I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: June 13, 2026] The Fab Faux

I’ve said many times that I don’t do cover bands.  And yet, here’s another one.  Well, this one was different. There is literally no way to see The Beatles anymore and since my wife is a huge Beatles fan and a friend (who is in a different Beatles cover band) said these guys were great, I got tickets for us.

Recently The Fab Faux (a truly great name) played Abbey Road and a Hard Day’s Night in their entirety.  So I was psyched for an evening of Beatles music.  They even had Hogshead Horns and Creme Tangerine Strings with them, so I imagined a chronological tour through the years of Beatles albums.

They opened with Got to Get You Into My Life and I was pretty impressed.  The vocals were really good and of course the musicianship was top notch.   They followed it with Savoy Truffle (in which they sing “creme tangerine”).  I recognized the music but not the words at all.  (It’s a late cut on the White Album, but I guess I never paid much attention to it.  My wife was pleased to hear it.

Then they played a song that neither of us really knew.  Junior’s Farm is a song by Wings and neither of us are big Wings fans, so…

But then they started playing some familiar songs–Back in the U.S.S.R.–and I was really blown away by how good their voices were–Paul and John were just perfect.  I loved Paperback Writer and Taxman and it was around this time that I noticed that the people in the front row (we were in the middle section) were going nuts.  Like nuts as if this were, not the actual Beatles, not that nuts, but like a super famous band of musicians.

Speaking of the crowd, when we sat down, a guy next to us had brought three inflatable cushions to sit on.  It looked like he had some kind of trouble walking, so I assume it was medical.  But this guy was in the front row and he was going to be easily six inches taller than he was meant to be.  They were in the wrong seat anyhow, and had to move, so I don’t know what happened after that.

They played It Don’t Come Easy (and the drummer sang this Ringo song).  I realized that I didn’t know this was a Ringo Starr song.  Huh.  And then a fantastic cover of I am the Walrus.  And then they played Jet by Wings.  Don’t get me wrong, it was fun hearing this song played live, but, seriously, what was with all of the spinoff songs? 

The horns were out for most of the songs, but the strings only came out occasionally.   Every few songs it would just be the five main guys.  Like when they went back to 1963 for All My Loving.

I enjoyed hearing Get Back and it was kind of neat that they threw in a few bars of The Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again at the end.  And that’s when I realized what was unsettling me about the show.  So The Beatles never toured for their last few albums (last tour in 1966) so there’s no way to know what their shows would have been like as they got ore psychedelic.  So, in this case, part of the job of a cover band is to imagine what a live show of The Beatles would have been like in 1969 or 1970.  And honestly, I have n idea what that would be like.   Would they jam a few bars of The Who?   (Well, no, since that song came out in 1971, but the point is the same).  Would the have a lot of fun on stage?  I mean I assume so, but I don’t really know what their live shows were really like.  So, honestly I assumed that The Fab Faux’s set would be, shall we say, note for note recreations of the songs.  Which I know is a little lame, but that’s what I assumed would happen.  So, it was weird to me how “loose” the band was.  Extra bars, jammed solos, and lot of banter filled the room.  Now of course, the banter was not four guys from Liverpool, but these were five guys from Jersey, so the banter kind of took you out of the Beatles cocoon.

Okay, so going into the show I didn’t know anything about The Fab Faux.  They were formed in 1998 and founded by bassist Will Lee who played with the David Letterman band and has played bass on a million albums.  He’s not in the band anymore.  But the lead guitarist, Jimmy Vivino was in Conan O’Brien’s late night band and is currently also in Canned Heat.  [He’s also the brother of Uncle Floyd [Vivino].  They’re from Paterson/Glen Rock.

The drummer, Rich Pagano, is a founding member and has the voices down perfectly.  He’s played with a hundred other musicians as well. Jim Boggia is the bass player (although they all switch instruments as needed).  He has played with a lot of alternative favorites (Juliana Hatfield, Tracy Bonham) and has released his own music.  Frank Agnello on second guitar has also played with everyone at some point.  Jack Petruzzelli plays keys and guitar and does an amazing Paul McCartney.  He sang Oh Darling and it was, frankly, amazing.

So the band is full of seasoned musicians who have jammed for years.  And I guess that gives them license to jam around and have a good time.  Nothing wrong with that.  Unless you expect something else.

Like I Wasn’t expecting the John and Yoko song I’m Losing You, nor was I expecting John’s Jealous Guy.  And while I expected songs from The White Album, I wasn’t expecting the other fairly deep cut Mother Nature’s Son.  The worst part about this song was that two women in the back of our section decided to get drunk and talk REALLY LOUDLY through this quiet song.  The guy next to me talked to his friend during every song as well.  but it wasn’t at a huge volume.  So anyone who says that it’s young people with no manner at concerts just need to go to this show.

Basically, this was a Fab Faux fan’s dream show where they busted out all kinds of deep cuts and rare (I assume) tracks.  But again, we just wanted the hits.

That’s not say that we were disappointed.  Because In My Life was gorgeous and Live and Let Die (another Wings song) was a ton of fun.

Their version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps was phenomenal.  The guitar and vocals were perfect.  But I didn’t love that Jimmy played a really extended guitar solo at the end of the song. He’s super talented, but this was unnecessary–would George have ever played a ripping guitar solo at the end of the song?

Penny Lane sounded great and then they blew my mind by playing Coming Up from one of Paul’s solo albums.  I haven’t thought of this song in over 30 years.  It was weird and funny to hear it tonight–and while I don’t remember the song all that well, I don’t think they got to vocals right on it.

The end of the set was utterly mind blowing though.  They played the end of Sgt. Pepper–Good Morning, Rerprise, and A Day in the Life.  And they were great–the full strings and horns.  They did that ending–the famous ending and we were blown away.   I wish that the ending with everyone playing all of the notes of the scale had lasted longer it sounded so cool, but they did let the notes fade out while everyone left the stage.

That seemed like a show ender but apparently it’s a typical set ender and then they comeback out for a few other songs.  I really didn’t know what to expect and I certainly didn’t expect that they would play a song from Paul McCartney’s brand new album.  I suppose that these guys ‘ voices sound better than Paul’s but I didn’t know the song at all.  Then one of the guys told a story about how he grew up listening to the Beatles and my wife and I questioned the timeline of his story.  He said he was singing Beatles songs along with the radio when he was two or three.  And that he cried when the told him the Beatles broke up (he was six, so I guess maybe that checks out).  It was all in an introduction to him playing a fantastic version of Maybe I’m Amazed.

So a recent article in a NJ paper says that they have been adding a lot of the more obscure songs into their sets.  So I guess we should have seen them a couple of years ago.

They ended with I Wanna Be Your Man, a rollicking song from 1963 and a somewhat apt song to end the night with..

We fled the venue pretty quickly (which was nice) and were home a little later than we thought.  They did play for over two hours.  It was such a weird feeling to come out a show being simultaneously blown away and disappointed.  I can’t imagine ever seeing them again, even if they promised a full night of Beatles songs.  But seriously, they are amazing.

• Got to Get You Into My Life ∞
• Savoy Truffle ¤
• Junior’s Farm (Wings cover) ≥
• Back in the U.S.S.R. ¤
• Paperback Writer ©
• Taxman ∞
• It Don’t Come Easy (Ringo Starr cover) ♦
• I Am the Walrus ∏
• Jet (Wings cover) Ξ
• All My Loving +
• Get Back w/ Won’t Get Fooled Again (Excerpt) λ/The Who
• Oh! Darling ∀
• I’m Losing You  (John Lennon & Yoko Ono cover) ⊗
• Mother Nature’s Son ¤
• Jealous Guy  (John Lennon cover) ‰
• In My Life ®
• Live and Let Die  (Wings cover) ♣
• While My Guitar Gently Weeps ¤
• Penny Lane √
• Coming Up  (Paul McCartney Cover) ≡
• Good Morning Good Morning  §
• Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) §
• A Day in the Life §
  Encore
• Down South (Paul McCartney cover) Ω
• Maybe I’m Amazed  (Paul McCartney cover)  ϖ
• I Wanna Be Your Man +

λ Let It Be (1970)
∀ Abbey Road (1970)
¤ The Beatles (1968)
§ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
√ single (1967)
∏ Magical Mystery Tour (1967)
© single (1966)
∞ Revolver (1966)
® Rubber Soul (1965)
+ With the Beatles (1963)

——John Lennon
⊗ Double Fantasy (1980)
‰ Imagine (1971)

—–Wings
≥ single (1974)
♣ single (1973)
Ξ Band on the Run (1973)

—-Paul McCartney
Ω The Boys of Dungeon Lane (2026)
≡ McCartney II (1980)
ϖ McCartney (1970)

—-Ringo Starr
♦ single (1971)