It certainly has something touching when Phil Collins (71) bends over and stumbles onto the stage of the sold-out Ziggo Dome with a walking stick. There is a revolving office chair on wheels waiting for him in which he collapses, unable to get out of it for almost the entire Genesis concert.
Of course, all 17,000 visitors know that Collins’ health is in bad shape. He also spent his last solo concert in the Netherlands (2019) sitting down and he has been unable to play the drums for years. But when you see him there in his training jacket hanging in his chair, you fear that a nurse will arrive to put a bib against the drool.
But pity quickly turns to admiration. Collins appears from the third song Momon a stage lit equally in a deep scarlet red, not only quite in his voice, he is witty and still possesses for two and a half hours that stage personality that makes people go to a stadium or arena.
The Last Domino? is the name of the several times postponed tour that Genesis brings to Amsterdam for two evenings. That question mark is rhetorical, because Collins has already indicated that it really is the last. He has already filled stadiums in the Netherlands with his Genesis, most recently in the Amsterdam Arena in 2007, and although no new repertoire has been added in fifteen years, it doesn’t get really nostalgic in the Ziggo Dome. Old material is promised, from the early 1970s when not Collins but Peter Gabriel was the lead singer and main Genesis composer, but that old work (Firth of Fifth† The Cinema Show) is drastically shortened.
If there is any nostalgia, it is to the eighties, when Genesis thanks to the album invisible touch (1986) was able to push through to stadiums. Five songs from that record will be played on Monday and that is not the most successful part of the evening. Calculated in Land of Confusion and in the title piece Collins’ vocals falter a bit, and if it could be shortened anyway, then it would have been… Domino Medley definitely deserved a cleaver.
At moments like these, Genesis is a pompous stadium rock band – although it is a nice image to see father Collins clumsily beat the time now and then while son Nic (21) exemplifies the complex drum parts to his will. Also great how the lush keyboard parts of Tony Banks merge with the guitar playing of Mike Rutherford. The sound is beautiful throughout the evening and the two background singers, humorously presented as ‘percussionists’ by Collins, provide exactly the right additions where necessary.
The concert has a few nice peaks. The acoustic intermezzo, with a somewhat trembling and perhaps for that reason moving Follow You Follow Me, let’s hear that Genesis can also sound small. And you get used to the curious image of the seated band leader so quickly that it’s no obstacle to experience two and a half hours of Genesis live as if it had never been different.
The most beautiful is the end, when Collins in I Can’t Dance, the biggest Genesis hit here (1 in 1992) mockingly points to himself as he sings the line ‘a perfect body with a perfect face’. Witty, and a nice contrast to the medley of two pieces from the Peter Gabriel years (Dancing with the Moonlit Knight and Carpet Crawlers), who makes Collins shine as a folk singer under beautifully subdued accompaniment. ‘We’ve got to get in to get out’, is the frequently repeated line, fully sung along by Collins, which lingers long after you have left the Ziggo Dome.
Which Genesis was the best?
And then there were three..† is the title of the 1978 album on which Genesis could be heard for the first time as a trio (Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks). Guitarist Steve Hackett had just left the group, Peter Gabriel had already left Genesis in 1974 after the album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway† From that moment on Phil Collins started singing, with a voice still not far from Gabriel’s.
In addition to new work, Collins has always continued to sing the old Gabriel material, also during the performances now in the Ziggo Dome. But among Genesis followers from the very beginning, the debate is still raging: which Genesis was the best and who now performs the old work best? Gabriel plays little and certainly no Genesis repertoire. But guitarist Steve Hacket was recently in the Netherlands to play the Genesis live album in full Seconds Out (1977) to interpret. Nice, precise work, but it lacked a singer with the personality of Collins or Gabriel, was the criticism.
Genesis
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21/3 Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam.