Genesis in Arena (A'dam 01-07-2007)
Voorprogramma: geen
Genesis: 20:25 - 23:00
Het werd een weekje van 2x naar Amsterdam. Waren we afgelopen woensdag nog in de Heineken Music Hall voor Meatloaf. Gisteren togen we opnieuw naar de hoofdstad voor Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford en Tony Banks. We kennen ze beter onder hun groepsnaam Genesis. Phil vertelde voor No son of mine dat zij Genesis waren en dat ze er waren om ons te entertainen. Hij vond dat zo speciaal, dat hij een foto van het publiek maakt. Vandaar ook de titel van dit logje "We love Genesis, we really do". De 3 werden verder bijgestaan door drummer Chester Thompson (ook vaste waarde bij Phil solo) en gitarist Daryl Stuermer.
Het werd een prachtig, sfeervol, retestrak concert in een warm, afgeladen en zeer enthousiaste Amsterdam Arena.
Ik ben eerlijk gezegd niet zo'n heel goede kenner van de band. Daarmee bedoel ik dan even niet de hits die de mannen hebben gescoord, want ja, die zijn mij ook wel bekend. Nee, met name de niet-hits en ook wat oudere songs waren zeer speciaal. Ik vond de 2 uur en 35 minuten die de band op het podium stond helemaal goed!
Turn it on Again tour 2007 date:01/07/2007 band(s):Genesis (UK) location:ArenA, Amsterdam, Netherlands attended with: My nextdoor neighbours from 10 years ago (my friend and his sister) special:Sold Out(although some extra tickets became available)
Digging in the past
When I was just a little kid, my best friend was my nextdoor neighbour. I used to play there every weekend. Him and me really had a thing for music, we were singing along to the radio/cd's sometimes for an entire afternoon. Besides all the crap that the radio played, his dad was a huge Phil Collins fan, which also meant he had lots of Genesis albums (especially post-Peter Gabriel stuff), basically more of the sing-a-long stuff... and so we did. I remember those days like they were yesterday. Genesis became my first favourite band mainly thanks to my neighbours. My favourite songs back then, like Home By The Sea part 1&2, Dreaming While You Sleep, Firth of Fifth, Turn it on again and so many more are still some of my favourites today. I've listened to them so many times already.. But I never thought I'd live to experience this day, sunday july 1st. The day Genesis played the Amsterdam ArenA as part of their Encore Series tour. I never thought I would ever see Phil Collins live when I first started going to shows in my 18th year on this planet. But when that tour announcement came somewhere in the fall of 2006 (?) I was soooo stoked! :D. I purchased my tickets right away on november 25th of 2006 and it seemed like forever for the concert to actually happen, but today it was finally here! Genesis was here! :D
Showtime
On my ticket showtime was set at 19h00, and maybe they were still on UK time, but we were on the floors of the ArenA at 19h00 and there was no Genesis to be seen, not until 20:15 at least. This waiting caused some annoyances in my neighbours camp, but I was already used to it (they haven't really visited any huge shows before like this). So at 20:15 We could finally see this huge impressive and awesome looking stage being 'LED' up for the first time tonight. And let me be the first one to say, I've seen my fair share of shows but I was never this impressed before by a stage set. During the entire evening the huge giant LED wall provided us with awesome images to accompany the music and even showed zoomed in parts of the crowd (didn't see myself sadly though, luckily for others ;p). Genesis opened with a huge instrumental part, with Phil sitting behind a drumkit as well. From that point on I knew this was gonna be an awesome evening, as I love it when Phil drums. And so he did A LOT this evening. I already heared stories about reuniting Genesis nearly selling our way smaller venues and now WITH Phil they're selling out giant stadiums in no time. I think that says enough about Genesis' charismatic frontman. After 'Turn it On Again' (would have loved that one as encore) Phil grabs the mike and reads from a paper something like "Sorry, maar ik spreek geen Nederlands" (which means "I don't speak Dutch") and he immidiatly wins over the crowd. During the next three songs/medley I am in complete awe. I know every word to 'No Son of Mine' and 'Land of Confusion' and they follow it up by freaking 'In The Cage' accompanied by 'The Cinema Show' and 'Duke's Travels' in one medley. I never thought I'd ever see 'In The Cage' live! After 'Afterglow' it was time for a breather as Phil basically alone stole the show with a very fragile 'Hold on my heart'. Especially pleasing for fans of Phil's solo work, but we were here for the prog rock Genesis stuff so we got some drinks while enjoying Phil's voice. On that note, man.. that guy can still sing! Hands down one of the best (older) singers I ever witnessed live. I don't think he missed a single note and he had to sing AND drum (now and then) for 2 and a half hours! Very inspirational. After the breather I saw a giant scary house being projected on the "wall of LED" and I knew my favourite song was coming up, 'Home by the Sea'! I immediatly noticed that they played a little slower then I was used to, but it didn't lose any of it's impact on me. Especially the second part, where Phil gets behind the kit and Mike provides an awesome guitar solo, will be remembered for the rest of my life. A huge applauding closed the fragile ending of the home by the sea and Genesis continued with 'Follow You, Follow Me'. After this they played another one of my favourites, especially this nowadays guitar version. Daryl Stuermer solo'd through 'Firth of Fifth' without dropping a single chord from the version I am used to (the 'Old Medley'-version from 'The Way We Walk'). I recorded it with my phone as well, and it actually works. I've been watching this over and over in the past few days and I will for years to come. In the 'Old Medley' this song is followed by 'I know what I like' and tonight was no different. Most memorable of this is ofcourse Phil's infamous "tambourine part"
..and while the crowd applauded Phil's performance, Genesis closed up the song so they could work towards my highlight of the evening, 'Mama'. God that was impressive. I got goosebumps all over for the entire duration of the song as I screamed every word along, brilliant! 'Ripples' had the honour to open up for crowd favourite 'Throwing it all away', especially during this song lots of people got their heads on the wall as some camera zoomed in on the entire crowd during this song. the Li-La-Leeeeeeeeeeh parts got louder and louder as the song progressed and everyone just couldn't stop smiling and clapping along. Thanks to this peak in crowd enthusiasm Phil could easily introduce "the Domino principle". Some of you might know what I'm talking about. It basically comes down to Phil explaining that when a Domino-stone falls down, it has a reaction on the next stone. He then continues by saying "for instance, if something was supposed to happen to the people over there [now a light is being shined onto a section of the crowd], it has an immediate effect to the people over there [the light switches to another section of the crowd]. It continues for a while. The section of the crowd the lights gets shined on will respond by yelling, just one of those crowd pleasing things Phil does so well. In Amsterdam it looked something like this:
The song 'Domino' itself was highlight tonight as well. Tonights performance was very heavy, especially the second part when Phil joined in on the drumkit as well. This was basically also the introduction for the well known 'Drum Duet'. Tonight Phil and Chester started out on their chairs first before they started molesting their kits. Always an amzing thing to watch, but live way better then seeing on dvd 3 times in a row. After this 2 more songs followed before Genesis started with their final song. I'm not the biggest fan of 'Invisible Touch' as I think it is somewhat to poppy, but as a climax it works extremely well. During the fireworks at the end everyone was in complete awe, but also curious for an encore, as we still missed so many classics. At least we got rewarded for 50%, because when the lights came back on again we saw lots of small men walking across the giant screen. By now you should already know Genesis were getting into 'I Can't Dance'. One of their funniest songs and a huge crowd favourite. Sadly, they didn't play 'Jesus he knows me' tonight, but this was really the only song I really missed tonight, as I was pleased enough with the rest of the setlist. Genesis' announced the last song as a song which was very personal and close to them and so they closed tonight with 'Carpet Crawlers', a song which I didn't even know (shame on me!) but I will get it, that's a promise!
Concluding
Wow would describe this evening perfectly I think, and I'm not gonna spill a whole lot more words. The waiting before the show and after the show in the parking garage was worth it, more than worth it. Perfect evening!
Setlist
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 Travels
Afterglow
Hold On My Heart
Home By The Sea (1&2)
Follow You Follow Me
Firth Of Fifth/I Know What I Like
Mama
Ripples
Throwing It All Away
Domino
Drum Duet
Los Endos
Tonight Tonight Tonight
Invisible Touch
------------------------------------
I Can't Dance
The Carpet Crawlers
Who:Genesis Support act(s): – When: 2007-07-01 Where: ArenA, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
I’ll start with a confession. I don’t know many Genesis songs. The main reason why I went was because the songs I did know by them (the obvious ones that EVERYBODY knows) were very good, plus Phil Collins. I love that little guy. I don’t care that apparently it’s a very “uncool” thing to do: liking Phil Collins. Apparently most people are of the opinion that he’s rubbish: a rubbish singer, a rubbish writer, a rubbish drummer, a rubbish everything. Well, I don’t agree. I think he’s made of awesome, basically. Anyway. I really didn’t know what to expect. I thought they wouldn’t play a very long set, and that the concert probably wouldn’t be mind-blowing, but probably just ordinary good. I was very, very wrong.
NOTES:
- I was very much in love with the stage. It really was beautiful. I loved how it just added to the show, and not distracted
- No Son Of Mine is one of my favourite songs EVER. I’m undoubtedly easy to please, but SO HAPPY they played that one.
- In The Cage / The Cinema Show / Duke’s Travels may have been my favourite part of the entire show. Just wow.
- Home By The Sea was beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous!
- The Drum Solo was insanely good. I loved how it started on the chairs and then just continued on the drums.
- Phil’s little tambourine dance was great! Loved how you saw Young!Phil do the same on the screens
- I discovered that my love for Phil Collins might be a bit bigger than I always thought. His voice is just too great!
- I Can’t Dance with the lights and the walk and everything was just plain awesome.
- The Carpet Crawlers is so pretty!
- People who talk all through songs about something TOTALLY unrelated should just not go. Go watch a music-DVD at home!
- I was surprised with the sound in the ArenA. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been! I’ve been to much worse sounding concerts there, while I was a lot closer to the stage.
- Phil Collins is great. Eternal love for that man. Loved his little paper that he read us to tell that he couldn’t speak Dutch. His accent wasn’t bad at all! ;)
- They sometimes got a bit lost in long instrumentals, but they really weren’t half as bad as I feared at the start. I think I only thought one of them was too long and that was the intro of the concert, when I wasn’t completely sucked in the awesomeness that is Genesis yet ;)
- Also, I loved their pre-show mix tape and screen clips. They basically showed/played most of the bands that I love, even Radiohead!
