Review: Fabba and Kim Wilde throw a party

Although Fabba is not as well known as other Abba Tribute bands such as A Teens and Bjorn Again, they're certainly ahead of them quality-wise. The band plays everything live. When you know how complicated the arrangements of Abba songs can be, that's no small feat. I didn't think that this band would do such good renditions of songs like "The winner takes it all", "S.O.S." and "So long", but they did.

The first part of the concert was filled with 50 minutes of Abba songs, sometimes glued together two by two, and sometimes embellished by guitar solos that are great additions to the all too wellknown existing Abba recordings.

The one-off performance in Welwyn Garden City featured Kim Wilde. She appeared a few songs into the second set after the interval to sing the 1977 Abba classic "The name of the game". From the first notes it was obvious that Kim was singing better than ever. The change in her vocal style was already noticeable when Kim was singing in the West End musical "Tommy" (1996/97), but since then, she hasn't done any of her own songs.

After "The name of the game", Kim and Fabba launched into "Rage to love", in a bouncy, rocking version. Kim was oozing with self-confidence and clearly enjoying herself on stage again.

There was some fun as well: after mentioning that her family was in the audience, "all of them", plus her husband Hal, "who's never seen me be a popstar on stage before", he replied with a loud: "I love it!" and "Wait till you get home!". Kim then concluded that he was pushing for "a third baby", which caused no small amount of laughter from the audience.

The third song was "You keep me hangin' on", after which Kim said goodbye to the audience.
Of course, she couldn't just keep it at that. And so, after a great set of songs by Fabba to finish off the second set (with an unexpected surprise in the form of a rocking performance of Robbie Williams's "Let me entertain you"), a reprise followed in the form of "Kids in America" and an acapella version of the refrain from Abba's "Thank you for the music". The audience participation during "Kids" was phenomenal: people were dancing in the aisles, shouting "We're the kids in America" during the extended last part of the song and generally having a wonderful time.

A performance by Kim Wilde in this area of England is not a big thing. After all, a big part of the audience already knows Kim as one member of their community (a lot of the people present came from surrounding villages). But when someone this talented takes to the stage for the first time in years, something magical happens. It was very impressive to see just how much she was enjoying herself. Throwing in Fabba was a special treat: even those who weren't into Abba were impressed by this music.
This was not a concert, this was a party for a select group of music lovers!