Genesis Live

BillFilm says he has overdone the noise reduction on the Shepperton '73 footage and I agree:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCDm2KQL45o

vs the original:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZPzeJnuI-A

Overdone the compression/multi-band limiting too by the sounds of it.

The drums sound amazing and the picture is really crisp in that 1973 Paris clip. I kind of wonder if Steve Hackett slept with a cameraman's girlfriend or something, though.

Setlist from reunion tour first show

Duke’s End / Turn It On Again
Mama
Land of Confusion
Fading Lights / The Cinema Show / Afterglow (“Fading Lights” performed live since 1992)
That’s All / The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway / Follow You Follow Me (First time “That’s All” performed live since 1998)
Duchess (First time performed live since 1981)
No Son of Mine
Firth of Fifth / I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)
Domino
Throwing It All Away
Tonight, Tonight, Tonight / Invisible Touch

Encore:
I Can’t Dance
Dancing With the Moonlit Knight / The Carpet Crawlers (First time “Dancing With the Moonlit Knight” performed live since 1998)

Banks told the BBC that it didn’t make sense to bring Gabriel back because “most of the songs people know” came after his departure. However, he did stress that “We love Peter.”

lol

we're gonna do a song that everybody knows
not some acid shit bout moonlit knights and dominoes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxYhI9Baq3U

jesus...

Phil sounds fucking TERRIBLE

flat all over the place, zero power, having background singers cover everything that's above middle C practically

then again, I ordered one of his pay per view specials in 1997 and even THEN I thought he sounded bad.

I thought he sounded a lot better than I expected, but no, not that good. It's just so sad. Totally unnecessary, almost a parody of the nursing home/rocker jokes people made when folks like this were merely in their '50s.

yeah I mean it feels like he's somewhere else. I get why. dude's in chronic pain and aging.

but lord, paying those prices to see that.

I hope that he legitimately wants to be doing it.

I find it hard to imagine legitimately wanting to play "I Can't Dance" but that's just me

it's gonna sound like a doom metal song now probably

Fun fact: Ray Wilson is also on tour this fall, and he sounds about 100x better than Phil in 2021. Here's his version.
Pretty glad I didn't spring for tickets... it's hard to imagine coming away from this show feeling good about it.

Jeez, Phil’s seven years younger than Daltrey, but sounds way older. Granted, their approaches are pretty different, but Phil sounds like he didn’t make any effort to keep his voice in shape at all.

Is Phil playing drums at all on these shows?

That's not great, but at least he's actually singing, unlike Roger Waters at the show I saw.

xpost Nope, Phil apparently can't even hold a drum stick. He reportedly remains seated the entire show. A review I read mentioned diabetes was among his many ailments, too. That was the first I'd read that, I think.

Jeez, Phil’s seven years younger than Daltrey, but sounds way older.

FWIW, I thought Daltrey's singing had been shakey for quite some time now, but he was surprisingly good on their 2019 album. I think someone here said he sounded better there than on any live or studio recording they've issued since Face Dances, and they're probably right. It's no masterpiece, but throw out "Beads" and "I'll Be Back" and miraculously it's actually a very good Who album.

I love Genesis, and there's no way in hell I would want to see any show on this tour, but Duchess is such a jam

all the autotune on that last Who album probably helped him a bit

Ironically enough Steve Hackett is currently touring his Genesis Revisited show around the UK as well. Could be interesting if the four of them were to bump into each other.

And a look at their respective tour dates shows that they are both playing in Manchester next Friday.

I'd seen a bunch of clips of Daltrey sounding pretty rough, but then he supposedly got surgery on his throat (for nodes or something). Weirdly enough, I got to see Roger Daltrey solo before I ever got to see the Who. It was after the surgery, in a small club, and he sounded *great*, and was super talkative, too. I think he was sort of testing the waters, warming up. When I finally saw the Who (after I'd seen *Pete* solo, too, possibly making me the only person in the world that had seen both Pete and Roger solo but *not* the Who), doing "Quadrophenia," Roger still sounded pretty great.

When I last saw Genesis (which will remain the last time I saw Genesis), Phil sounded good (and was playing drums, too). Heck, the last time I saw him solo he sounded good as well. But the last several years have been very very bad to him. He looks bad, he sounds bad. I'm in a way impressed he's got the physical *and* mental strength to go through with this at all; he doesn't need the money. On his most recent solo tour, a couple of years back (which I did not see) I understood it to be something of a limited experiment, to see if he could pull it off, and iirc it was something of a struggle for him and his team. This tour is much more extensive, with lots of consecutive nights. I hope he pulls it off, for his sake, but I don't feel comfortable being a part of this particular experiment.

There’s a lot of miming and fakery these days so when I hear people sound ‘bad’ I think ‘well at least they’re really singing’.

And for sure, even Daltrey has some pre-recorded screams in the mix.

A review I read mentioned diabetes was among his many ailments, too.

Insert Wilford Brimley diabeetus meme here

guess I'll be the person to say that these videos were much better than I expected. I do hope they come to the west coast but Phil's recent comments that this wouldn't go on past 2021 don't give me much hope for that.

yeah when singers lose their voice it happens pretty fast; Greg Lake for instance sounded pretty good on the Emerson, Lake, and Powell album (even if his voice deepened considerably), 6 years later on Black Moon he sounded horrible. I did read a good article about the injuries singers do to their voice when they don't sing properly (which I assume almost none of the rock singers of the 60s and 70s did) and yeah that surgery seems to help things considerably. So when you see someone like Todd Rundgren, who sounds almost as good now as he did back then, you wonder if they got it done, much like you wonder about any 60+ actor with a full head of hair

Gordon Lightfoot comes to mind - if you listen to his post-Edmund Fitzgerald albums chronologically (which I don't recommend you do) you can pretty much hear exactly when it started. his voice was completely shot by the age of 55 but he's still played like 30 years of shows after that. I've seen a few (he sure loves touring around Wisconsin) and it's a little sad to see...he looks fine for his age but he's skeletal and frail, far from the rugged woodsman he portrayed in his heyday, and his voice has lost all its richness and depth. fwiw Phil Collins doesn't sound that bad...you can hear that old man quiver when he tries to hold a note and I'd be nervous to watch a full show of this, but I've seen worse. seeing him up there looking like Mr. Magoo is pretty depressing though. this whole tour seems like a big mistake but hey, at least the band sounds alright

The tour's obvs been delayed a bunch, I wonder if he was in better shape when it was originally booked, and now they're on the hook for £££s if he were to cancel. We can all say "He doesn't need the money" but I wouldn't be surprised if he's been a bit shitty with his cash, for example the three divorces and getting lamped by the fake Alamo gear salesman.

I figured Phil might not be playing drums, but wondered if there was maybe some token almost-drum-solo or drum duo moment in the shows. Evidently not.

Daltrey was pretty hit-or-miss on the '06 through roughly '09 Who tours (a couple of shows were stopped one or two songs in when it was obvious he had no voice), but as JiC noted, his throat surgery made a massive difference. Yes, there's some autotune on WHO -- I can think of two tracks off the top of my head where it's obvious (three if you count one of the Pete bonus tracks) -- but there's a live "bonus" CD of an early 2020 acoustic show where he sounds as good as he's sounded since 1978. There were two pre-taped screams on the '15-'19 Who tours, in "Love, Reign O'er Me" and "Won't Get Fooled Again." I think that's acceptable: for one thing, he was doing those screams live through 2012 or so, and for another, the guy's in his mid '70s, and can't reasonably be expected to do those screams every night. Or any night.

But Daltrey always took exceptional care of his voice, and never took it for granted. Hell, in the '70s he was so intent on getting enough sleep after every show that he got addicted to Mandrax.

I was listening to Springsteen's Passaic '78 show the other night, when he was on the cusp of 30, and I marveled (as he must) at all of the extra singing, screaming, grunting, just making *sounds* he does, just to make things that much more exciting. It's amazing that guy, now on the cusp of 72, still sounds at all like he does, even if he (and no one else?) will never again sound like he did.

I assume singers of this vintage who've (mostly) maintained their voice have been doing serious vocal calisthenics, mainlining lemon-ginger tea etc. the way Tom Brady or Lebron use personal trainers year-round to stay limber.

jeez - tickets for this tour are ridiculously expensive too

i still hope they add west coast US dates :(

Currently listening to a boot of the second night and hooo boy, it's a tough listen. PC has this unpleasant tonality to his voice now. Plus the kays are lowered in some songs, TIOA is in G now and it sounds sluggish.

"Mama" basically sounds like 'Old Man River' now, from the vid I saw. like it was already lowered a few steps 13 years ago, now it's almost unrecognizable.

and he does have a weird, elfish nasal quality to his voice, which I suspect is because he's having trouble generating enough energy to produce proper tone.

All he needs now is a Slipperman costume.

The saddest thing about the clips I've seen is Phil swiveling around on his chair, like any of us might do absentmindedly while toiling away at a desk.

xpost More like bedroom slippers, right?

Other than looking like he's slowly collapsing which isn't his fault in the main, you'd think someone would say 'Hey Phil, perhaps have a shave when you go out in front of the many thousands of people who are paying £130+ to see you', he looks like absolute shit. The whole thing is shabby.

AH can't dance
AH can't shit
Only thing about me is the way I sit

I cross-referenced this thread with the Genesis subreddit and thankfully that one's a bit more cheery.

The final four UK tour dates have (inevitably) been postponed after a couple of (unidentified) band members tested positive for Covid.

They were invisibly touched

lol

I just saw a clip of them doing Home by the Sea in I think Buffalo, and wow did Phil sound so thin and weak, and the band just mechanical in its execution. So glad I (er) sat this tour out.

I don't get it - not one of the yes-men on this cynical money grabbing exercise had the balls to say "Look, Philip, you've been great and everything, but this doesn't work. We're taking (think Adam Lambert & Queen, someone great like that) on tour with us." ? I hope they're proud of their profits, at least.

Still wish they'd add an LA date

yeah I will go if this comes to the west coast. I wasn't about to travel for it, but if it's in CA, I'm absolutely going. I managed to miss every tour they have ever done.