Earl's Court Gig
Most of my feelings about the gig have been excellently summarised by
John
Wallace - I was in a similar position (row Q, left-hand side facing
stage)
and was very disappointed by the sound. In particular The Dividing Line
was
ruined for me by not being able to hear the keyboards at all over the
bass
line. As John said, if you didn't know how it should have sounded it
was
pretty boring.
I have to disagree with John on FOF - I just couldn't get into it. For
a
start it was very odd the way they just hurled themselves into
the
instrumental section with no build-up, and then all Mr Drennan's Heavy
Metal Guitar antics at the start just left me cold. By the time he
reverted
to the melody line I'd lost interest, I'm afraid. Why couldn't they do
the
whole song? It only adds a couple of minutes to it (so minimal strain on
Ray and set-length) and would have made it much more enjoyable.
OK, gripes out of the way; my overall opinion was - good show, great
singer! Mama was the highlight and, like many before me, I have to say
the
best version I've heard - awesome. Loved the acoustic set (the only time
the sound was any good for us); I would love to see them do a
full-length
acoustic set (Genesis Unplugged, anyone?). IMHO Ray is a far superior
singer to Mr C and, from the way my female companions reacted, far
sexier
(my wife hasn't forgiven me for getting seats on the left, when Ray
chose
his dancing partner for ICD from the right : ) )
My question relates to the lighting - where was it? Not only was it
nothing
like the 'artists impression' they showed at the album launch, it
wasn't
even close to the WCD set! I assumed they were forced to scale it
down
because of the failure of the US tour to take off, and lack of
Record
Company cash due to the poor sales of CAS. Do we have any more definite
info on this? The light show was barely adequate, did little to enhance
the
music, and the videos were a bit of a waste of time; how did people
further
back feel about not having screens showing the band at all? I know it
would
have pissed me off (having been at the back for WCD : (( )
Sorry I've rambled on for so long, but Genesis gigs have always meant
a
great deal to me (I've been going for 20 years), so to come out of
one
feeling less than ecstatic is a disappointment. I'll be there for the
Box
Set Tour, though!
Cheers