Turn It On Again

My previous post waxed lyrical about the Liverpool waterfront, which we visited for a Genesis gig. Enough of the architecture, I hear you say, how was the show?

We'd been told to bring evidence of covid double vaccination or a negative test, even though this was not officially required in England. It is for nightclubs and large events in Wales, but the NHS app does not work if you are registered with a Welsh GP. You can still get the QR code via the NHS website: it comes marked "valid in England"! I'd had some technology issues getting Mrs H's but it turned out you could take your vaccination card. It also turned out that, despite there being a very long queue to get in the arena, we didn't see anyone asked to show their covid pass. They were checking handbags. Mrs H was not impressed but I observed I'd rather sit next to someone with covid than someone with a bomb*. I suspect the queue was also to limit the numbers gathering on the concourse inside. As the weather was kind it was much nicer to look out over the river Mersey in the fresh air than to be in a crush indoors.

Nevertheless, being among the perhaps 3% of people wearing a mask we still felt a bit apprehensive. Even though they were the fancy FFP3 type specially bought for the occasion rather than the standard medical mask or piece of everyday fabric. I decided feeling a pillock was acceptable and found the mask ok to wear once I got used to it.

We were on the very back row - so no-one breathing on us from behind - but not far from the stage at the side. All OK so far, but given the publicity about how frail Phil Collins has become - and he looked it as he slowly hobbled on stage with a stick towards his chair at centre stage - what would the performance be like?

Somehow I'd never seen Genesis before. I'm not sure why, being a huge fan of prog rock in it's halcyon days of the late 60s and early 70s. My first ever gig, along with the buddy I was sitting by, was Pink Floyd in 1969 and The Nice, King Crimson, Soft Machine, Yes and  others all followed over the next few years before and while I was at university. Maybe Genesis didn't play Manchester during term time or Liverpool in the vacs? Of course you can find all sorts of retrospective information on the internet and Genesis did play Manchester Free Trade Hall early in my autumn term of 1972, supporting Lindisfarne, curiously in hindsight**. I can only assume money or time priorities precluded it. Managing money probably, especially in the long first term. No student loans of course - I got the same amount of grant cheque for each of the three terms so some caution was needed to get through to Christmas***. Though I wasn't one of those students who went out and bought the whole book list at the start of the year, but waited to see which books colleagues actually found useful before shelling out, leaving more available for booze and gigs. But I missed out on Gabriel era Genesis.

Although we only spoke about it later, both Mrs H and I had some concerns in the first couple of songs. From the big screens, which always tend to take your attention, we couldn't help noticing that Collins didn't just look very old but seemed to be gurning or in some discomfort as he turned his head to one side while trying to hit notes, as you can see in this rather poor photo:

But it often takes singers a couple of songs to warm up and, as Collins got into his stride, I began to think that he probably always tilted his head and pulled faces as he sang. Which indeed youtube videos over the years confirm, though if you go far enough back the beard conceals some of the grimacing. And what I thought was a rather forced vocal is actually how he has always sung, when you listen back to the records, notwithstanding him winning Grammy awards two years running for best male pop vocal performance in the 1980s.

These things are always more obvious when you see a live performance. When I finally got to see Jethro Tull in the 1990s (another super band I somehow missed in the 70s) my first thought was that Ian Anderson couldn't actually sing anymore, as his voice went up and down as if on a staircase rather than smoothly. But when I listened back to the records he'd always sung that way, it had just become slightly more accentuated and noticeable with age (and the recordings would have been "good" takes).

By the fourth song, Mama, a favourite of both me and Mrs H (and their biggest UK hit single, we were both surprised to find) Collins was at full throttle. As the set progressed he was able to project far more personality from his chair than one might have expected possible. His band mates Banks and Rutherford are fine musicians and played well, Banks looking somewhat distant and edgy, Rutherford looking relaxed and smiley. Probably entirely in normal character, as old photos confirm. Here is Rutherford on screen: 

Daryl Stuermer on guitars - he has played with Genesis since 1977 - and Collins's 20 year old son Nic on drums were superb. Collins had the reinforcement of two backing singers but much of his vocals appeared to be rendered solo.

As for the set the mix of songs across the Genesis eras worked well, but then it was very similar to the set they played when they last toured 14 years ago. Mrs H declared the "prog doodlings" to be brief enough to be tolerable, while I thought they perhaps could have been quite a bit more extensive. 

We would both have preferred to hear Abacab and some of Trick of the Tail but never mind. In exchange I'm now very fond of some tracks I wasn't familiar with before, my collection of Genesis albums having a lot of holes in it. The catchy Home By The Sea is now a favourite and I found the rendition of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, a song I'd never previously cared for, to be much more fun than I expected with the audience joining in the chorus.

With the perspective of time there was more similarity between the early Genesis material and other prog bands. The quirky Gabriel era I Know What I Like (In Your wardrobe) - the band's first chat hit - is both delphic and very Syd Barretish, starting

It's one o clock and time for lunch/Hum de dum de dum

and ending

Me, I'm just a lawnmower/You can tell me by the way I walk

But it does have a catchy chorus and I'm strangely fascinated by the almost tuneless flute bit at the end.

There are other echoes of Pink Floyd to be heard and the guitar solo from Firth of Fifth develops a very King Crimson feel and Frippian guitar sound. But then those bands were all drinking from the same well and the influence would equally be in the other direction.

The upbeat songs like Invisible Touch were barnstormers and the audience had a great time bellowing out the words. Indeed, the chorus of the wonderful No Son of Mine was belted out so strongly by the audience I felt sure that a remarkably high proportion of scousers must have fallen out with their fathers.

Despite it including Turn It On Again I didn't buy Duke: I think I found the album cover showing a headless character called Albert looking out of a window very off putting. But then I would have been heavily into the new wave at the time. So I wasn't as familiar with the other tracks from it they played and I'd never seen much point in the song Duchess, but on this occasion it came over well. 

There were some other interesting things to come out of my Genesis catch up immersion course. In the innumerable lists of Genesis albums ranked to be found online, the hard prog websites pretty much universally subscribe to the "Gabriel good, Collins bad" philosophy. I always thought Gabriel fans finding Collins overly commercial was a bit odd. The moves Genesis made towards world domination after Gabriel left in 1975 were pretty gradual. Follow You Follow Me was the first big hit in 1978 and the next was Turn It On Again in 1980, both staples of the then fairly new independent local FM radio stations like Radio City in Liverpool rather than mainstream pop. In the meantime Gabriel, having taken a couple of years out of the music business, had already had quite a big hit with Solsbury Hill in 1977 followed by the very poppy Games Without Frontiers in 1978. By 1986 Genesis had gone mainstream with Invisible Touch  but so had Gabriel with Sledgehammer and its MTV friendly video that won numerous awards. Sledgehammer is a song I've never cared for; if I want that kind of sound I'll listen to Robert Palmer, thank you very much.

So it seems to me that Gabriel and Collins were moving in much the same direction and at similar speeds, though Genesis undoubtedly eventually went poppier after Collins started having his huge solo successes and that influence bled over into Genesis. Indeed, Genesis is an example of one of very few bands who successfully made the move from Prog/underground to mainstream pop. The only more conspicuous example I can think of, but with a much faster transition, was Marc Bolan aka T Rex.

The other thing that came out of it for me was how much I enjoyed listening to the Gabriel era Genesis material again. I dug out my vinyl copy of Trespass, which I'm fairly sure I hadn't listened to since before 1975, thinking I won't remember this at all. But from the first bar, as Gabriel croons the title of the opening song Looking For Someone", I thought "I remember how this goes". And also the last track, The Knife. I must have listened to it a lot, but not for a long time.

And I realised what a sophisticated drummer Collins was when I listened to that early material. Having been given a toy drum kit aged five, followed by a makeshift kit made by his uncle, as a teenager he learned the "drum rudiments" from a specialist in the jazz big band style. Collins later said "Rudiments I found very, very helpful – much more helpful than anything else because they're used all the time. In any kind of funk or jazz drumming, the rudiments are always there". Wikipedia devotes four paragraphs to the awards Collins has won for his drumming and the many drummers who have been influenced by him, including Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters. Nic's good but not as subtle. Mind, Collins reckons he already couldn't play like he did in the 1970s by the time he was in his mid 30s.

Collins is also very musical. He entered a talent contest at Butlins aged five, but stopped the orchestra half way through the song to tell them they were in the wrong key.

So yes, a big tick for Genesis. And we didn't catch covid, though the band did - within fve days of their two Liverpool gigs they had to postpone the rest of the UK leg of the tour due to positive tests "within the band". All I got was an Afterglow.

P.S. A quiz question. Who are the only artists to have sold over 100 million albums both as a solo artist and a member of a band? Answer below.

* A boss of mine used to joke that, as the probability of there being two bombs on a plane was so vanishingly small, he would obviously be safer if he took his own bomb with him. This was of course a joke aimed at folk who didn't understand how probabilities work.  And he was a Fellow of the Royal Society.

** They were touring Foxtrot. All those tour dates, together with links to memorabilia such as tickets and sources of bootleg audio are available on the 'Genesis - The Movement' fans' website at https://www.genesis-movement.org/php/listtour.php?tourid=4#   

*** I'm not expecting any sympathy, having got an education that money couldn't buy (i.e. it was free). But money seemed to be a lot tighter than living on a modern day student loan, though I did counsel my sons at the time that that didn't actually have to spend every last penny of it...

Other sources:

http://www.prog-sphere.com/specials/genesis-albums-ranked/

Phil Collins, Wikipedia

Genesis and Peter Gabriel discographies, Wikipedia

The quiz question answer: Paul McCartney, Michael Jackson and Phil Collins