Genesis in Montreal - The Return of Phil, Tony, and Mike

Genesis
Au Stade Olympique
Montreal, Quebec, Canada!!!!
Vendredi 14 Septembre 2007

(Olympic Stadium
Montreal, Quebec, Canada!!!!
Friday, September 14, 2007)

Section 120, Row VV, Seat 12
$152

Genesis did the impossible. They made a warm, personal connection with the audience in this mammoth stadium. Too bad about the sound.

The last time I saw Genesis was on their previous US tour for We Can't Dance. I was still in high school then. I was only familiar with their three most recent albums, the self-titled one, Invisible Touch, and We Can't Dance. IT was actually the second cassette purchase I ever made (along with Madonna's True Blue) when I was 12. I've always had a soft spot for this era of the band. A lot of the songs hold up. I remember learning this fascinating piece of trivia that Peter Gabriel used to be the singer of Genesis. That seems so long ago.

My friend Scott was determined that I listen to more old Genesis. He made me tapes of Nursery Crime and Foxtrot, and gave me a CD of Selling England by the Pound as a college graduation present. I quite like those albums, but I've never listened to the rest of their catalog all that much. I know the songs that got radio airplay too, of course. I've seen The Musical Box tribute band more times than I've seen Genesis.

The story of Montreal goes like this: when I was a part of the ProgDay organizing committees, I worked with a Canadian named Sean McFee. He had plans to do his own prog festival in Canada, Le Festival des Musiques Progressives de Montreal (FMPM) and the first one took place last year. Roy and I thought it would be nice to go sometime and see what it's like. Unfortunately, the festival is held just a few weeks after ProgDay and it's expensive to fly into Montreal.

Genesis announced their tour dates, and they weren't playing St. Louis. They were playing Chicago, a five hour drive, but it was during the week, which would involve taking time off of work. We looked at their weekend dates. Ohio on a Saturday seemed likely. I Instant Messaged Roy at work, "hey they're playing Montreal on a Friday. It would be fun to see them there" knowing that Montreal is a big fanbase for Genesis and Quebec in general is a hotbed for progressive music. Later that day, Roy remembered that Sean's fest was also in mid September. In fact, it was the same weekend. He wrote me this in another IM, and I replied that we had to do it! That was last March; this trip was a long time coming. We applied for passports, time off of work...Thankfully, we were able to use frequent flier miles for the flight. We called the festival "Seanfest" and referred to the Genesis concert as the pre-show.

We flew up to Montreal on Thursday. The hotel was convenient and clean, but in dire need of renovations. It was right on Rue St Denis, with lots of restaurants and a subway stop nearby. It sounds funny, but what I was most looking forward to was the weather and walking outside. We had one of the hottest Augusts in history in St. Louis and September was still hot. Montreal was a good 20 degrees (fahrenheit) cooler. I happily packed my jeans and closed shoes, leaving the shorts behind. We were staying right by a university, and my first impression of the area was how bike friendly it was. The bike lanes were between the sidewalk and parked cars, closed off from the traffic with a concrete barrier. There were lots of bicyclists and walkers around.

We slept for about an hour after arriving there, and then walked to Old Montreal for dinner. That perked us up, so we were able to walk around the area some more. I only know a handful of French words, but almost everyone we talked to could switch to English as soon as they heard us say "bonjour" with American accents. The next day we had breakfast at a cute little creperie near the hotel. Both were great meals.

We hadn't done a lot of research on touristy stuff for this trip - the majority of the time, we'd be in concerts. Last year, when we went to San Francisco, we took a bus tour of the city, and it ended up being a highlight. It took us to some places on our must-see list and some we hadn't heard of. So we decided to take a similar tour of Montreal. The hotel made a 12:00 reservation for us and we made a deposit, but when we got there, we found that they didn't reserve seats for us on the bus. It was first-come, first-served and the next bus wasn't for another hour and a half. We were near an entrance to the Underground City, so we walked around the large underground mall for a while. Even the mall chain stores have a good selection of progressive music. The HMV aboveground was pretty good too. The bus tour was disappointing. There was only one real stop, at a cathedral shortly after we started. After that, we only had three brief photos and bathroom break stops for the whole three hour tour. Roy fell asleep on the bus. The tour and waiting for it sucked up all our time between breakfast and dinner; I had hoped to do more walking that day.

We checked out Crescent Street for dinner. All I knew about it was that the festival website called it "the most famous street in Montreal". It was a couple blocks of more restaurants. We ate at an overpriced Italian restaurant and then walked around for a while. We were right near a green line metro station, so we took that to the Pie IX stop by Olympic Stadium.

We got there early and walked around outside a bit. Once inside, I bought a tshirt and program. My plan was to wear proudly my new Genesis tshirt at the festival the next day and I was all set!

Our seats didn't suck for the venue. I definitely did not want to be on the floor. We were on the first level up, off to Mike Rutherford's side of the stage. Top row of our section, on the aisle. It was good sitelines for me, I was looking over the aisle to see the stage, so no one could block my view. Plus I could stand up to see better or dance without blocking anyone else's.

Roy and I were discussing what they were going to play. I'm sure we looked at the European setlists, but I didn't really remember. All I recalled from it were lots of mini-medleys. (Unlike Yes, where I willed myself to wake up in the middle of the night after the first show to check and memorize the setlist on Forgotten Yesterdays.) I figured they'd open with Turn It On Again, since that was the name of the tour.

The show started late, but it finally started. We'd been planning this trip and this show for six months. Genesis opened with the beginning of Behind the Lines and then Turn it on Again. I was sort of right. I'm going to have to rely on a setlist from the http://www.genesis-news.com website, since there were lots of instrumental bits (and some songs) that I couldn't place. The main set included:

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 / Second Home By The Sea
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 (intro)
Invisible Touch

It was a good mix of classic and 80s material. The stage set was really nice - the stage itself was minimal, but there were two large screens on either side plus one in back that was the whole length of the stage. One of my favorite uses of it was during Follow You, Follow Me. The center screen had lights that created line drawings. It showed the guy from the cover of Duke walking up to the windows and recreating the cover artwork. Ahh... At one point, the lights were going all over the place, and I couldn't figure out what they were doing - until they finished, and it was the guy sleeping on the bench of Selling England by the Pound. It was obvious that they spent a lot of money on this equipment, but it turned out classy and not show-offy.

Apparently this venue had not been used for concerts in ten years. I could tell why - it was quite boomy and echoey. I would say up to a third of what I was hearing was the rumbling echo. I had trouble hearing the keyboards except for the parts that were lead lines and turned up louder. I was wearing earplugs, and I experimented with them. When I took them out, the overall volume blocked some of the boominess, but it introduced a shrill sound that the earplugs blocked. I decided to go with the boominess and protect my hearing. Roy noticed that the sound bothered him more on the older material, maybe because it's more densely layered. But I missed hearing more of Tony Banks.

I mentioned at the beginning of this note how Genesis, well Phil, made a connection with the crowd. For some reason, I knew he spoke French. We're in a French speaking city. Voila! He made his stage announcements in French. I don't speak French, so I don't know what he said, but it was like watching a foreign film; I really noticed the *way* he was speaking. Phil Collins is a great frontman, and he usually does quite a spiel in his song introductions. This time, however, it sounded like he was really speaking to the audience. His tone was conversational and he looked like he was thinking of how to convey his words, not just saying something rehearsed. The crowd just ate it up. During the encores, I heard him say something like "le relation de Genesis et Montreal", acknowledging the fanbase and history here. It wasn't like this was just another show on the tour; this one was special.

For me, this led to the "oh la la, I'm seeing Genesis in Montreal!" feeling. I like seeing something different. But Roy was looking forward to Phil's talks and felt something was missing when he didn't understand them. We did get some talk in English. Phil said his French wasn't good enough to do this one introduction, so he was going to do it in English. It was for Domino, with the crowd participation. It was the same intro and participation from the last Genesis concert I went to, so I think I would have figured it out even in French.

The video screens were also put to good use during Throwing it All Away. This song is alright, but kind of a throwaway for me. But they focused on different audience members on the big screen and watching people realize, "hey we're on the screen" was fun. I think it also helped make the show more about the individual people there, rather than the enormity of the venue. The other song I could have done without was Hold on My Heart.

The musical highlight for me was the portion of Firth of Fifth leading into I Know What I Like. That guitar solo is my favorite piece of Genesis music. I would have liked to have heard the whole song, but it was nice to get the solo in. During I Know What I Like, I had a flashback to one of the prog festivals I'd been to. The fest ended with a jam, and they all played I Know What I Like. I still remember the Italian band Finisterre singing those lyrics with enthusiasm. And here I was singing the song along with Genesis!

I sang along and danced in my seat, I was so happy. Some guys needed to get back to their seats, but I didn't want to be interupted. They squeezed by, and one of them turned to sing along with me "you've got to tidy your room now". I grabbed Roy's hand and we waved our arms along to the chorus. The screens showed pictures and film clips (I think) of the classic lineup. This was my adrenaline rush of the night.

Other songs that I really liked were Land of Confusion and Home by the Sea/Second Home by the Sea. I'm almost embarrassed to admit I didn't recognize In the Cage or Afterglow, but it was great to see the crowd enjoy the music. Towards the end of the show, I had to use the restroom, but I didn't want to miss any of the songs. If I had known the drum duo was going to be so long... The encore started and they went into I Can't Dance. Finally, a song I didn't feel bad missing. The funny thing is, the sound was great in the restroom. They must have pumped it in from the soundboard.

I returned for the end of I Can't Dance. The final song was Carpet Crawlers from Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. It was a good, solid show. Why does that feel like a letdown? It wasn't a big letdown, but it's hard to be blown away with the faraway seats and the bad sound. Um well, except for Yes.

We took the metro back to the hotel and found a dessert place still open. Juliette et Chocolate. I had a cinnamon and sugar crepe. Yummy! It was a good way to end the evening.