Coyote Blog

You would think I had learned my lesson 35 years ago when I saw the absolutely awful movie "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," probably the worst movie I have ever seen, at least as compared to the profile of its cast.  One needs to be very suspicious of the "lets-make-a-show-from-stringing-together-a-bunch-of-songs-from-one-band" genre, though I guess I was lulled intlo complacency by my enjoying Mamma Mia (the show, not the movie) despite not really being an ABBA fan.

This show was really pretty awful.  The plot and most of the humor was downright embarassing to watch.  Only a fun and rowdy last 20 minutes plus a pretty decent female lead saved the experience -- like Mamma Mia, the best part is the encore, but even more so here.  A bad plot is accented by perhaps the least likeable male protagonist since Thomas Covenant.  This will play quite well in Branson some day.

As a full disclosure, the show has been running for some time and the audience on a Wednesday night was nearly full so I may be in the minority on this one.  But my advice is to skip it and try another show.

... attending a concert with a bad ABBA cover band singing through a really awful sound system to a full house of 70+ year-olds ripped from their usual haunts at the dinner theater and who are in full sing-along mode, swaying their arms and, god help me, holding aloft lighters.

Having never been an ABBA fan, I got talked into this after really enjoying the Mamma Mia show in London.  Never again.