“Abacab” Tribute Band Playing in Delaware

Just a heads up that the tribute band “Abacab” will be playing at The Milton Theater in Milton, Delaware on May 30th. This will be my first time seeing them live but their uploads on YouTube are very impressive. One upload is an entire Seconds Out concert. In another their setlist spans both the Peter and Phil eras as well solo works by PG and PC. They also have a separate clip of them performing Abacab featuring top flight guitar work at the end. Looking forward to the show!

Quote from WinstonWolf

I've seen Abacab play numerous times, and they really are top notch! They all love the music, and it really shows in how faithfully they play. They also play a really wide range of material, from the really early material, the big hits, a few solo songs, and some deep cuts Genesis never performed on stage.

The show I’m attending is tonight. I just watched a couple of their clips on YouTube and was very impressed. They did a great job with “Silver Rainbow” and really knocked Supper’s Ready out of the park. Speaking of the latter, I reached out to them a few months ago virtually pleading for them to play Supper’s Ready tonight. I got back a very friendly “we will see what we can do” type reply, which in all honestly I take as the equivalent of the dreaded “We’ll see” answer from my dad when we were kids. We quickly learned that “We’ll see” really meant “No, but I don’t want to listen to you complain so I’ll leave it at maybe” lol.

Quote from WinstonWolf

I'll see them this Saturday and next Saturday, and I'm really looking forward to the shows. I'm glad they're getting booked in more venues so more folks can see them.

As for Supper's Ready, I've seen them play it a couple times. It's not a regular tune for them for many of the same reasons it wasn't for Genesis after a while; it's so long it means they can't play three or four other songs, plus it's quite a workout to play. Supper or no, I'm sure you'll enjoy the show. On these shows where they're the only band they usually play 2.5-3 hours solid, and hit a pretty wide variety of songs.

Excellent show last night by Abacab. Musically the band was superb (special kudos to the drummer and guitarist), and the vocalist was fantastic. One thing I appreciated and enjoyed was the fact that the band wasn’t afraid to get adventurous with certain arrangements. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to listen to Genesis’ versions of the song Abacab again and not think “Man, I wish they had arranged it like that tribute band.” The guitarist was freaking incredible at the end of the song, and went places with it that were really unique. My wife walked out of the theater saying that was the most fun she’s ever had at a Genesis tribute band concert. As she pointed out, some of the later stuff has great sing-along sections for the audience that the earlier stuff doesn’t have.

SPOILER ALERT!

As you predicted WinstonWolf, they played for close to 2 and 1/2 hours. The setlist was an eclectic mix of stuff from Genesis’ prog catalog, poppier stuff, and a few selections from PG’s and PC’s solo careers (They absolutely nailed Sledgehammer and Easy Lover, and did a good job with In the Air Tonight as well). The setlist was heavy on songs from Duke, starting (of course) with BTL and ending the show with DT/DE. It was nice to hear Tonight, Tonight, Tonight again in its entirety, though the keyboard player seemed to have a bit of trouble with his equipment during the first part of the instrumental section in the middle of TTT (no sound), something which ironically I saw happen to Tony Banks on the IT tour. As for the hardcore prog era stuff, there were a few songs sprinkled in, including Eleventh Earl, DWTMK, and Watcher of the Skies. Toward the end they performed an extended Lamb’s Stew. I have to admit about halfway through that I thought “if they are devoting 20 minutes to this, why not 23 minutes to Supper’s Ready instead?” I got the sense that half the audience was sitting there hearing about KKK serving hot soul food and a fluffy heart being ready for rape and wondering “Huh? WTF?” Still, the band did a great job with it, and I took pride in feeling like the hardest core fan there as I was the only person in my section singing along word for word throughout the entire Stew selection. I was surprised that we got nothing from ATOTT. And surprised that certain classic older tunes that usually get played by tribute bands were left out (In the Cage/Cinema Show/Afterglow; Carpet Crawlers). Overall, I’d highly recommend seeing these guys. One last compliment: it’s nice going to a concert like this and not knowing what the next song will be. That’s a big advantage over simply doing a single tour’s setlist.