Ray Day 1

The big moment came in the evening. Ray, Steve and Irvin took the Bürgerhaus stage and they began playing Follow You Follow Me. Ray played two-and-a-half hour’s worth of a mix that consisted of old and new Genesis songs and much from his solo career. The ballads Alone, Ever The Reason and Sometimes (which Ray and Irvin played alone) were as fine as Ray’s song about his time in Genesis – The Actor. This time, as opposed to previous acoustic gigs, Irvin Duguid played the keyboards with much more variations. The Carpet Crawlers and Ripples had a piano accompaniment, and Irvin received particular applause for his marvellous key board solo in this song. Fading Lights featured string sounds and a blazing solo of Irvin’s in the middle. In The Air Tonight was given the make-over. A major surprise was the unannounced Mechanics hit Another Cup Of Coffee, which went down very well with the fans. Ray was in excellent spirits. Between songs, he would tell anecdotes from his musical career. First night’s highlights were the story of the letter he wrote to Phil to be given a chance to open for him and the anecdote of his faux pas with the microphone during the Calling All Stations tour rehearsals. A pity he did not tell the story about how Shipwrecked came about – he impersonates Mike perfectly. Early on in the set a guy wearing a Peter Gabriel shirt left for the gent’s which elicited from Ray the wry comment “The Gabriel fan left – I play Biko, honest!” And play Biko he did – and even thanked the Gabriel fan for coming back.
There were eight (!) encores that first night, and later Ray mixed with the audience, signed autographs, posed for photos and had a good chat with many people.

Ray Day 2

The second RayDay began a bit calmer – Everything was, of course, okay with the PA and the keyboard. Since Ray did not have to be picked up from the station, the programme could begin at 1pm. instead of 3pm. This allowed all the guest to have a timely journey home.
Many people who held tickets for Sunday, May 30, had also bought tickets for the additional show on Saturday so that there were some fifteen “old faces”, too. The programme was identical, except for the video show and another set of questions for Rudi’s Quiz – in order to provide variety and equal opportunities for everybody.
May 30 was also the birthday of Ray’ brother Steve. We teamed up with Ray and the audience for surprise Steve accordingly. We arranged with Ray that we all would sing a spontaneous Happy Birthday after Inside. The audience participated and Steve was very surprised. Ray had not played Inside the day before – you can download the Inside/Happy Birthday version from the Downloads section. The set list was, in fact, very different from Saturday because, as Ray explained, he does not ever play the same setlist again. So the Sunday fans cheered at another new song called How High and Genesis classics Mama, I Know What I Like and The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. Ray also fulfilled a request from previous day’s audience by playing the enjoyable Airport Song from the Guaranteed Pure album. The second block of encores in this slightly shorter concert ended in dignity with Peter Gabriel’s Biko. Before that, Ray thanked for two fine days in Welkers and stated again that he felt honored to sing for Genesis. He then continued to explain with a wink that Mick Jagger had left the Stones and he’d been asked to take over. Everybody got a good laugh out of that. Once more, there were standing ovations for Ray who, once more, signed autograms and patiently posed for photos. The audience were ecstatic on both days.