Posts by Dr. John

I think there is nothing wrong with Steve focusing a lot on Genesis material. This is an important part of his musical history and clearly the part that connects with the largest fan base. Many other artists do this kind of thing. His band does a decent job covering the other parts, but in the end it still feels like a Genesis cover band featuring Steve Hackett and is quite different from experiencing Tony, Mike, and Phil performing something from the same era (acknowledging that Darryl has a very different approach to Steve's parts).

I also have no beef about Ray playing lots of Genesis material. The world is big enough that anyone who wants to cover Genesis can go ahead.

Quote from Nanunami

What remains unclear is the general situation in the US and Canada regarding indoor shows and large crowds.

In the province of Ontario at least, arenas are now open for full-capacity shows with attendees who are fully vaccinated.

As much as Los Endos is a wonderful piece to end a concert with, it wouldn't make sense to finish a concert now with a piece that Phil doesn't participate in. At least with Carpet Crawlers, he is singing through to the end.

Quote from thewatcher

It's a slight stretch for the 'new' angle of this thread... I remember hearing Lorde's debut when it came out and liking a couple of tracks. But blimey I like this. I was just poking around old playlists and discovered this down a rabbit hole... I love how it pinpoints the emotional space between teenage spite and adult directionlessness.

I really like her debut album. I find her second album less interesting - not horrible, just less engaging.

Quote from Phil Morris

No, your not wrong. It was the b-side to the That's All 12". The discogs link is to the Fan Club flexi-disc edition which preceded it.

This live version of Firth of Fifth is also available on CD https://www.discogs.com/releas…It-On-Again-Best-Of-81-83. I bought this compilation many years ago. It also has the live Turn It On Again with the oldies medley.

Quote from Henry Hamilton-Smythe

I'm guessing that Anthony Phillips has almost as many studio releases as Hackett does, maybe even more. I've got at least 25-30 CDs by AP

Actually you are right, I miscounted (should do this better than a messy bunch of scrawl on a scrap of paper). He has a few more than Hackett. The total for studio albums by Genesis members should be pushed up to around 110.

Genesis does have the advantage of having many members, former and current. So if we go with all 7, I count 100 studio albums, including side projects and bands. As mentioned above, Steve Hackett contributed the most albums by far. I would be surprised if there is another major band that produced as much solo work and side projects.

The members of The Beatles had 69 studio albums by my count. That's an average of 17 per member, which isn't bad considering that both Lennon and Harrison's lives were cut short. The average for Genesis members is about 14 per member, but needs to take in account that Genesis continued as an entity through the decades whereas The Beatles did all their solo work after the band broke up.

Quote from Rael

Not much has been mentioned regarding the redition of "Afterglow" and I'm wondering what you others thought. ( I haven't watched any clips as I want to wait for the show). I ask because just before the pandemic I was in the process of putting a covers band together to do a charity concert of some of my all time favourite songs. I had difficulty finding a singer who could handle Afterglow because of the Key change part way through. This is when I realised that Phil was an even more awesome singer than I had previously thought. I'm a drummer by the way so not a musician. LOL!

Afterglow would be quite doable for a decent singer in the current key of E. Highest sung note is F# and much of it is considerably lower. The guitar part cannot be played with the same positions in this key, so that would need to be rejigged or the guitarist would have to tune down.

Quote from Schrottrocker

Thanks for your efforts! A few notes though:

Isn't That's All in E minor originally so this would be 1,5 notes lower in C#?

And I think I remember Follow You Follow Me was in G originally so it would be 1 note lower in F.

Same with Carpet Crawlers, the intro is in E but from the verses onwards it was in D, so they probably took it down one whole note?

By the way, I am one of those people that do not have perfect pitch but I have very good relative pitch: give me a reference note (this is a C or whatever) and I can tell you all intervals and chords and everything, without a reference note I am lost though.

Going from C minor to E minor is quite a distance in the circle of fifths, if you add a semitone (C->F or B->E) it would actually be smoother, at least in theory...

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Good that someone was paying more attention than me. Yes, That's All is only 1.5 steps down and although Carpet Crawlers starts in E (which is what I had in my head), the main song is in D, so they are doing it only 1 full step down. I made the corrections to my original post.

Quote from Duke of Earl of Mar

I have perfect pitch too, and the transition between the two feels... curious, to say the least (like "uh... ok"). It's almost like the two parts are unrelated. C minor is much more moody, E minor is a lot brighter.

Funny how we feel keys... I feel Duchess in C major (it works great in this version), but it is because I take the chorus as a reference. Tonight is in B minor (very low for me), because I take the verse as a reference.

I also find the transition awkward. The last lingering chord of HBTS really sets the expectation for the key of 2HBTS. So even though the C minor chord has faded out in this tour's version, I still find it jarring to be back in E minor for 2HBTS. However the transition from Fading Lights to Cinema Show is even more abrupt. I think they could have worked a bit more on that.

I'm never sure whether it is the verse or the chorus that establishes the key for a song. I guess you are right about Duchess, since the intro is the same key as the chorus, so perhaps that is the "home" key (E in the original and now C).

Regarding voices deepening with age, sometimes this works well. I agree that I find Geddy Lee kinda screechy on the early Rush recordings and prefer how he sounded a bit later in his career - less range but more warmth. Van Morrison also was a little thin back in the days of Them. By the mid-70s his voices was richer and even in his later career, while he had less range, he had a lot of warmth and heft.

Quote from simoncarbon

The whole thing about the key changes is, have they dropped further than the 2007 tour in order to preserve Phil's voice over multiple nights (I was shocked when the extra dates got announced) or can he just not hit those notes *at all*?

Some tracks it bothered me quite a bit and others seemed to be less affected: No Son Of Mine worked well for example.

If you look at my list above, you will see that some songs from the 2007 tour were lowered again. For example, Mama was in D minor on the 2007 tour and was lowered to C minor on this tour. TIOA was in A on the 2007 tour and is now in G. Invisible Touch was in D on the 2007 tour (already down 1.5 whole notes) and is now in C.

Let's be clear, I'm not against lowering keys if it allows Phil to sing the songs better. This is pretty normal practice for many singers as their voices lower with age. Roger Daltrey is one of the few in the same age bracket that still sings most songs in the original keys.

In terms of the key changes, here is a run-down according to my ear:

Duke's suite - original key

Turn It On Again - G (two whole notes lower)
Mama - C minor (two whole notes lower)

Land of Confusion - B minor (two whole notes)

Home By the Sea - C minor (two whole notes)

Second Home By the Sea - E minor (original key) - he sings the last lines differently so he avoids the higher notes

Fading Lights - E (3.5 whole notes lower than the previous live key)

Cinema Show - original key

Afterglow - E (1.5 whole notes)

That's All - C# minor (1.5 whole notes down)
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway - C (two whole notes)

Follow You, Follow Me - F (one whole note)

Duchess - G (two whole notes)

No Son of Mine - D minor (one whole note)
Firth of Fifth - original key(s)

I Know What I Like - F (two whole notes)

Domino - Bb (two whole notes)

Throwing It All Away - A (two whole notes)

Tonight, Tonight, Tonight - E (1.5 whole notes)

Invisible Touch - C (3.5 whole notes)

I Can't Dance - G (1.5 whole notes)

Dancing With the Moonlit Knight - Am (two whole notes)

Carpet Crawlers - C (one whole note)

Quote from TheGerkuman

There was at least one song with high notes that was performed at the original key. So yeah, it looks like he could hit those notes, if he was doing a one-off.

I'm not sure he can reliably hit notes past F above middle C. There were a few points where he took brief passes at F# and even G, but they were very brief. He even has trouble holding an E - totally misses it in "lies" from Moonlit Knight and drops out very quickly in the "oh-oh" part of Mama (the back-up singers fill in for him).

Quote from TheGerkuman

I think certain songs sound better in the lower key. Heck, I actually preferred Ripples at the 2007 Key. (Sacrilige I know)

I've mentioned before that key changes really mess with my head. I have perfect pitch and different keys have very different moods and qualities for me. So a key change can really change how a song feels to me, even if everything else (the notes, arrangements, tempos) remain the same. Sometimes I don't mind this change because it refreshes the song in a way that works for me. Sometimes it doesn't work for me.

Although I prefer Ripples in the key of E, I didn't have a problem with the key change to D. It made it "feel" kind of gentle and pastoral, which still worked for the song. Plus Phil could actually sing it better in that key, so that was helpful.

In terms of the key changes I have heard from this tour, some I don't mind. Mama is kind of brooding and dark in C minor, in a different way than it was in E minor, which was more eerie and scary. Fading Lights sounds like it is in E (a full fourth down from the original key and a third down from the previous live key). It is less ethereal in this key for me, but kind of woodsy, folksy, which still works for me.

Quote from choccy

They would switch Mama and Dreaming While you Sleep often. I think only on certain nights did they do both.

I thought they only did Mama at the beginning of the tour and then dropped it because it was too difficult vocally for Phil.

I'll be interested to hear how much of the following songs are played:

The Lamb

Firth of Fifth

Duchess

I am guessing all are somewhat abridged. We know that Moonlit Knight is just the intro section.

As a Canadian, I am very familiar with The Tragically Hip. I must admit I have mixed feelings about their music. Their songs - really Gord Downie's lyrics - tell many great stories from Canadian history and the Canadian experience. However the music can be pretty pedestrian at times, not much better than a competent bar band. Rob Baker in particular can play a lot of solos that seem to go nowhere. However, when the music comes together (and it usually does a few times per album), the result can be a great song.

Given this, the compilation Yer Favourites is really enough Hip for me, though Road Apples is probably one of their strongest albums overall. I haven't listened to the Saskadelphia material, so have no opinion on that. The package looks great overall for fans.

Live they were worth seeing, particularly for Downie's performance as a frontman. Live shows also covered their stronger songs for the most part, so I didn't half to sit through what I considered their less-interesting material. My favourite gig was seeing them in the basement of a Middle Eastern restaurant in Boston (they never caught on in the U.S., so it was easy to see them in small places while they were selling out arenas in Canada). While most of the customers were eating dinner, the band put on a great show although Downie had difficulty with the very low ceiling, whacking it with his mic stand a few times.

Some earlier Genesis songs would not have worked with a click, even if they would have been easy to use at the time. They often made use of changes of tempo to enhance the drama of that section of the section. Think of the slowing down and speeding up in The Knife or Supper's Ready. In the Cage speeds up typically in live performances, to great effect in my mind.

However, many later Genesis benefit from a somewhat mechanical groove that is part of the overall feel for the song. This is likely because most of these songs started in jams to a drum machine, with Phil ad-libbing on vocals. So the feel of the drum machine was established in the song from early on. I don't find the drum machines and backing tracks to detract from the live performances as there are still enough other nuances to keep these performances interesting and different.

Quote from Duke of Earl of Mar

• Second Home by the Sea (in E minor as the original, so I wonder if Phil will sing the last verse in that key... "As we relive our lives in what we TELLL you..", given the fact that his limit seems to be F#, and the "TELLL" is an A, a minor third higher)

If they don't change keys at the end, Phil could sing the highest notes falsetto, although that might sound a bit weak. Alternatively, Tony is a master at key changes and transitions between one section and another. I'm sure he could come up with a segue from Em to Cm so Phil can sing the last lines more easily.

I can understand anyone no longer being proud of stuff they created in their early twenties, regardless of how others may think of it. And I would much rather see a performance of songs where every member of the band is fully enthusiastic and into the song. If they are performing songs where at least one of them is very lukewarm, it will probably show.

On another note, my predicted setlist:

In the Wilderness

Me and Virgil

Who Dunnit?

Harlequin

Illegal Alien

After the Ordeal

Since I Lost You

Small Talk

60s medley extended (without Turn It On Again)