[SPOILERS] GENESIS 2021 setlist discussion

    Since Genesis has a completely different setup with a de facto a single drummer a la 1970-1975, it does open up a number of possibilities. However, Genesis being Genesis (not the most adventurous bunch when it comes to setlists), I'm not expecting much in terms of surprises. Why they feel like they need to play every hit is a mystery to me as many of those bandwagon fans are long gone.... As far as '07 goes, it was a bit... underwhelming. While I understand that aging affects the old vocal chords which results in rekeying some songs, the power lost in doing so can be quite dramatic. I remember listening to Ripples and thinking that it was totally flat in 2007 compared to '78, '80, etc. As much as some of us would like to hear some real surprises, I'm not holding my breath. As obvious as this might sound, it dawned on me this weekend how old all my teenage music idols are (from the '70s) and how I need to temper my expectations, despite the $700 I shelled out for 2 tickets lol. I'm knocking on 60 myself and to ask me to do things I routinely did when I was 20 might lead to an interesting result lol. Imagine 71 year olds... I'm almost viewing this tour as an opportunity for old and new school Genesis fans to reunite, share a couple of fun hours one last time and close the book once and for all. Cheers.

    Quote from Backdrifter

    Despite this dismissive label I suspect there'll be more of what you call "bandwagon fans" than you think at these gigs.

    We'll see..... It wasn't meant as a dismissive comment but an objective statement. Genesis, in the late '80s was "the" band to see along with many others that have come and gone. In fact, many fans routinely confused Phil Collins (solo) and Genesis in their respective heydays.

    Quote from BassAnd12Man

    We'll see..... It wasn't meant as a dismissive comment but an objective statement. Genesis, in the late '80s was "the" band to see along with many others that have come and gone. In fact, many fans routinely confused Phil Collins (solo) and Genesis in their respective heydays.

    I much prefer the music from Genesis’ golden prog years. Having said that I can stomach almost all their pop songs live, with the exception of I Can’t Dance and In Too Deep. I come very close to hating the studio version of Invisible Touch but it’s decent live. To me songs like No Son of Mine, Land of Confusion, and even Hold on My Heart are a cut above average pop songs from that era.

    Quote from BassAnd12Man

    We'll see..... It wasn't meant as a dismissive comment but an objective statement. Genesis, in the late '80s was "the" band to see along with many others that have come and gone. In fact, many fans routinely confused Phil Collins (solo) and Genesis in their respective heydays.

    "Bandwagon" is pretty widely used in a derogatory way and that combined with the many times I've seen and heard Genesis fans use it dismissively about certain other fans, ie ones who became fans in the 80s (and weren't "proper fans"), made it feel like that's what you were doing. If you weren't, fair enough.


    Those fans who came to the band through the 80s hits, and yes some of whom conflated Genesis and Collins solo, to me were/are just fans. People become fans through different routes and manifest their fandom in various ways. Those who bemoan their post-80 work and only want to hear 70s stuff could in their own way stand to be accused of bandwagonry and fandom that's lacking in some way, but hey they're just doing their thing too.


    I don't think we will see what the 'fan demographics' are on this tour, I'm not sure how we'd know. I was just saying my gut feeling is there'll be more of the fans you referred to than you might expect.

    Abandon all reason

    I saw this post n Reddit from a member named lightningrider40 and I thought it was worth sharing. He did a great job of summarizing what many of us long term fans may have considered regarding what is possible/likely with the tour. None of this is confirmed or anything we don’t already know or have discussed beforehand.

    Here it is:

    lightningrider4078d

    The Last Domino? Setlist - What We Can Expect

    I've been looking at other people's comments on what they're expecting the set to look like and I wanted to throw my own predictions out there. There are comments I've seen that say things like "they're only going to play the hits, plus a couple of longer tracks" and I have to disagree. So rather than just give a one-sentence summary of what they'll play, I felt like making a whole post on my thoughts. A bit indulgent maybe, but most of us here listen to ten-minute songs regularly so...

    Anyway, first off I'd like to set the basic parameters on what will make a song more or less likely:

    • The band - in particular, Phil's decreased vocal range, Nic being the only drummer and the new backing vocalists. The last is obviously to offset the effects of the first, but all three affect what songs could or couldn't be played.
    • Previous tours - Our closest comparison is probably the 2007 tour, at least in terms of setlist composition. We can take that into consideration to look at older versus newer material, or shorter versus longer. Aside from that tour we can go back to the Calling All Stations tour to see what Genesis tried with just one drummer, or to Phil and Mike's recent tours away from Genesis to see what Genesis songs they played.
    • The audience - First of all, it's going to be people who are already huge Genesis fans, so they're going to cover all their bases, from hit singles to extended suites. Also, the tour was initially planned for just the UK and Ireland, and it doesn't look like they have time to change the set, so the setlist might be more geared towards that audience (for instance, songs that were hits in the US but not so much in the UK are less likely to be considered).
    • Rumours and teasers - We can take hints from songs have featured in the trailers for the tour, and which ones have been floating around the rumour mill.

    Okay, enough waffling on. Time to get to the actual songs.

    Right out the bat I think we can exclude anything from From Genesis to Revelation or Calling All Stations. Genesis have done their best to pretend both albums never happened, and nothing from either has been played live outside of the first couple of years after release. So that leaves us 13 albums that they could choose from, give or take. I'll separate these into three categories for convenience: hits, live staples and surprises.

    THE HITS

    Obviously there will be plenty of these - but not an absolutely overpowering amount. There are a few that are absolutely untouchable, that have been in basically every setlist since release and have been heavily hinted at leading up to the tour: Follow You Follow Me, Turn It On Again, Mama, Invisible Touch, Land of Confusion, No Son of Mine and I Can't Dance. Aside from these, there are plenty more that stand a chance of making the cut.

    Tonight, Tonight, Tonight, Throwing It All Away and Hold On My Heart all made it into the final set last time, and all stand a good chance of returning this year; Tonight, Tonight, Tonight is likely to be an abridged version like in '92 and '07 should it return though.

    Out of the songs that were left out last time, Abacab, That's All and Jesus He Knows Me are probably the ones that stand the best chance of returning. According to Tony, they were all rehearsed back in 2007; any of them could well be in the set for this tour.

    There's an outside chance of Misunderstanding or In Too Deep appearing - both are well-known and successful enough - but with the amount of songs competing and the aforementioned UK-centricity that I imagine the set could have, I wouldn't bet on them. Same story with a lot of less recognisable hits - apologies to the one guy holding out for No Reply At All.

    THE LIVE STAPLES

    As anyone who knows about Genesis' live set knows, their show is not all about the hits. We can expect to see a high enough number of album tracks... but exactly which ones isn't so clear.

    Obviously Domino is a guarantee because of the tour name. The Home by the Sea suite is also likely; it's been played on every tour since release. The first trailer also clearly featured Behind the Lines - since it wasn't transposed into a lower key it's safe to assume we'll hear the Duke's Intro medley like the last tour (so only the instrumental intro merged with Duke's End).

    Of course, there will have to be some older stuff too. I Know What I Like is probably the safest bet in this regard - it will also most likely include the Stagnationtheme as on past tours (this is almost certainly the only bit of music from Trespass they will play). The instrumental section from Firth of Fifth is likely enough as well, since it's been played on almost all of their tours since the mid-80s, even on the CAS tour without the double drums.

    The In the Cage medley is another probable pick, even without Phil doubling up on drums - though the parts of it aren't nailed down. Afterglow would almost certainly be part of it, as would The Cinema Show - Mike can be seen in the second trailer playing what is surely the guitar riff from it. As for other bits, they could play some of Duke's Travels like last time (though they might want to shake things up), or The Colony of Slippermen, or ...In That Quiet Earth, or maybe even something they haven't done before. Nic Collins even mentioned in an interview that they had rehearsed the last parts of Supper's Ready... could they be trying a medley ending in that, like in 1986? It's a long shot, but we have reason to dream.

    Speaking of Nic, he also mentioned trying Los Endos. Out of Genesis' entire catalogue, it and the drum duet that often came before it are the things they played the most - but also the most likely to be gone now that Phil can't really drum. The drum duet is basically out of the question, but Endos still has a bit of a chance. It's very up in the air though.

    A more likely entry would be The Carpet Crawlers, which works on all grounds - it is good as a standalone, it suits Phil's current range, and basically everyone knows and loves it. In terms of single songs from this time, Ripples is another candidate from last time, though its place isn't as secure as Crawlers.

    And last but not least, an Old Medley like in 1983-84 or '92 is a possibility. This could include some of the songs from before like Firth and IKWIL, and also other fan-favourites. Dance on a Volcano and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway spring out to me immediately, though both are likely to be very shortened like in 92. There are other songs that could appear if they do play this medley: if we look at past tours we can find the intro of Eleventh Earl of Mar, Squonk, and the end of The Musical Box. But sadly I would have to doubt any of these, especially The Musical Box given Phil's voice. Still, they can't fully be ruled out. Nor can an acoustic medley like 98, with Dancing with the Moonlit Knight's intro (besides, this would be much easier for Phil to sing) but by this point we're getting into pure speculation. Which really belongs in our next section:

    THE SURPRISES

    Almost every Genesis tour has had some sort of curveball in the setlist - who'd have expected Duke's Intro from 2007 before it was revealed? With that in mind, here are some songs which are rumoured or plausible but which are really just hunches.

    First off, back to the longer material: It is possible that they go for another later epic - Fading Lights is a suggestion I've seen and I think it is certainly possible - no guarantees though. Driving the Last Spikeprobably deserves a mention in this regard too, but it is much less likely.

    Next are some things which have floated around the place but would be pretty unexpected. A while back an image was posted of Genesis rehearsing, with a computer displaying "New Duchess". There's a good chance they'll rework it somehow if that's true.

    There was also rumour floating around about Many Too Many being rehearsed. Back in 2007 Tony apparently suggested both it and Blood on the Rooftops - neither of which they have ever played live - but both were voted down. It might be the case that they play one this time.

    And that's about all I have, but who knows? There are a good few songs that could get played, and when it comes to surprises the whole point is that we can't necessarily guess them. If you have a guess at anything they could do, comment away. But that's about all that I have. Whatever they play, I'm looking forward to seeing them.

    Quote from MoonlitKnight

    I much prefer the music from Genesis’ golden prog years. Having said that I can stomach almost all their pop songs live, with the exception of I Can’t Dance and In Too Deep. I come very close to hating the studio version of Invisible Touch but it’s decent live. To me songs like No Son of Mine, Land of Confusion, and even Hold on My Heart are a cut above average pop songs from that era.

    Invisible Touch, the studio album, has a production style which has not aged well. At all. Live, that song in particular sounds much better, has some punch and rhythm. The song always had a good melody and "hook" in any case so I never object to it being in the set.


    I have a soft spot for I Can't Dance. it is, after all, a humerous song. With a surprisingly raunchy guitar lick from Mike that Nick Davis captured perfectly in the studio. the whole "walk" thing is never to be taken seriously. Fountain of Salmacis it is not....but perhaps not so far removed from Harold The Barrel.


    Like you I prefer the 70s work but can get on with most of the hits. Some of the 80s material is great too, imagine opening with Abacab followed by Dodo/Lurker....possibly the finest opening 15 minutes Genesis ever offered.

    Haven't Mike and Tony all but confirmed they're doing the first two verses of Fading Lights....because it feels appropriate now....


    the guy who started the "Many Too many" rumour has since stated it was a joke, and there's no chance of it being performed.


    Nic has, from memory, specifically mentioned Mama, HBTS, Apolcalypse, Invisible Touch, Land of Confusion. It's been heavily hinted by Tony and Phil that the latter's objection to the lyrics of Abacab has been overcome.


    So we have a partial set. Mike stated back in March 2020 that he strongly wanted a set no longer than two hours but I begin to wonder if they're going to eek it out...or have a main set of two hours, break then have 15-20 minutes of encores.


    I am not convinced Los Endos has made it this time. Nic omitted to mention it by name, and as we've already established he's specifically naming songs that are in the set and not naming ones they rehearsed and didn't make it. he did, however, state that the two most difficult songs they rehearsed (drum wise) didn't make the cut. And I am prepared to wager those are Los Endos and Watcher of The Skies. If they seriously rehearsed the latter (rather than a couple of attempts and giving it up) and don't perform it at some point then that's a crying shame....but it is what it is. Genesis don't mess with the set much and throw in few real surprises.


    As for the American tour not being part of the original plan. that's simply not correct. they always planned a world tour but didn't announce all the plans. The original idea was to tour much the way Phil did from 2017-2019....do a few weeks in one country/continent....take a month or two off....tour another part of the world....take a month or two off....tour another continent and so on. It was made clear that was the plan but they had originally wanted to keep from making any announcements about concerts outside of UK/IRL until they'd played the first leg....decided how they felt. Covid kind of forced their hand, they'd clearly always intended to play the USA towards the end of 2021 and I am betting they intend to tour continental Europe in the first quarter of 2022....late winter or very early spring.


    What I do wonder is if they might shake up the set a little. Nic mentioned rehearsing up to 40 songs of which "about 25" made the final list. Knowing this might be their final tour, even if they stretch it out over two or three years, they could decide to swap out a couple of songs after each tour leg and rehearse a couple of replacements for the next leg. But that's not typical Genesis style.

    I'm assuming that the Many too Many rumor traces back to '07 rehearsals when Banks was pushing for that or Blood on the Rooftops. As far as other bits, I urge everyone ot re-listen to the Nic Collins interview(s). he also mentions that the more complicated bits were dropped form the setlist. I would definitely put 9/8 in that bucket. We'll find out if/when the tour proceeds :).

    To anyone who said earlier that IT would be a great opener.....I now agree. On a long ride home tonight I was jamming to this set in my head, and I think it works great (time and Phil's voice permitting). Front-loaded with "the big hit singles you know and love" then going back era by era to some "VERY old songs" before finishing strong with tunes I know I'll be singing along with, assuming I can get to the North Carolina show. ( / = segue)


    Invisible Touch

    Tonight Tonight Tonight / Abacab

    Misunderstanding

    Behind The Lines / Duchess

    Home By The Sea

    Follow You Follow Me

    Dance on A Volcano

    Carpet Crawlers (possibly with DWTMK intro)

    Lamb Lies Down On Broadway / Musical Box ending

    Lover's Leap intro / White Mountain (acoustic)
    That's All (acoustic)

    Mama

    Land of Confusion

    Domino

    Hold On My Heart

    Drum Duet / In That Quiet Earth / Apocalypse in 9/8


    1st Encore

    I Can't Dance

    Turn It On Again


    2nd Encore

    Fading Lights

    I Know What I Like / Stagnation ending


    As I've said before, they could pick 20 random songs out of a hat and I'll be happy. I think the latest Hits collection is probably for the merch table and not an accurate listing of the 26 songs they'll be playing on this tour. (UPDATE: In The Cage removed to put in an acoustic section. Changed encore so they end with a happy tune.)

    Edited 3 times, last by PaulM80 ().

    Like 1
    Quote from BassAnd12Man

    I'm assuming that the Many too Many rumor traces back to '07 rehearsals when Banks was pushing for that or Blood on the Rooftops. As far as other bits, I urge everyone ot re-listen to the Nic Collins interview(s). he also mentions that the more complicated bits were dropped form the setlist. I would definitely put 9/8 in that bucket. We'll find out if/when the tour proceeds :).

    I think you’re spot on with your take on Nic’s comments that the more complicated songs were dropped. As I recall he made that comment at the the conclusion of discussing rehearsing Apocalypse in 9/8. I took it that he was saying Apocalypse didn’t make the final setlist, which as I’ve said in several other comments is an utter shame given the fact there are dozens of cover bands who play Supper’s Ready with one drummer.

    A clip that proves it is perfectly possible for a drummer around Nic’s age to handle Apocalypse in 9/8 beautifully. If it’s not in the set because of Phil’s voice I can live with that. But If they don’t play it on this tour because Nic couldn’t handle it I’m gonna be royally PO’d, not at Nic but at Phil for insisting the band employ a drummer who can’t handle the complexities of their prog-era stuff.

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    Quote from MoonlitKnight

    A clip that proves it is perfectly possible for a drummer around Nic’s age to handle Apocalypse in 9/8 beautifully. If it’s not in the set because of Phil’s voice I can live with that. But If they don’t play it on this tour because Nic couldn’t handle it I’m gonna be royally PO’d, not at Nic but at Phil for insisting the band employ a drummer who can’t handle the complexities of their prog-era stuff.

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    :D

    Don't forget it's Banks and Rutherford who went to the PC gig and said, yeah this could work so make sure you're pissed off at them too for the sake of balance and fairness!


    Sometimes these pre-tour threads can get infuriating but this is great. We've not only speculated the crap out of the unknown setlist, as is required of course, but have decided on what's been rejected, the reasons why and identified the possible exclusion of one number as the basis for the complexity of all their prog-era stuff being beyond the capabilities of their drummer.


    This is gold, guys. Gold! Keep it coming!

    Abandon all reason

    Like 1

    More gold: as you correctly note, speculation is essentially what drives this thread in particular. My speculation is based on the interview this past March with Nic and what he said in that interview. No, he did not say “We are not playing Apocalypse in 9/8,” but he did note how difficult it was for him to learn followed by him saying that some songs didn’t make the setlist. He stopped himself from elaborating by saying if he got specific on that topic it would upset fans who don’t want to know what’s going to be played. My impression was that Apocalypse is out. Please note that in my comment I purposely said “IF” it’s not in the setlist. I hope my impression is wrong on that count. As for being balanced in placing blame, fair enough, Tony and Mike saw Nic play and signed off on bringing him on board. Of course they were also between a rock and a hard place. They knew Phil would only do the Genesis tour if Nic was on drums. There would be no tour, regardless of what is played, without Nic on drums. He may be a very good drummer. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that is the case and we will hear some of the prog-era classics we haven’t heard for a while.

    I have a different take on what Nic said....bearing in mind I think I've listened to three interviews given in 2021 where he says the same thing....he's very careful to state that he'll only mention song titles if a piece has made the final set - so as not to risk disappointing hopeful fans.


    And he goes on at length about rehearsing Apocalypse, how tricky it is....he even corrects himself in one interview by talking about playing "Supper's Ready" and then correcting it to "about half of Supper's Ready - Apocalypse in 9/8 to the end".


    I honestly will be very surprised if it's not in the final set given what Nic has said, on multiple occasions.


    Nic can't be much more than a year younger than Phil was when he first played Supper's Ready.....

    IMHO as a drummer I think I'd have an easier time learning to play the last half of Supper's Ready than Los Endos or Firth of Fifth, but that's just me. Now that he's had an extra year to prepare I'm sure that Nic is able to play almost any song mentioned in this thread. The toughest part will be counting to 9 while countless diehard fans scream, "OHHHHH %^&*!!! THEY'RE PLAYING IT!!!"

    I went back and watched Nic’s interviews on YouTube from March and April of this year. In those interviews he says that there were three songs that were particularly hard for him to learn and that after learning them none of them made the setlist. He does say he had the songs learned (I stand corrected—in an earlier post I suggested perhaps he hadn’t managed to get those songs down). The 3 songs he mentions specifically as being difficult to learn were Apocalypse in 9/8 (he said he found it impossible to count to so he had to memorize the drum section); Los Endos; and Second Home By the Sea. Whether that means those are the three “hardest” songs that didn’t make the setlist—hard to say for sure. He also said the band was completely ready to tour before the first delay due to Covid. The concert—musically and visually—was totally prepared. That would lead me to believe that no changes have been made to the setlist since then.