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Genesis
HP Pavilion, San Jose, CA
October 9, 2007
By Dan Wall
Set List: Behind the
Lines/Duke’s End, Turn It On Again, No Son of Mine, Land of
Confusion, In the Cage/The Cinema Show/Duke’s Travel’s,
Afterglow, Hold On My Heart, Home by the Sea, Follow You Follow
Me, Firth of Fifth/I Know What I Like, Mama, Ripples, Throwing
it All Away, Domino, Los Endows, Tonight, Invisible Touch.
Encore: I Can’t Dance, The Carpet Crawlers. 2 hours, 40 minutes.
When the
recently completed Genesis reformation and U.S. tour was first
announced, most of the band’s fans hoped Peter Gabriel and Steve
Hackett would join Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks
to play a concert full of The Lamb Lies Down on
Broadway-era material and emphasize the group’s progressive
roots, music far removed from the commercial efforts that would
make the band huge in the 80’s. I was not one of them.
I have no
ill feelings towards Gabriel, and Hackett is welcome back
anytime, but I was initially drawn to the band during its
four-album run that started with Trick of the Tail (the
first studio record without Gabriel) and ended with Duke
in 1980. And it was the songs from that era that were the
highlights for me during the band’s recent concert in San Jose.
There might
not be a band that has so many disparate groups and divisions of
fans as Genesis does. There are Gabriel fans, progressive fans,
Collins fans, commercial-era fans, and fans that like the
records that I do, which I personally think make up one of
progressive rock’s best-ever runs (rivaled only by Yes’ run from
The Yes Album to Close to the Edge back in the
70’s.)
It was
during this time that the band moved from the long, drawn out
progressive songs that made up its early records to a more
commercial sound, which would be honed and developed even
further from 1981-92, when drummer Collins would become a star
as a solo artist and start to write songs geared towards radio
airplay. Genesis wasn’t huge when it first came to America,
because it didn’t get played on the radio in the U.S. until
“Follow You Follow Me” became a hit in 1979.
One thing
that the band was known for, and it didn’t matter who was in the
group, was its spectacular stage show and onstage sound, and
this tour was certainly right up there with the band’s best
shows of the 80’s. The staging was elaborate, with curtains
decorating a back line of computerized lights and two huge,
circular screens that played out video and live shots of the
band (the main screen behind the band was the largest ever used
for a live rock show).
The
lightning was superb as well, transforming the night’s best
number “Ripples” into an enchanted forest, while other songs
were illumnated with solid colors that brought out the best in
the band’s instrumental muscle. Other highlights were the “Home
by the Sea” piece, and the drum duel between Collins and Chester
Thompson, which led into a brilliant “Los Endos,” an
instrumental that encapsulates everything (melody, intricate
structures, atmosphere) that is great about the band.
Amazingly,
the real old stuff, like “The Cinema Show” and “The Carpet
Crawlers” went right over the head of a lot of the crowd, which
knew the radio stuff like “Invisible Touch,” “Hold on My Heart”
and “Throwing It All Away,” songs that sounded okay live but
would not have been missed if they had been left off the setlist
(for me, anyway). Once again, this shows just how many different
groups of people like the band, and how hard it must be for the
group to put together a set that makes everyone happy.
The great
stage show and the brilliant clear sound were certainly rallying
points for the diverse crowd, but the one thing that everyone
seemed to agree on is that our boy Collins is the band’s shining
star. Joking, smiling, laughing, singing, playing drums, leading
the band-Collins is the guy as far as Genesis is concerned, and
the fans love him for it.
Once just
the drummer in a band fronted by Gabriel, Collins decided to
step out in front of the group after the singer’s departure, and
his vocal performance on Trick of the Tail both surprised
and delighted those who didn’t think he could pull it off. He’s
been fooling them ever since, and has also became a huge solo
star around the world, deploying many of the same personality
traits that were on display here, but with a sound that leans
heavily on rhythm and blues.
One of my
favorite things about a Genesis show is the rapport between
Collins and Thompson, a relationship that is still going strong
after over 30 years. Thompson was the second drummer the band
used (Bill Bruford was the first) after Collins became the
singer, but Collins doesn’t just sing-he often plays in tandem
with Thompson, many times quietly slipping on and off the drum
stool in mid-song, depending on what the song structure requires
and where the vocals lie.
Rutherford
is a great multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar and bass
alongside another longtime touring musician, guitarist/bassist
Daryl Steurmer (both Thompson and Steurmer also tour with
Collins’ solo act), while keyboardist Tony Banks adds the
typical prog rock shadings and solos to the band instrumentally
heavy pieces. It all comes together in an interesting mix of
rock and jazz that makes up the progressive rock template-and
makes Genesis one of its most important forces.
If this was
the last tour for the band (rumors abound that they will make a
record, or tour with Gabriel, or go away for 15 more years),
then the boys went out with a presentation that gave the over
one million fans who came out to see this classic band a good
idea of what made Genesis so special, regardless of what era of
the band you enjoy.
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