Posts by Backdrifter

  • [SPOILERS] GENESIS 2021 setlist discussion

    Quote from thewatcher

    Yeah that always drove me nuts. I'd have much preferred more Genesis music!

    Quote from melodyof1974

    I was watching the MAMA tour last week and was thinking it is strange TIOA with all the non-Genesis songs, they could have played Supper's Ready. :)

    What, you chaps didn't like their take on Karma Chameleon? What frustrated me about that medley was that their snippet of Pinball Wizard was so good I'd have preferred them to just do that. I'd have quite liked them to slip in an occasional cover (and I don't mean Close To The Edge or some other prog epic).


    The TIOA medley was a bit naff but kind of made sense at the time. And there was no chance in hell they were going to wheel SR out again having done it in its entirety on the previous tour.


    What's irritating about that tour film is its senseless omission of a chunk of older material performed in those shows, including that unusual old medley.

  • The Thread Of Complete Randomness

    Quote from thewatcher

    Genetics. Trying to figure out how a common polymorphism makes you more likely to have a common disease. I often found myself asking what the end game was. Maybe in three hundred years we'll be able to edit our genomes so no one will have hypertension or Alzheimer's or obesity etc. Maybe.


    I love science, it's incredibly interesting. But it takes a serious force of will to engage in the act of seeing it through, when the whole tenet is based on knowing that you are not seeing it through to the end, but actually contributing to a part of the story. Ultimately, I hadn't the character to generate enough output to warrant the effort to secure funding to have a career in it.


    I loved chemistry in school. What made you change course?

    I do think you have to possess a certain kind of commitment to your specific area to really build a science career. Like you, I'm fascinated by science but in a way that might be the problem I had. I'm drawn by the breadth and variety of science but as a practitioner of it there's no job that encompasses that. The focused concentration on a particular thing never did it for me. But I'm glad I studied it and had that grounding, which chemistry is useful for - you need not just the chemistry but a lot of physics and maths.


    I didn't change course. My degree was "applied" chemistry which was very practical/industry focused and included an industry work placement year. The final year had options for either biological chemistry or polymers and materials. I opted for the latter, which led me into materials science and engineering, designing things such as bridge bearings and fire-retardant structural materials. You and I represented the micro and macro of science! I much preferred what I called 'bucket chemistry' to delicately tinkering with micrograms of stuff. I'd literally be chucking buckets of plastic pellets into injection moulders!


    Ultimately I was never fully at home in labs. When redundancy hit in the early 90s I was out of work for a while then my next job led me into higher education where I've been ever since, apart from a bizarre 6 years at the BBC editing programme information (referenced earlier here).

  • [SPOILERS] GENESIS 2021 setlist discussion

    ^ PS - on the same principle, if there are any other tracks you're desperate for them to do I'm happy to rule those out too, on the grounds the universe and the laws of cause and effect will do their thing and ensure they are played.


    Similarly, spinning it around I'm going to say I'm absolutely certain they will play Mad Man Moon and One For The Vine.

  • [SPOILERS] GENESIS 2021 setlist discussion

    Quote from Liquid Len

    Is it possible they play Supper’s Ready in its entirety? I thought they were rehearsing it. That would be amazing, but yeah, maybe too demanding.

    No, I reckon not. Banks in particular has resisted it according to past interviews (not connected with this tour), he has said it's "too much of a slog". I feel they'll do a fragment of some sort, possibly Lovers Leap as per the CAS tour. I think they'd consider the whole song as taking up too much room better left to other stuff and I wouldn't disagree with that.


    By the way I'm usually so bad at these sorts of predictions, with my comment above I've probably singlehandedly guaranteed they will do the whole track so if it happens I hope you all remember to thank me.

  • [SPOILERS] GENESIS 2021 setlist discussion

    Quote from thewatcher

    I like Illegal Alien too, but it has not aged well. Maybe it was always inappropriate, I'm not sure.

    It always was. At the time I thought exactly as I do now - great tune, everything else cringey. I remember others saying the same. I suppose if you're around as long as they were, you're going to make at least one bad taste mistake.


    Re the people on stage, I'd guess as per other suggestions here. Maybe some crew as well.


    PC really cranked up the dreadful accent in that performance. All the intro stuff and everyone donning shades was really naff too.

  • The Thread Of Complete Randomness

    Going through some old files etc, I unearthed notebooks from the early 2000s. In one of them, 2 pages headed "Shit List" itemising things I evidently didn't like about my job at the time. Peter, Jo and Paul come in for a hiding with -


    Jo laughing

    Jo's perfume

    Jo's hyperbole


    Paul's interminable sentences

    Wondering if Paul's going to be a slab-faced misery

    Paul being a slab-faced misery

    Paul saying "unforced errors"


    Peter: swearing/complaining/typing/sighing/sneezing/going "hmmm"/wearing clothes with the aroma of mothballs/speaking generally


    (No doubt they had me on a similar list for being intolerant. I wouldn't blame them. Weakly in my defence I'll just say I was so heartily sick of this job by that point that probably everything and everyone was irritating me).


    It wasn't just people - also on the list:


    Getting really stressed about commas (it was a proofing/editing job)

    Having to read badly written descriptions of shit TV progs (it was a proofing/editing job for the BBC, I should've said)

    Rearranging/clearing up after the night shift (judging by the mess I'd always find, they appeared to be untrained chimps)

    The 65 bus Thursday night black hole

    The 65 bus coughing morons

    The Arcadia Centre chimes

    The sound of Macs being switched on


    But qualifying it for the random thread, on another page of the same notebook and unrelated to the shit list, two notes:


    Diana Ross's buttocks

    Alternating coloured Post Its


    Were they linked, do you think?

  • XTC

    Quote from Mozo

    Massive XTC fan here. Would be very glad to get some XTC and Partridge related waffle going in this thread.


    But I'm away for the next week, so I can't get it going just yet.


    If anyone's interested we could do an album by album discussion. Not necessarily in the chronological order.

    Excellent idea.

  • [SPOILERS] GENESIS 2021 setlist discussion

    Quote from Progtrot

    I am guessing they will open with a recognizable hit to hook everyone from the start. How about Illegal Alien, or a reworked Congo?

    What about this rumour that they're planning to pull a real shocker out of the bag and kick off with The Mystery of the Flannan Isle Lighthouse? I mean, it'd certainly be a surging uptempo opener and no mistake.