Review of “Phul Collins”

At “The Pitz”, Woughton Centre, Milton Keynes

On: 24/07/05

Ok. I must confess up front that I am not a huge Phil Collins / Genesis fan but this particular Tribute Band were exceptionally good at reproducing the sound, look and feel of said entertainer / crooner.

They provided an excellent set of all the Phil Collins numbers you all remember (and maybe even a few you would rather forget) from the 80’s and 90’s and though it was somewhat disappointing that not that much Genesis material was used especially from their earlier period, what we had this particular Sunday lunchtime was really rather good and even a hard n fast rocker like myself felt compelled to tapp a toe or two.

Special mention must be made of their excellent lead singer and front man who really did sound like Phil Collins himself and even looked a tadge like him with similar gestures and style. I must be honest that if I closed my eyes I probably would not be able to tell the different between the two of them vocally at least.

Excellent keyboards gave a big stadium / orchestral feel to their set, whilst some rather good guitar, bass and drum work was provided as backdrop to the piece.

I suppose my only complaint was their use of a drum machine on a couple of the tracks which quite frankly was not needed when such an excellent drummer was in residence.

Perhaps at moments like this the endless search for musical perfection by a tribute band needs to take a halt and rather deliver to their audience a “live” unadulterated performance without trying too hard to re-create the sanitised studio perfection of this self-said pop / rock hero.

Overall what you got from this performance was a pleasant non-evasive recreation of those heady days of pop culture from the 80’s when the guys all tried to make as much money as possible whilst having enormous mobile phone bricks stapled to their ears and the girls all tried to compete with one another as to who had the biggest hair and shoulder pads to go with it.

Gaby