Earl's Court Show
Well its nearly 3 days now since the Earls Court gig and its taken me
that long to get over the disappointment that I now feel able to put pen
to paper.
Don't get me wrong - I had no problem with the set list or with the line
up - I thought Ray imparticular was great and I did not really miss Phil
at all, but the real problem was with the sound and overall productionof
the gig. To put it politely the sound quality was dreadful and the staging
and lighting at the best was okay.
I know that Earls Court is not the best venue in the world but I have
heard many great sounding gigs there. I was about 2/3rds of the way
down the arena on the floor and everything just consisted of a boomy,
bassy, echoy mess. As another Paperlater wrote in a private e-mail, it
was not until the Lamb Lies Down that we could actually hear the
keyboards and even then they sounded awful. I am also aware of others
who thought the same thing from other seats in the venue.
Others have mentioned the lighting but lets be honest Genesis can do
much, much better. For example, how can you possibly compare the
lighting on Second Home By The Sea, where all we got was one floodlit
colour change from green to red to the mind blowing Varilites on the
1984 tour and what was the point of the lights that moved up and down,
they reminded me of the robots on the Cadburys Smash adverts of the
1970's !
On a positive note - I thought the acoustic set was great and the
crowd
definately warmed to the new line up but on the other hand when will
anybody realise that I Can't Dance isn't a concert closer ?
To those who say that I should consider myself lucky to have seen them
at all or that we all knew that the tour was a cut down production I
would say the following:- One of the things that has always made
Genesis great is their live performances, they have always managed to
take something that sounds good on record and make it sound great live,
they have always put on a show that sets them a mile apart from
virtually any live band and have always been innovative and ground
breaking with their productions (whether it be costumes, films,
lighting, stage setup and so on). As soon as you take these elements
away from their live productions then you start to erode away at the
very factors that make them so unique.
Seeing Genesis live should be a magical experience, it should grab you
by the scruff of the neck slap you around the face and make you beg
for
more, you should be able to take somebody who is not necessarily a big
fan to see Genesis live and they come away thinking Wow ! I now know
what all the fuss is about ! Sadly these things did not happen on
Friday.
I always have been and always will be a massive Genesis fan, I still
think they are the greatest band in our part of the solar system, I will
buy the box set, the next album and go and see them on the next tour
where hopefully the magic will return.
All the best