Yes. We were in the upper bowl opposite from the stage pretty much in the dead center. I didn’t find the cables distracting once the concert began. The huge screens helped a lot.
We were in section 409 row A, seats 1 and 2. We must have been sitting very close to you!
Christian, I’m a techno-idiot. My apologies if this pic from the DC show doesn’t display properly.
You too were sitting in front of the pillar of cables?
We for the most part very much enjoyed last night’s concert in DC. It was a wonderful and nostalgic closing after seeing every tour since Duke. Favorite of the night oddly enough was the acoustic version of The Lamb. I would love to see an entire unplugged Genesis concert.
We had what I thought would be great seats which were row A of the upper balcony straight across from the stage. This presented two very significant problems. Both were due to the rectangular lighting and sound rig that ran the perimeter of the floor of the arena. There was a tower in the center to run the cables and lighting. The result is anyone in our section having an obstructed view of the stage. Think watching the show with a massive pillar dividing the stage into two.
The other issue was the column of speakers on each side of the rectangular rig, which were aimed directly at us. Thankfully we had earplugs, otherwise we would have had to leave. The sound while uncharacteristically loud for a Genesis concert, was initially ok from an acoustics standpoint. It was during No Son of Mine where the mix took a turn straight to hell, the bass was severely distorted and overpowering. As a result we left our $300 seats and lucked out by finding two seats overlooking Tony. This really saved the night.
The rectangular rig is of terrible design, and based on my experience with the previous tours entirely unnecessary. Now maybe a more skilled person at the mixing board would have helped turn these assault weapons masquerading as speakers into good sound, but the tower of cables is truly a puzzle as to what the heck they were thinking.
Despite the challenges I’m still glad we went. I look forward to purchasing a BluRay of the tour so we can see and hear all that we missed.
