Genesis in Dortmund
This was a terrific event!
After waiting for quite a few hours in front of the Westfalenhalle, I made
a mad dash to the stage and secured a very good place in the second row
a
bit left to the keyboards, where I met other Paperlaters (Hi, Florian
&
Friends! :-) . When finally the show started, the fans were
very
enthusiastic. IMHO, from the looks Mike and Tony exchanged, they had quite
a lot of fun playing. (Tony even smiled - three times!) The spark was
very
definitely there!
The sound was great (at least, where I stood), the light show
was
impressive, though not quite what I expected - but later for that.
Anthony
Drennan, the new guitar/bassplayer, fits quite nicely into the
Genesis
sound, though he remains a bit pale as far as "personality" is
concerned.
Nir Z. is a superb drummer (and besides that, he´s real good-looking!
;-),
and Ray was perfect. His interpretation of Genesis songs of all eras
was
great and sometimes overwhelming. (Even though he forgot the second line
to
the second verse of HBTS and sang only something like "dabndabndaa"... )
He
handled all the remnants of the Phil-era very well, up to and including
a
rather spooky Mama-laugh. I don´t think he tries to imitate what Phil
did
with TIAA, it´s just that people are so used to these things, they
belong
to the songs rather than to the person singing them. All IMHO, of
course
(Phil who...? ;)
Favourite moments: - the whole acoustic set, especially FYFM and,of
course,
Lover´s Leap. The Firth of Fifth instrumental. The Mama laugh.
The
introduction to HBTS. TLLDOB. The real blues harp on ICD. And,
well,
bascially, the whole evening..
Now, two points that might need clarification:
IMHO the stage show we saw was something we Germans call a
"Notnagel"
-meaning, something they did because the original plan didn´t work
out.
That would explain why the screens didn´t move (and why there were
only
three of them). Maybe they miscalculated in their plans somewhere and had
to settle for a smaller show.
Which was great, BTW. I especially liked the white beams, and the
"dolls"
were not too bad, either.
And does anybody know if Mike and Tony have changed the keys to some
of
their songs to suit Ray´s voice? It seemed to me that some songs
sounded
different than I remember - however, I do not have perfect pitch.
Can
anybody help me out?
And greetings to all that will see a Genesis concert this tour - I
don´t
think you will be disappointed!
As memory trickles in, here are some more things:
When the acoustic Lover´s Leap began, I started to cry - not only
becouse
of the song, but because I immediately thought of Ryan... I believe he
and
this song will be forever bound together in my mind.
-----------
There was also absolutely zero advertising of the gig! I was there
rather
early, and I had to conivince myself I was in the right place by asking
a
parking lot attendant! No banners, no posters, nothing.
oh, and I forgot: Congo is going to be the next audience
participation
thing; wish they had put the live ending in the record.
Nir Z. pointed a video camera at the audience at the beginning of TIOA.
Susanne