Posts by StillCan'tDance

    Seconded. And by all accounts he's a really lovely guy.


    At the risk of opening old wounds, I've often felt Daryl comes in for some slightly harsh treatment by some fans due almost entirely to his solo on Firth of Fifth being different to Steve's. Love them both personally.

    Yes, a few fans get very precious about that solo. I think part of that simply comes down to feeling protective over Steve and part of it comes from wanting the solo to sound exactly the same as it does on the studio album. Personally, I don't feel particularly protective over Steve and I don't want the solo to sound the same everytime it's played!


    But my favourite guitarist is John McLaughlin so that should give some clue as to where my musical tastes lie.

    My Blu-ray player plays SACDs but I have yet to work out how! I usually content myself with putting on the DVDs (usually when I'm doing the cleaning!) or, for the car, I've made copies of the CDs (because there's no way I'm putting my prized CDs in the car!).

    Yes. I prefer the version with the EWF horns but it's nice to have the recording from the Archive 2 set. One day I'm going to make good on my promise to myself and put together a more complete Thee Sides Live including No Reply At All, Man On the Corner and Firth Of Fifth (which I got on flexi disc from the long-dead fan club many years ago).

    Mike's band probably comes third in my list of preferred "G-men" solo projects (Phil being at number one, Peter at number two) but I've not bought any of his stuff since Beggar On A Beach Of Gold (an excellent album let down by the bewildering inclusion of an abbreviated I Believe (When I Fall In Love I Will Be Forever) - if you're going to cover a song, do it in full or not at all).


    What's the verdict on the albums after Beggar? Did the band produce anything worthy of their best? I always felt that they took a serious dip with Word Of Mouth and redeemed themselves with Beggar but, with little-to-no radio play after that, I haven't heard anything they've done since then.

    Thanks for this. Due to family and work commitments, this is another event that I won't be able to attend but that's life, I suppose.


    I have a very high regard for Daryl as a musician. He transformed the sound of Genesis from the moment he joined and I think he gave them the confidence to broaden their musical outlook as well as getting a little bit looser with their arrangements. He has proved to be a vital component in Phil Collins's music as well as making significant contributions to the albums of Mike and Tony.


    As far as I'm concerned, Daryl - like Chester - is a legitimate member of Genesis and I won't hear a word said to the contrary. Let's face it, both he and Chester would have played on the records if it wasn't for logistics and the band have said as much (they strongly considered getting them to play on Duke but realised that in the time it would take to fly them over and for them to recover from jet lag, they could have recorded the extra bits of drums and guitar they needed - in fact you can hear Phil doubling up on the drums on tracks such as Duke's Travels and Man of Our Times).

    I will get round to reading this at some point. I'd never really thought much about him until I read Chapter And Verse and, particularly, Not Dead Yet. Both Mike and Phil seemed to spend more time getting stoned with Richard than anything else!

    I haven't had chance to listen to all of these but It's Gonna Get Better (which I'm listening to right now) sounds lovely. Always an underrated track in some quarters, it's nice to hear it getting some love.

    so Tony & Phil didn't join the M&tM sessions. Instead, around 1987 when Rutherford was writing new songs for Living Years, he remembered a fun jam that he, Phil and Tony did during the Invisible Touch sessions. It turns out they had a raw recording of it (demo sounding) and so Rutherford figured he could write a song around that jam. So Mike takes the recording and puts it on an infinite loop, and then creates a new song on top of the recording. When the track starts, you just hear Phil, Tony and Mike jamming, but then the Mike & Mechanics band joins in (with fuller sounding instrumentation) and the song takes off. So technically speaking, Phil & Tony didn't play with the Mechanics during the Living Years sessions, but they can be heard via that recording...

    Brilliant! The Living Years is one of my favourite Mechanics albums. I remember a lot of friends of mine at the time felt that album was the closest that any of the individual members had got to sounding like Genesis. It has that mix of straight pop and more involved stuff that Genesis did so well in the eighties.

    It's all a matter of taste. There may well be someone out there who feels that the best album they did was From Genesis To Revelation and that everything after that was awful. Are they wrong for thinking this? No.


    There are popular opinions and there are unpopular ones. I have found over the years that it's better to just let people have their say on what they like and what they don't like and not to challenge their opinion. Challenge leads to conflict as less secure people feel that they have to defend their standpoint by criticising what they don't like rather than praising what they love.


    For me, there are two distinct eras for Genesis: 1970 - 1977 and 1980 - 1992. It matters less who was in the band during those eras but what kind of music was being made. Basically, the first era leant towards complexity and the second era lent more towards immediacy. The only constant through both eras was Tony, Phil and Mike. If you play in a band long enough, it's natural that you change, adapt, mature etc. And that, for me, is exactly what Genesis did.


    What is amazing is that they weathered so many different musical fashions and trends, just ploughing ahead, doing their own thing, occasionally falling into step with what was popular at the time and then falling out of step again, never losing focus and, up to a point, maintaining a solid fanbase that seemed to grow from album to album.

    One of the few times I wished I was older!


    Earl's Court, the penultimate night of the We Can't Dance tour I think it was. Not only my first Genesis show, but my first show by any major band. Twickenham in 2007 was my second and, presumably, final time seeing them live. Steve Hackett making it out here to New Zealand recently was a real highlight though.

    I saw them at Earls Court, too. Off-hand I can't remember the date but it was the same set they played when I saw them in the summer, minus Throwing It All Away. The penultimate date of the tour was actually at the Royal Albert Hall on November 16th (if you're a member of the Genesis Movement site, you can download it from there).


    What I liked about the We Can't Dance tour was that, in conversation with Gary Davies to promote the album, Tony Banks said that the tour would be in larger venues to accommodate the demand but they'd prefer to play smaller places but that would mean touring forever which is something they didn't want to do. At this point, Phil Collins said they were toying with the idea of a short tour of smaller venues after the stadium gigs, something which he again hinted at when they finished the show at Knebworth and Phil announced: "You haven't seen the last of us". It was nice that they delivered on their promise.

    That's right. A Call to Arms also started out as a Genesis track (the 1983 s/t Genesis album i believe). Good catch. Black & Blue started out as a jam by Genesis while working on Invisible Touch. Not only is it a Genesis track, it actually has Phil Collins playing the drums and i believe Rutherford on guitar. Guitar/Drum jam.

    I really never knew this about Black And Blue although I did wonder how Tony and Phil ended up playing on it (I think Phil plays a hi-hat and Tony plays the organ). I'd always just assumed that Mike asked the two of them to play on a Mechanics track just for the hell of it. What I'd give to hear the original jam of A Call To Arms from the Mama album sessions!

    Very nice. Even when I was younger, I would only go to a few concerts per tour so I'm in awe of this young fan's dedication!


    I know people my age who - for whatever reason - never got to see Phil during his imperial years and have seen some of these shows. Despite Phil's frailties, no-one I know will have a word said against him. They've all loved the shows they've seen and they reckon that these performances are much more poignant than when he was on top of his game.

    I can't see the band repackaging their stuff again. In a recent interview Tony said that both he and Phil always vote it down whenever the record company suggest it. Unlike some bands, Genesis don't believe in repackaging the same stuff ad nauseum and they've never gone down the road of adding "newly discovered bonus tracks" decades after the event. Nick Davis is on record as saying that the new mixes are the definitive versions of the albums.


    What is a shame is that the box sets in which they were released are no longer being produced. Although the mixes have been released individually, the box sets each contained bonus discs of the B-sides in new mixes

    Good catch on the Mike & Mechanics "Black and Blue" track. We could start another list where we talk about songs that started as a Genesis song and ended up on a solo album (e.g. Black & Blue).

    I didn't know Black And Blue started out as a Genesis track! I know A Call To Arms on the first Mechanics album was written by Tony, Phil and Mike, presumably with the intention of using it as a Genesis track.

    Neptune Theatre, Liverpool during his Guitar Noir tour. I wouldn't normally go and see him because I'm not much of a fan but the tickets were free.


    I remember he walked through the crowd on the way to the stage, wearing a pair of shades. I recall he played Vampyr With A Healthy Appetite, Firth Of Fifth (naturally) and Walking Away From Rainbows which raised a few "ooos" from the crowd when he introduced the song, talking about walking away from what appears to be a perfect situation "Could be a relationship...could be a band!"