photo: mikehill33 Setlist:
Duke
Turn It On Again
No Son Of Mine
Confusion
Cage - Cinema - Travels-Afterglow
Hold On My Heart
Home By The Sea
Follow You - Firth- I Know
Mama
Ripples
Throwing It All Away
Domino
Drum Duet
Los Endos
Tonight, Tonight - Invisible Touch
I Can't Dance
Carpet Crawlers
Review: Richmond Times-Dispatch
By MELISSA RUGGIERI
The Genesis catalog is a tricky beast.
Pre-MTV -- as in, the 1970s -- it swelled with ambitious prog rock compositions, sold with grand theatricality by Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins.
Once the video era arrived, so did a slicker, mainstream Genesis that crafted catchy songs ideal for beer commercials.
How to meld the two for the band's reunion tour? Throw in a little of everything and realize you can't please everyone.
For its first tour in 15 years, the most successful version of Genesis -- Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks -- has woven a set list that is admirably schizophrenic.
The era-hopping was immediately evident Sunday night at a sold-out Verizon Center in D.C. The band ricocheted from the 1980 threesome "Behind the Lines," "Duke's End" and "Turn it On Again" to the robust weight of 1991's "No Son of Mine" to open the 2½-hour show.
Though the sprightly Collins was quick out of the gate to entertain -- taking digital pictures of the audience, asking them, "Apart from us, are there any old people here tonight?", crouching and clapping like a baseball umpire as Rutherford or Banks soloed -- it took several songs before the band seemed comfortable and not merely playing with technical perfection and cool efficiency.
For most in the crowd of about 18,000, age determined which segments of the concert signaled a bathroom break.
For the MTV generation, it was at the first sight of Rutherford's special double neck guitar/bass combo, used during "In The Cage" and "The Cinema Show," a winding knockout punch of off-kilter time changes and wonky keyboards from Banks.
For the old-timers, it was anytime a song containing the word "heart" was played.
Collins might not be the prettiest singer -- though he didn't strain much on those heart-melting ballads -- but whether his occasional hoarseness was a product of touring and age (the band is halfway through a 20-city tour and he's 56) or a deliberate effort to give the songs resonance, it worked. The eerie "Mama" and his dramatic growls during the chorus of "No Son of Mine" lingered in memory long after the show was over.
While the reedy Rutherford and stoic Banks -- joined by the terrific Chester Thompson (drums) and Daryl Stuermer (guitar) -- never broke a sweat, their musical mastery wasn't any less engaging.
Still, Collins earned the MVP award for pulling double duty and making sure the audience felt sufficiently entertained for paying a top ticket price of $230.
He frequently slipped behind the drums to play in tandem with Thompson, sometimes singing simultaneously ("Follow You Follow Me"), sometimes participating in a lengthy instrumental break ("Firth of Fifth") and sometimes acting the class clown, as he did during "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)," pulling out a tambourine to bat it against his bald head, his elbows and the tips of his toes.
Chances are you won't see this many middle-aged white guys air drumming until the next Who tour.
Credit to the band as well for not short-changing the audience after what was explained as a "minor power issue" delayed the start of the concert for nearly an hour.
Collins and Thompson thumped through a thrilling drum duel (though too-small oval video screens flanking the stage made the action impossible to watch) before Genesis buzzed through lightweight crowd-pleasers "Tonight Tonight Tonight" and "Invisible Touch," bringing the show well into the 11 p.m. hour.
With such a diverse repertoire, it would have been criminal to cut anything out -- except maybe that encore of "I Can't Dance."
If you attended the Verizon Center, Washington show please let us know what you thought of the concert by adding a comment. I publish all comments in full good or bad.
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Genesis North America Tour 2007
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4 comments:
Really a superb spectacle from beginning to end, wonderful musicianship and a stunning visual display. I expected as much from the original bandmates but the guitarist also blew me away because Steve Hackett was such a great player and hard to replace. I can't recommend this band highly enough.
Ron
Genesis can do no wrong in my opinion, hugely talented individuals in their own right. The set list highlighted a touch of everyones talents. The drum solo with phil and chester played to that - starting out as individual sounds moving through the solo into one sound, sort of a rejoining. Symbolic to me. I would have loved more from "and then there were three" but setlists have to be hard to create and who knows why the list was what it was. The power issue was a downer and the audience enthusiasm was effected. There was an issue, in my opinion also with the sound. Follow you, follow me really sounded a bit foreign - I was sitting really close to the speakers so there could have been some distortion. I thought overall it was a fantastic show. Someone else said it online and it's true, you get lights and it's nice, you get other banter during the show from the bands and that's nice too. But with this group we are hear to witness the genious that was and is "genesis". A band I truly love for it's unique sound and originality, and a band I coud not have done without in my life. They managed to put it together one more time for those who've been with them through the years. I appreciate the effort.
Where to begin? Well with Genesis. Phil, Mike, Chester, Tony, Darryl. All great in their own right but Synergy has a new name. Synergy = Genesis. Even with Phil and his great solo career, he returns to his roots. I love this band. Thats how I feel about this band. These great people banded together to form a more perfect union. Sunday night was perfect. Muscially, Lyrically, Showmanshipwise. Go see Genesis. this is my plea to musiclovers everywhere.
I am 27 years old and had never listened to Genesis other than the occasional random radio song...I went to the concert with my fiance (who loves Genesis) and really enjoyed hearing the music he loves. The best thing for me, the novice Genesis listener, was the drumming - I could not get over the dueling drums. Awesome show, but by the end I was exhausted - ably due to the late start talked about in previous posts, as well as my lack of knowing all the old songs everyone else was jamming to!
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