What better way to spend a cold evening then with The Abrams and a night full of amazing music? The Overflow Brewery played host to this intimate night of upbeat amazing tunes from one of Ontario’s best up and coming groups.
John Van Wingerden
Opening the night for the The Abrams is John Van Wingerden. John has been involved in music for a long time graduating from TARA back in the day. He continues to work in the music industry while playing sets locally. John came out with a striped down set just him, his guitar and his foot base. He instantly turned heads with his powerful vocals which had the whole place in the right mood. One of the cool things to note was that he was not only singing but he was also playing guitar and playing the foot base all at the same time. One of my favorite things from his set was when he brought out the ukulele and played a wonderful cover of Let Her Go by Passenger.
Up next is the headliners for the night. I got to spend some time with The Abrams recently on a few different occasions. First off was at the CMAO’s right after they won their award and the shortly after that at Boots and Hearts. I tag teamed with Soundcheck Entertainment and we got to interview the brothers about talk about their musical linage, favorite performance’s and what’s coming up in their careers.
The Abrams
John and James Abram are very proud 4th generation musicians having toured for more then 15 years. They hit the stage with their full band ready to get the people moving. The boys were filming for a video also, so they made sure to get all the people right up to the stage. As Kingston natives they had friends and family in the crowd which is always a good time. They started out the night with Sounds Good to Me off their newest release Reminder.
For those who haven’t seen The Abrams live words and pictures can only tell you so much. These boys are well versed on their instruments and super dynamic on stage. James is a master of many instruments and his first choice of the night is the fiddle. The brothers played a wide variety of tracks including Spend Your Life with Me, Still in Love and Knee Deep. One of my favorites of the night and currently a staple on my Spotify playlist was Good Old Days.
One of the most touching moments of the whole night is John telling us about his great grandmother “Nan” who had passed away. She told the boys one day to never stop playing music and kept them going strong to this day. Not going to lie this had tears in many eyes after that story.
They finished off the night was an amazing rendition of The Devil went Down to Georgia and finally Country Road which every person in the whole building was singing along to.
Overall the night was great, music amazing and everyone felt like family. John Van Wingerden was on point and The Abrams brought everyone home to remind them of the good old days.