Event 2004: RayVent – Report

When, in October and November 2003, we began to try out concepts for the club meeting 2004 we had the idea to have a special event, something completely unheard of in the club's history: We decided to invite a (former) member of Genesis to Welkers, and we quickly determined it should be the band's last lead vocalist Ray Wilson. Reactions in the Wilson camp were positive so we continued planning. Christmas came closer and there was much left to do before we could announce our coup. It quickly turned out that one day would not be enough – 24 hours after the tickets went on sale May 30, 2004 was sold out. And it took just a couple of days for the additional date to sell out too. Some confusion ensued about the line-up of the Acoustic Trio. Only shortly before the event a trio consisting of Wilson and Wilson and newcomer Irvin Duguid on keyboards was confirmed.

Ray's performance became even more attractive when it turned out that he would present a couple of new songs from his album The Next Best Thing live for the club member – even before the album was released. His appearance required a big change in Welkers logistics. For the first time, we had a full-blown PA, and a camera team would come over to film Ray during his performance for P.R. purposes.

The beginning did not bode well. While a number of guests were already waiting in the sunshine outside the Bürgerhaus at three in the afternoon, the crew were also waiting – for Ray Wilson who was making the journey by train. Steve Wilson and Irvin Duguid had already done the soundcheck where there occurred problems with Irvin's keyboard. It turned out that the keyboard lacked many features that were essential for the live performance, so we had to find ourselves another keyboard – on a Saturday afternoon [On Saturdays, most German shops close around 4pm. No Sunday shopping either. – translator's note]. The RayVent 2004 kicked off with an hour's delay at four o'clock.

The programme was, of course, geared towards Ray Wilson. Apart from his performance, two video presentations and a favourite classic "Rudi's quiz" (which focused on Ray, of course) were scheduled. In the meantime, a new keyboard appeared and everybody could breathe a sigh of relief for the concert. Meanwhile, Ray, Steve, Irvin and Ray's wife Tyla were relaxing in shape at the hotel.

As in previous years, a programme was handed out to all fans as a souvenir. Besides, our event passes had been given a Scotch Whisky design as a nod to Ray's roots. You can check out the programme and the passes on a special page in high resolution.

There also was a limited RayVent t-shirt – Ray wore one of these for his performance.

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 were accompanied on the piano, 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 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 autograms, 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 guests 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 is 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 everybody 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.

Those were two days full of work and complications, but those also were two fantastic gigs and a happy audience. The RayVent 2004 was a success. Our idea to have a bigger event with a special guest worked out. Both gigs were sold out. A couple of days Ray and his wife Tyla contacted the "it" staff with "just a note to say we all enjoyed the RayVent and appreciate the hard work you put into it". With this, the RayVent became the basis of further events in that style. 2005 saw the Early Years Event, which, though it was about a totally different era, was just as much work…

by Christian Gerhardts

Setlist 29.05.		Setlist 30.05.
Follow You Follow Me The Carpet Crawlers Ghost Sunshine And Butterflies Alone Ever The Reason Fading Lights Gypsy Along The Way The Actor Another Cup Of Coffee Biko In The Air Tonight Sometimes Adolescent Breakdown No Son Of Mine Not About Us Shipwrecked Yesterday Goodbye Baby Blue Change Beach Lover's Leap Ripples		No Son Of Mine Along The Way Alone The Carpet Crawlers Sunshine And Butterflies Goodbye Baby Blue The Actor In The Air Tonight Sarah How High Yesterday Sometimes Inside Happy Birthday Steve Another Cup Of Coffee Ripples Shipwrecked I Know What I Like The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway Follow You Follow Me Mama The Airport Song Lover's Leap Biko

RayVent behind the scenes: The argy-bargy about the single release

Much scratching of the head was done in the Wilson camp which song should become the first single of the new album The Next Best Thing. We have asked Ray: Inside was the favourite for a long time, but they all could not really agree about one of  the eleven songs. At some point it seemed they had found the right song. These Are The Changes and its political statement fit well into the current political landscape and "might work". So they quickly picked three live tracks (Gouranga, Ghost and Gypsy) from the Rockpalast recording as bonus tracks. This version was never released, though, because somebody realised that the standard single in some countries (e.g. the UK, but not Germany) has three songs. Production was stopped and re-tooled for a version with only Ghost and Gypsy. When these singles were nearly finished Ray got the offer for a remix of the track that would improve the chances of chart success. InsideOut therefore dropped the single with the two tracks from their programme (it is now only available from Ray) and produced another single with the remix, the album version and – surprise! – Gouranga as a live track. And that is the one that will be released only on 19/07/2004. A video has also been filmed for this.

We figure there must have been a running gag in the record company: "Any news about the single production?" – "Yes, These Are The Changes we made…"

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