A Life's Ambition

One of my life's ambitions has come true: I have seen Genesis in concert!

Last night we got to Nationwide Arena around 7:00. I was with my wife and my mom. We were in section 218, which ended up being nosebleed stage-right seats. This isn't too much of a big deal at a Genesis concert, considering the entire stage is one gigantic digital video screen that wraps around and magnifies the musicians so that all can see.

The problem? Even if you aren't afraid of heights, the nosebleed seats freak you out. So you can imagine my mom, who is very afraid of heights, simply couldn't do it. She ended up watching the concert from the various hallways in and out of the arena, while Becca and I watched it from our seats.

By the way, there will be no pictures on this blog, as we didn't try to sneak in a camera, which is stupid because the way they "checked" purses was to kinda squeeze it a little and say, "Next!".

Before the concert started, we tried out the binoculars my mom had brought. Becca was looking backstage and said, "I see someone holding a guitar!" So, I took them and looked, and there I'm staring at Michael Rutherford and Daryl Stuermer!!! I was totally freaking out because these guys are iconic to me. I had seen Phil Collins twice before in concert, and I'd met their live drummer when I was in high school, so seeing the other members of the band was an awesome moment.

Here's a setlist from our show:

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
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
I Can't Dance (encore)
The Carpet Crawlers (encore)

My favorite moments: Behind The Lines, No Son Of Mine, The "In The Cage" Medley, Home By The Sea, Follow You Follow Me, Firth Of Fifth, Mama, Ripples, Drum Duet / Los Endos, and The Carpet Crawlers.

Most of those songs I can accredit to loving because of the instrumental parts, whether it was Collins playing drums, Banks doing awesome keyboard runs, or Rutherford with his freaking awesome double-neck guitar and bass pedals. Banks was down to three keyboards finally, one of which a sampler which I swore had the original mellotron samples loaded into it. I also noticed that they used bass pedals MUCH more than I originally thought. Plus, Chester and Phil had ditched the electric drumsets... in favor of midi triggers! That's right, instead of being surrounded by all these drum pads that they only used for Home By The Sea and Domino, they had midi triggers. Same analog drums, perfect synthesized sound. Thompson also had a flange effect on his hi-hat for Ripples, which made it comparable to the original recording. Also, I was impressed that Collins sang Follow You Follow Me from behind the drumset with a headset mic.

There were only a couple of disappointments. Our seats weren't that great, we couldn't see the stage head-on and really appreciate the show value. However, we were much closer to the stage because of the seats, so we did get to see some great angles through our binoculars. I think the guitarists' pedal rigs would make Dave and Chad jealous, not to mention the stagehands that traded out their guitars between every song for tuning. Another disappointment? Much of my favorite older songs were slower and the keys were dropped, probably so they could handle the difficult rhythms and so that Collins could still sing them at 57. So, while I can call that a disappointment, it's an understandable one and I have to remain thankful that they were even able to go on tour.

One of the best things about the show?

Collins shouting "O H!" from the stage at random moments during the show. If you aren't a Buckeye fan, you won't get that. But we do. And it was hilarious.

I might post more, but this has taken me three days to get up anyway. If you read all of this, you really are one dedicated friend.