Genesis Live

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.

Phil is clearly limited but the show in Glasgow was fantastic - I was pleasantly surprised at how well he carried it compared to the rehearsal clip that came out previously

What did you think of his son's drumming? I think he sounds fine but Phil's playing has so much character and his son ... not so much.

This is the clip I saw, btw. Maybe it sounded better there, but this is some weak sauce, imo:

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

If someone makes it a point to see them every time they tour, go for it. If someone has always wanted to see them (like, bucket list item) and hasn't yet, well, I guess now's the time.

I am in neither camp and will pass on seeing this, for all the reasons discussed.

I never noticed anything lacking about Nic's drumming really... was impressed how well he replicated the superior live arrangement of Afterglow

There's something odd about how Phil is singing consistently behind the beat, I wonder if it's a result of pain medication, of some sort.

If you look at clips from 2019, Phil already sounds noticeably worst, imo.

I don't think Nic Collins is bad at all, he just lacks a certain spark. Like Jason Bonham vs. John. But, for example, I think Zak Starkey is a pretty good son-of drummer.

(Worse, not worst. No matter how decrepit, Phil Collins is still far from the worst.)

Purportedly the last ever Genesis concert at the O2 last night. Gabriel was in the audience and really should have joined them onstage at some point, the fact that he didn't leaves a nasty taste in my mouth. Obviously I don't know if consideration was given to inviting him onstage or not. If he wasn't invited, he should have been. If he was invited, he should have accepted.

yeah that's a bummer.

Maybe because it would have required rehearsal & planning, Tony Banks doesn't seem the type to spontaneously busk through the hits. Or anything else, come to that.

Disappointing for fans, but they're amicably fine with it. At least it looked that way judging from this photo:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FO0k0sIWYAEaoGA?format=jpg&name=900x900

Reportedly someone in the crowd called for "Supper's Ready," and Collins mentioned that Gabriel was in the crowd, although he wasn’t sure where he was sitting. After that got a big round of applause, Collins joked that maybe Gabriel was the one calling out for "Supper's Ready."

More photos someone took of that final show - I guess they had a front row seat and a really good camera.

As a fan, the whole idea of this tour is a bummer to me, Collins is singing very poorly, his voice has changed and sounds unattractive, like some cartoonish goblin. His presence, sitting, sometimes half-slumped in a chair is jarring, the idea that he's possibly in pain and/or medicated, also.

I feel bad for everyone involved, it's a troubling way to end things. I've watched a multitude of clips and listened to boots and, imho, the whole thing is just a fucking horrorshow.

Yeah I’ve seen Gordon Lightfoot somewhat recently and got the same feeling. Appreciate the man but didn’t like seeing him like that. Every clip of this tour I’ve seen I always cringe at what Phils voice sounds like. Had they not planned this before the pandemic I don’t think it would’ve happened at all.

I was never going to see the tour myself, but it brought to mind a lot of debate over some bad tours with elderly musicians in recent years - it's hard to tell them to stay put when they're the ones demanding to be out there, in some cases because they know it may be the last time they get to experience what it's like to be on stage and surrounded by adoring fans. Yeah, there's the money obviously, but even if there was none to be made, I'd do the same in their shoes, pain be damned. If they dedicated and sacrificed so much of their life to get that, it's no surprise they'd want to hold on to it for as long as they can.

I guess the reality is we've never been in a situation where musical legends are still playing to arenas in their 80s or thereabouts before. Like, most of the blues and jazz all-timers were gone before that age and their appeal had become more selective. Whereas artists like Genesis and The Who and the Stones could keep selling out the big halls on their rep alone for the rest of their lives. I can't say I don't understand someone wanting to say they'd seen a band that they loved, but I had no desire to catch these shows (and they weren't even that great when I saw them at Knebworth in 92 or whenever).

Which is thirty years ago. Fucking hell, I'm old too.

(Saw the Who in 2019 and they were pretty great tbh)

Collins is only 71, younger than my parents, it's kind of shocking to me to see him looking like that.

When I was a teenager my Dad took me to see a few older jazz/blues musicians at the Glasgow Jazz festival, he wanted to see them at least once before the possibility of them not touring became a reality, which I totally understand and I can see why devoted fans would feel the need to go see Genesis, despite the current presentation.

But I'm sure none of those people had such debilitating health issues and the tickets were probably like £30 (in today's money) not £100++

I just grabbed a recording of the last night to hear it, he doesn't sound *too* bad maybe, idk, certainly his timing is better than the earlier shows I heard, pitching is still pretty wild tho, but I'm listening to the last tune (Carpet Crawlers), and feeling a little sad that the music that I've listened to since I was a young 'un won't ever be rendered live again.

They ended with Carpet Crawlers? That's a bit of a heart-breaker.

Wonder which music means the most to Phil overall, Genesis or his solo stuff?

I saw them in November and again last night and Phil has improved massively since back then.

If they dedicated and sacrificed so much of their life to get that, it's no surprise they'd want to hold on to it for as long as they can.

The first concert I ever saw was Count Basie And His Orchestra in early 1983. Count was 78.

I’m seeing the Who at MSG in May. Roger Daltrey is 78.

I mean if we're talking age as a factor, having seen Sparks twice recently, Ron's 76 and Russell's 73; they have the advantage that their backing band is all younger by some decades, and I did note that there's been a second keyboardist added. But Ron didn't seem any different at all, steadily playing away looking nonplussed as he always does, occasional vocal moments aside (and he still does the Ron dance). Russell was all over the stage, singing away as he always does. Maybe it's all that comfortable SoCal living.

And Russell works out regularly, based on a clip from the Sparks Brothers

The record for me is 7 or 8 weeks shy of 90 years. That was Lee Konitz on August 26, 2017, who kept on performing until COVID hit, and sadly he died from it on April 15, 2020. (Besides his age, he had health issues that made him especially vulnerable.) He was great though, as soon as he played, there was no mistaking who it was. At one point during his set, this very old couple got up and danced together, and they even seemed to move slowly from age. It made me think of something Greil Marcus's wife said when she listened to Dylan's Sinatra albums - it's sad when you realize the mass audience this music once reached was now mostly gone. Such is life, it'll happen to everything, and just further reason to catch these people while you still can. It blows my mind when I meet someone who went to Duke Ellington or Benny Goodman concerts back in the day, like BEFORE rock 'n' roll.

It's a big thing for me watching the rock generation move so rapidly towards fragility and mortality - seems to me that from 1989 on a lot of those bigger groups settled back into their "classic" sound - which has helped band and audience to perpetuate a kind of time bubble of cheerful denial where everything was fine and these guys would soldier on forever. But it's just not sustainable any more, and watching these groups accept their limitations and mourn their losses is quite profound.

Like, I don't Believe In Rock or anything, but the aftershocks of the 1960s beat boom (and I guess 50s rock, and punk, etc) - still shaped my life, and gave me a way out of suburban small-mindedness, and eventually pointed to areas of music that were more interesting - and I guess I never totally stopped believing in the power these guys accessed as teenagers, and have always sought ways to keep connected to my own teenage self. But we are clearly none of us teenagers anymore - and seeing the old ones shuffle offstage does make me think about the ephemeral nature of the value system I still kinda sort of hang onto. Like, definitely already get a sense that the Beatles or the Germs or the Blue Nile are indistinguishable from James Last to my kids which is fine and even good, but still...).

It's also tied into the mortality of my parents, who are boomers of this kind of age.

(Also really respect Bowie for going there with his songwriting in a way that I wish more people of this generation had done)

Anyway, I think a lot about Mick and Keith holding hands at the front of the stage when they introduced their first show after Charlie died. It was so vulnerable and beautiful, and unlike anything you'd associate with the Stones.

Uh sorry about the lack of Genesis-specific content in that post.

watching these groups accept their limitations and mourn their losses is quite profound.

This. For a generation of us, this is literally watching our forbears crumble away. My dad's been gone twenty years this week, but he was entirely of his geenration - did tonnes of drugs, free love, saw Hendrix, The Who, Cream, etc - and it's hard not to feel especially maudlin as the rock generation slow drifts on to the next realm.

In the wake of the death of Charlie Watts, I revived this thread with a post about a 1970 rock magazine cover story wondering about the life expectancy of 20 musicians, half of whom are still around 52 years later. Of course, they were talking about musicians dying young rather than aging per se; and in February 1970, maybe Brian Jones was the only big name rock star of that era to have already gone.
I feel like the death of George Harrison in 2001 was the "watershed" for attitudes about the loss of musicians of that generation. 58 is not old but the manner of his death and perhaps his retreat from public life beforehand made it seem more "natural". For instance, I never heard anyone say of George, as they did of Lennon, "what would he have done if he had lived"?
For so many years, there was this small canon of dead rock stars, appearing in airbrushed paintings - now those paintings would be too crowded.

I guess everyone has their notebook with their own personal favourites that will be devastating when they finally go, Ivor Cutler was the first big one for me, as odd as that sounds, we went to his last gig at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and he was so frail.

At the end he came out to the front of the stage, fingers in his ears, then after the applause died down he quietly said something along the lines of 'you all have such beautiful bright faces' and I realised at that point I wouldn't be seeing him again, it was so sad.

yeah its getting to the point where there's a "now or never" feeling to seeing your favorite bands especially given the unpredictability of Covid. I missed a King Crimson show due to my daughter getting sick (thought it was appendicitis, turned out to be a relatively harmless infection) and right after they announced that was the end. couldn't make seeing Sparks in Chicago work and now I think I'll probably never get the chance for them. Gary Numan just played Milwaukee - last show before they all tested positive for Covid - and I couldnt go because it was Spring Break and shit was too complicated with the kids. I guess I should stop making excuses b/c yeah for the first time in my life "they'll be around again" is very much not a given

Was just telling someone how frustrating it was to hardly be able to hear Ivor at that last show, although I suppose that is what he probably wanted

It was filmed by the BBC, I think I have it somewhere.

Here it is, apologies for the derailing, folks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS0-vN8E3FU

COVID has definitely made things brutal. Besides Konitz, I also saw Toots & the Maytals in 2019. I was front and center holding the edge of the stage and Toots even gave me fist bump. What a wonderful man and full of life, I can't believe that was the last time he played in NY because I left thinking I was definitely seeing the next one.

And I never saw John Prine. Really sad about that.

you're not missin' much by not seeing gary numan in 2022

yeah he's been goth industrial for quite some time. I know people who are still very very into him though. Anyway, I'm still sad that I never went and saw Genesis; they toured so infrequently and the times I was passionate about them never lined up with times when they were touring. I really assumed they'd hit the west coast on this one, and it wasn't to be. At least I've seen Gabriel half a dozen times. I do make it a point now to try to see people; had I not seen Bowie on his last tour when he played right down the street from me I would have really hated myself. I'll be going to Roxy this year as well. I see McCartney every time he comes to town and each time I've assumed it was the last opportunity; guy will probably still be touring 15 years from now.

Reminds me of someone I knew who decided to see B. B. King over Stevie Ray Vaughn, thinking "I'll be able to see Stevie anytime, this might be my last chance to see B. B."... and King outlived Vaughn by 25 years.

idk I like Numan's recent stuff