Name: The Return of The Cliches
Start: 2024-08-18T16:00:00-04:00
Location: Abilene Bar and Lounge

Doors 3pm, Music 4pm
The Return of The Cliches
With Special Guests
Rochester’s own Cliches were formed out of the ashes of short-lived band, The Orfans, in the Fall of 1979, after New Math front man Kevin Patrick convinced Record Theater clerk, Jeff Laben, that he should give it a go. Fellow Orfan and ex-No Longer Strangers guitar player Geoff Proud started writing original songs with Laben and they were soon joined by fellow St John Fisher College student and guitar virtuoso John Perevich (former The Now, The Times). After using Berkeley Music School attendee Tom Backus’s drums to audition other drummers, they finally came to their senses and asked Backus to round out the foursome. Their first gig was opening for New Math at legendary punk club Scorgies in the fall of 1980.
The Cliches soon became a favorite at Scorgies and after a few months of opening for local bands like New Math, The Hi-Techs and the Chesterfield Kings, and national acts like the Ramones, The Go Go’s, Joan Jett, The Cramps, and Johnny Thunders, among others, they soon found themselves in demand as a headline act. With the national rise of punk and new wave as a tailwind, the band played over 100+ gigs at various bars, clubs and colleges, from Albany to Buffalo, in a 3 year period from 1980 through the spring of 1983. That summer, the band broke up amicably as the members moved on with their lives and careers.
With the exception of a one-night mini-show at a 30th birthday party in 1990, the band has been in hiding, with the 4 original members living in separate states up and down the east coast.
Now, for the first time in 34 years, they will reunite for one night only at the historic Abilene Saloon in Rochester, NY on Sunday, August 18. The show will be in the late afternoon, in tribute to their aging fan base.
As former D&C Music Critic Dave Stearns once noted, The Cliches “are (were) embarrassingly stupid;” if that’s not a selling point, we are not sure what is. Regardless, August 18th will be your last chance to hate them, or, if you’re on the under-side of 40 years old, your first chance. Either way, you won’t want to miss this show.