Neuchâtel, October 08, 2005 – Drums, Drums and more Drums

Having been to eight shows already in 2004 (Milan, Vienna, Frankfurt, Cologne, London, Nîmes, Milwaukee & Chicago) may be crazy. Planning to see another eight shows just a year later may be even crazier. But driving 650 km to Neuchâtel on an October's Saturday without knowing if I would get a chance to at least hear something of the rehearsals from the outside is nearly insane – I admit.
Anyway, that's exactly what I did. Got up early in the morning, took my car and arrived at the Patinoires du Littoral right next to the beautiful Lac de Neuchâtel after six hours on German and Swiss motorways. It was Saturday, 8th October 2005. Just a few days before the First Final Farewell Tour was going to recommence with a gig in Tallinn, Estonia.
I was waiting right at the lakeside for something to happen when suddenly I saw a long bearded man, who was pulling a suitcase behind him, coming towards me. Believe it or not, it was Leland Sklar himself, Phil's well known bass player. I had the pleasure to talk to him for a while. In the end he said that he would go and ask if me and a fellow Swiss fan who I met in Neuchâtel were allowed to be inside for the rehearsals show. So we waited in the foyer of the hall for Leland to return and tell us the result of his inquiry.
After a while Lee came out to walk Phil's dog Jack and told us that the tour manager himself, Tim Brockman, had given us the go-ahead to attend the show! There were more relatives, friends and official guests expected than usual that day, anyway (especially Russian officials as well as TV stations from Russia, Romania and Estonia). So two more people inside didn't really matter.
Another couple of minutes later the bass virtuoso went out to us again and said we shouldn't have to wait any longer and led us inside. Walking past him we went through the room where the band and crew were having lunch and finally entered the hall through a side door ending up standing right next to the stage. Mr. Sklar showed us some chairs on the floor where we could sit. At that point pretty much no-one apart from us and some crew members were inside the hall. More and more band members were arriving and finally Phil came in to do a brief soundcheck. He sat down behind his drumkit and just played around for a while. An unbelieveable experience to have this exclusive honour to see Phil play virtually just for you! Then Phil disappeared behind the stage to check his drumkit for In The Air Tonight, too. He returned to the stage and did a mic check with his backing singers. For this purpose they did a more or less a capella version of Invisible Touch. What a treat! By that time I had known that two new songs would be in the set. Two surprises, one Genesis song and a song from Both Sides. So now I knew what the Genesis song would be. Still was wondering which Both Sides song they would have chosen.
The tour stage hadn't changed much but during the show I saw that the new lighting elements were a great improvement compared to the cranes used a year ago. There were also some new video sequences shown on the backdrop screen.
You should know that on a rehearsal day at this stage they don't try much anymore but rather play a full concert. So when the show was about to start the guests and friends had finally joined us. All in all maybe 200 people. Sounds much but still a very exclusive audience compared to a regular concert.
Of course the show started with Phil on the drums soon accompanied by Chester Thompson and Luis Conte. There was no big introduction after Don't Lose My Number and the set went on the way it was a year ago. No surprises until A Groovy Kind Of Love was over. The following song was not I Missed Again but Another Day In Paradise. After that I really didn't expect Misunderstanding because this was a special song done in North America due to the success of the single in 1980. Furthermore it was very unlikely that Phil would play another Genesis song apart from Invisible Touch. But I was very surprised when I saw that Phil and Luis went upstairs to some snaredrums which I hadn't spotted so far. Once both were on their marks a well-known drumline started but soon sounded pretty strange. Finally Phil stopped playing and waved his drumsticks shouting "Stop it, stop it! My fault!" He obviously had slipped into a wrong drumline. So they started the intro over again. This time without a problem. We Wait And We Wonder sounded even better than it did in 1994/95 when it was done for the first and last time on tour. The selection of this song made sense especially regarding the lyrics which still are very up-to-date and the countries the tour would be visiting during the upcoming weeks. Chester's drumming added a lot of power and the lighting making the stage look like on fire created a great atmosphere for this song.
It took a while until Invisible Touch was done as part of the faster half of the set. The song was done with horns which reminded a bit of the big band tours. Another great rendition in my opinion. I was very curious how this song would work in front of a big crowd. But the best was yet to come – just very short but a masterpiece: the transition from Invisible Touch to Easy Lover. I was totally blown away by that. Without shortening any of the two songs Invisible Touch went over into Easy Lover so homogenically. You still hadn't realized that the former song was over when the latter had already started.
At the end of the show they did a little favour to the Russian guests that afternoon. During Take Me Home the name of the city they're currently playing is displayed on the backdrop. This time it wasn't Neuchâtel but Moscow written in cyrillic letters.
The 2.5 hours were over too fast as usual. After the concert I had the chance to talk to some of the band members. Unfortunately there was no chance to meet or talk to Phil. He was totally busy with preparations before the show and had to do numerous interviews afterwards. But nonetheless it was an unforgettable feeling to be there that Saturday afternoon. What a reward for driving 1,300 km… It was a lifetime dream for me to maybe see a soundcheck one day. But that very special day in Neuchâtel I had the honour and pleasure to see not only see a soundcheck but also a full rehearsals show!
 

A week after this special day in Switzerland I flew to Helsinki to see one of the two shows at the Hartwall Areena (yes, in Finland they spell arena with two "e"). The Saturday show was in fact the very first tour concert to be announced for this next tour leg. I was a little disappointed when suddenly they added another show the day before that and even a show in Tallinn two days earlier. To see the first show is always something special because only very few people know what you're about to see at that time. Just a few hours after the first show all the news start spreading on the internet. But having seen the rehearsals gig 7 days ago my disappointment was wiped away.
Just a few hours after the arrival in Finland I was entering the very nice Hartwall Areena. This hall is more or less a twin of Hamburg's ColorLine Arena (which was inaugurated by a Phil Collins concert in 2002) but was built a few years before its German "brother". Most of Helsinki is built on rock – not rock 'n' roll but stone. You can see this when you walk downstairs inside the Hartwall Areena to enter the ground floor. Partly there are no walls made of bricks but bare rocks. Very impressive! I'm not a big fan of fully seated concerts. But being lucky to have seat in row 4 I had a brilliant view on the stage and was very close to the action.
Though by now I knew all the surprises I was still very curious how the whole show would work with a big audience. During the introduction Phil refrained from speaking Finnish and sticked to English. Later I got to know that he seemed to have some serious problems with the language the night before.
It took quite a while until the finnish crowd was on temperature and it appeared to be very complicated to stand up on the floor seats due to the short pitch between the chairs. When finally the whole venue was rocking and Sussudio was about to start Phil began to run around in circles on the stage as he always does. Upstairs, downstairs, upstairs and so on. Then streamers and confetti were shot out above the stage. Towards the middle of the song Phil did his second running around bit. All of a sudden he slipped on the streamers right in front of his drumkit – just a few meters in front of me. He ended up lying flat on the floor but managed to get up pretty soon. This accident didn't have any effect on the song performance. No line was missed and the band continued to play.
As some may know Phil had a minisc injury earlier in 2005 and was wearing a brace around his injured knee. He had recovered just in time for the tour – and now this terrible accident! As soon as he had slipped all the crew members rushed to the side of the stage to see if he was fine. Phil stopped running and looked a bit puzzled and shocked for the next couple of minutes. But the show went on and as we all know the shows after that took place as planned. At that time no-one knew that something else was going to prevent Phil from performing just a few days after Helsinki…

..