. We may as well have been at a lecture. 

Now for the highlights. 

They nailed ‘Tomorrow Never Knows ‘. As badly as ‘ER’ was botched, they nearly made up for that with this one. The lyrics, tape loop effects, drumming, voice effects…all of it was delivered flawlessly. At the end of it, after a simulated fade out singing “of the beginning…” they went into an extended drumming rave that was tremendous. The one and a half drummers (from my view) were amazing, even getting up and changing kits in the middle of it. That was a cool way to end the first set.

Despite the obstructed view many of us experienced, The Egg was a very cozy, intimate venue with acoustics that did not disappoint. I would definitely go there again, but pay the extra to be more central to the stage. 

The horn section was quite good. They were the highlight of many numbers, particularly during ‘Penny Lane ‘. The guy who played the piccolo trumpet was flawless. That made me smile. 

Jimmy Vivino’s extended guitar solo at the end of ‘While My Guitar…’ was stellar. I don’t know which version influenced him more, Eric Clapton’s at CFG, or the one of Prince that has been going uberviral lately. Either way, he can hold his head up high right along side either of those performances. Not exaggerating, he was THAT good. 

Those last two moments are the only ones that elicited a standing ovation from the audience I will heretofore refer to as The Living Dead.  

All in all, I had a great time. Still, I think I’m done with tribute bands for a while. Once I got over the fact that they were not what they once were and I removed my lower jaw from my shoelaces during ‘ER’, I loosened up and just tried to enjoy it. I sang every word of every song, drummed or played keys on my knees and even stood up quite a few times to show my appreciation of a hard-to-play guitar lick or horn blast. Ever see a one man standing ovation? Many around me did on Saturday night.