by Cindy Stephens, slightly edited by yours truly

The falling rain never seemed to put a damper on the audience, but it did end the concert a little early.

I was really interested in seeing what the setup would be like because the Bowl’s shell would be an obstacle they haven’t had to deal with otherwise on the tour. They did end up keeping most of the stage setup. All the balls
inside the shell of the Bowl were taken out, so that left a lot of room. The 7 light fixtures that hang over the boys was in place, as was the video screen behind them. The screen that’s normally behind that wasn’t in place because there was no place to put it. Instead of the oval screens on the side, they had quare screens instead. I was wondering what they were going to do during something like “Mama”, where the heavy drum parts later in the song were accompanied by the bright flashing white lights that interrupted the red hue of the song itself. Well, it worked out great because they had the lights inside the shell pulsing to that beat instead. It was great.
I didn’t notice, but the husband noticed that there was a second set of screens about half-way back, so that those in the back had screens that were closer for them to see. The gangplank/walkway on the left side of the stage was gone, as was the riser part on the right, where Phil normally sings the beginning of the last section of “In The Cage”, after he’s been offstage for a bit. The right side of the stage was just flat.

I had been surprised that they had chosen to play the Bowl rather than something like Staples. I don’t know if the other venues were unavailable or if they specifically picked the Bowl, but even with the limitations and problems that ended up arising from being in an outdoor stadium, it just seemed right for them to play a venue as classic and iconic as the Hollywood Bowl in what one might speculate is their last tour. It was just so amazing to see and hear them with the backdrop of the Bowl’s shell behind them.

The other added bonus is that the Bowl has lights in the back of the theatre as well as in the middle walkway, and all those lights were used to great effect for many of the songs, so whereas at the other venues, all of the light really just came from the stage, the entire stadium here was bathed in whatever color was the theme for any particular song or moment. During “Mama”, the entire stadium was just a sea of red - gorgeous.

I can’t remember what song it was - maybe “Mama”? - but at one point, the top of the Bowl had smoke coming out with alternating reddish lights so it seemed like the top of the Bowl was on fire. It looked incredible.

The forecast had called for rain, but they had said it wasn’t expected until very late in the night, maybe midnight. Well, the rain showed up a bit early. A light rain started towards the end of “In The Cage” - I had a bad feeling as Phil was singing “Raindrops keep falling on my head”, and the rain started shortly thereafter. Following “Afterglow”, Phil made a comment about knowing what you should expect to get with a Genesis concert - “the fucking rain. Oh, Genesis is having an outdoor concert tonight?” and then Phil made the sound like a rip-roaring thunderstorm/cloudburst. It was a steady, but not heavy, rain, and it lasted through “Hold On My Heart” and stopped right before “Home By The Sea”.

I was a bit surprised but very pleased that so many people seemed to be enjoying “Firth of Fifth” and really happy that it was being played. People were up and dancing, almost like what you’d expect from a Top 40 hit song and not an instrumental.

As Phil was doing the intro for “Ripples”, one of the women in front of him must have said something to him. (Unlike at the other venues I’ve seen, the Bowl has people right up against the edge of the stage.) He said something like, “Well, I’m a little busy right now. … I love you too.” He was talking about apologizing for the previous song and its smut and filth and now going to a place where virgins live. He must have been really distracted by the woman who interrupted him because he didn’t say the next line about how where virgins live is nowhere near here obviously. He seemed to rush through the intro more than he did at the other shows.

The rain had stopped but started again at the very end of “Throwing It All Away”. The “Domino” demonstration was still fun, though Tony didn’t participate in the part where the people on stage are affected as well. I think he was preoccupied with his equipment. More on that later. From that point on, it was raining steadily, first about the same heaviness as earlier in the concert, but then it started to rain harder. People were still very appreciative during the drum duet and “Los Endos”, and lots of people were dancing for “Tonight, Tonight, Tonight” and more were dancing for “Invisible Touch”.

During the beginning of “Tonight, Tonight, Tonight”, Phil also made another reference to the fucking rain and changed the ending of one line later in the song to be in reference to the rain. And yes, of course, there are the rain references at the beginning of the song.

At various points during the show, in between songs, the roadies would run on stage and cover equipment and wipe down the stage and other equipment with towels. Phil actually referenced them at one point, so we of course gave them a hearty round of applause.
Sometime during the show, a bunch of

roadies came out and put hard plastic covers around/on top of Tony’s keyboards. He was further up the stage than the drums or Steve or Daryl, so he and his stuff was apparently getting wet. Later in the show, they even brought out a huge umbrella (like you’d see on patio furniture) to cover him and his stuff as well. I had the husband take a couple pictures with his celphone. Not sure you can even see anything, but here they are for what they’re worth: picture 1
and picture 2. I think you can sort of see the umbrella in picture two - it’s in between the second and third light fixtures from the right.

Well, about 2/3rd of the way through “Invisible Touch”, I heard this noise that sounded like Tony had either just smashed his hands all over the keyboards and hit a boatload of random notes or someone had just dropped the keyboards on the ground. I looked at Tony, and he was leaning down under one of the keyboards, and I figured he was turning it off. The husband said it sounded like the water had shorted out one of the keyboards. They finished the song and then all left the stage.

I couldn’t tell if Phil left and came back or just stayed out, but he said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, we’re lucky that we made it this far through the show, but you’re all getting soaked and our equipment is breaking, and we can’t play anymore. On behalf of Mike and Tony and Steve and Chester, thank you so much for coming. Be careful driving home.” (That’s not verbatim, but it’s the gist of what he said.) People were disappointed, and I think they would have definitely stayed for the encore, but the boys really just couldn’t do it anymore.

When the show started, I noticed that Phil had a light jacket on, zipped up all the way to his neck. He didn’t have a jacket in the other shows, but I figured since this was an outdoor venue, he needed to keep his throat and chest warm. It wasn’t until much later, though, when I was watching him on one of the screens, that I noticed how wet his jacket was. I should have realized that if Tony and the keyboards was getting wet, Phil would be getting wet while he was singing as well since he’s pretty far up the stage.

It wasn’t terribly cold out, but being wet and being rained on couldn’t possibly have been very good for him and his voice, though he sounded great throughout. Even with all the rain and the problems, all of them put on a great show. When Phil was doing his announcement and because of the other times he was swearing during the show, you could tell he was really pissed off about the rain.

I don’t think missing “I Can’t Dance” was a big thing, but I feel really sorry for those who missed out on “Carpet Crawlers” and Phil’s genuine thank you at the end. He did get some of that in, but of course he was hurried because of the weather. And it wasn’t a case of them stopping the show and then the rain letting up right afterward. It took a while to get out of the stadium and all, and it was raining the whole time, and it even rained harder.

The rain is supposed to end mid-afternoon on Saturday, so we should be good for the Saturday night show. It’ll be interesting to see what sort of mood Phil will be in.

Well, actually there was no roof so the title is not really correct but I will talk about that later… So yesterday morning I walked around in Beverly Hills. Rodeo Drive is pretty impressive with all the designer shops, palm trees and hot cars. Didn’t see any celebrities though, but sometimes you don’t recognize them in “real life” so I might have missed a few.

In the afternoon I got back to my hotel to get ready for the show. Took the metro to Hollywood and went to the Renaissance Hotel where quite a few people were planning to meet up. When I arrived, there was already a dozen of fans sitting in the bar and soon more came in. Again, I met people from earlier shows (one I hadn’t seen since Helsinki!) and new faces as well. A little later Maria from Ultrastar (who run the official Genesis website) joined us. She had a few give-aways for us and as the one who traveled the longest distance I “won” a Genesis tour cap - which I could use very well later that night…

So by 6.30pm I headed up the road to the bowl. Just a ten minute walk up the hill. There were still quite a few people picnicking outside the gates and it was already pretty crowded. For those who have never been to the bowl, you approach the bowl at the bottom where the shell (concert stage) is. So people in the “nosebleeds” have to climb up all the way to their seats. I’ve never been to Berlin’s Waldbuehne but I think it’s somehow similar to that. Maybe a bit larger and with a shell instead of this tent roof. The boxes are very small. There are usually four chairs inside and fold-out tables so that quite a lot of people had dinner in their box. The chairs aren’t numbered so the seat number on the ticket is kind of useless at least in the box sections (garden & terrace). My seat was in a garden box to the upper left of this section (looking towards the stage) which made for a nice total view of the stage and the shell above it.

Somehow the roadcrew had managed to get the whole indoor stage into the small place. The stage floor was even apart from the drum risers and the lights which are usually arranged in a half circle around the front of the stage were positioned on a wall between pool section (the very front area) and the garden boxes. More varilights were spread all over the whole place. There was no camera right in front of the stage as far as I could see due to the very limited space. Phil just had a steady camera for Mama I think. Before the show I talked to sound engineer Michel Colin and he said that the “official” forecast predicted rain from 8pm on. Other forecasts on TV had talked about showers from 11pm until the morning. Not the best for an outdoor show. The main problem could become that for the first time on the tour the band wasn’t covered by a roof. On the other outdoor shows they used the stadium stage which had a plastic cover between the lighting “arms” covering most of the stage. So it was obvious that in case of rain the band would get wet as well.

Shortly before showtime when all the guest came out I saw a lot of Phil’s singers from his solo band (Connie Jackson, Lamont Van Hook and Bill Cantos). By the time the show started it was still dry and the first songs went down without a problem. It was during In The Cage that the rain set in. It was a lighter shower. But still it might have been the reason for first major technical problems during Cinema Show. A large part of the PA didn’t work anymore but came back during Duke’s Travels. And it also seemed to me that the guys had first problems with their gear (mainly Daryl, but I could be wrong with that). After Afterglow the shower was over and Phil said a few comments including the f-word before Hold On My Heart, something like: “Oh, great, Genesis is having an outdoor gig - swoosh!” Throughout the show the roadcrew came out with towels to dry the stage floor a few times.

It was almost dry until Throwing It All Away. During that song Luis Conte apeared on the screens, dancing in a plastic raincoat and obviously having a great time. The rain slowly set in again getting heavier and heavier. Don’t get me wrong there was by far worse rain in Europe and I won’t compare this show to Katowice in any way. But as I said the problem was the uncovered stage getting the band and most of all their very sensitive equipment soaking wet. They had added a few new effects using the unique venue perfectly. One of this being the inner shell being lit in red light during Mama. Simple but extremely effective!

The rain continued and at some point I think during Domino some roadies even put up an umbrella to cover Tony and his gear. Los Endos was one of the highlights of that show. They added a very dramatic effect when they used the red torch pyros they had for Home By The Sea in Europe and sparked them off behind the shell. It seemed like the whole stage was on flames! As the rain got heavier the technical problems got more and worse. The band really had trouble to fight through Invisible Touch. At some point during that song he wiped over the keys maybe to wipe the water off which resulted in a very strange sound. He then bended forward to fiddle about his keyboards which didn’t seem to work properly anymore. So in the end he leaned back folded his arms and the band finished the song without the keyboards!

The band left the stage as usual just briefly waving at the crowd to later return for the encores. But just a few seconds after they had disappeared Phil returned alone. I had a very bad feeling at that time already and he said they were as wet as the audience and they were lucky to have somehow managed to get that far in the set. They simply couldn’t do any more songs. So he thanked everyone and walked off. Right after that Fading Lights sounded over the PA and the show was over. After leaving the bowl I headed straight back to my hotel to get dry again.

A great experience nonetheless I have to say and I’m glad I was there. The gig was great (even with the technical probs) and had some very unique lighting effects. The fireworks at the end of Invisible Touch of course were launched on top or behind the shell. There were no fireworks inside the shell. That’s why the people in the front garden boxes and everyone in the pool section missed some great views. But being close to the band they had a great time as well just in a different way.

So now I’ve almost reached the home stretch! Tonight is the last night of the tour. The weather forecast is way better. At the moment (almost noon in L.A.) it’s still a bit cloudy but it should stay dry and might even get better later today. Tonight there might also be something special coming up (no, not a set change!). But I will only talk about that after the show.

I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to post a review before I’m back home. After the show I will immediately get back to my hotel because I have to leave in the early morning to catch my flight home. It’s not over yet but I’d like to thank Martin at that point - the end of a very long report - for translating all my diary entries into German! A lot of work! So the next update might take until Monday afternoon Central European Time.

Ulli

EDIT: I almost forgot to mention - as far as I know there was no announcement of the Encore Series before the show. So I guess there will in fact be no *official* recording of the two shows in Hollywood. A pity especially with last night’s very special concert.

Chaos in Los Angeles: Genesis performed at the Hollywood Bowl in LA last night (the first of two shows). They didn’t have a proper outdoor stage, there was no stage-roof that was used for the european and North American stadium shows. After half of the show, it began to rain heavily, Tony Banks was forced to perform under an umbrella (!). After Invisible Touch, Phil came back on stage and explained that the band cannot perform any more under these circumstances. The show was stopped, no Encores were performed. Although not planned, this is the first “variation” of the setlist of the whole tour…

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

correspondent in LA: Ulli Klemt