I’m back from Genesis’ opening night for the Turn it on again tour. And i enjoyed it. Very much. I’d say that all you old-timer prog heads will have a trip ahead, and those of you who rather likes the softer or hit-oriented stuff will… see a Genesis you didn’t know existed (and you might be bored to tears if you’re a really hard core softer and hit-oriented Genesis type :)). Oh yes, it was a shameless prog band doing a shamelessly proggy show. And i loved it.

The set list posted on Wikipedia was rather spot-on — unless i’ve forgotten something crucial — but there were quite a few medleys. Thus we didn’t hear all of Firth of Fifth for example, just an instrumental bit (albeit, a very worthy one). Having Los Endos not at the end but one slot before it was a bit strange but the track was cool, and as should, we got a bit of Squonk thrown in.

At the moment, Finland is almost at its brightest, so the light show was shone out by the natural lighting. A bit of a shame, since the lighting folks evidently had put some work into it. The rising Daleks were a bit of a disappointment, i had expected a bit more pyrotechnics. Maybe they’ll get it right later on in the tour, or maybe it was just the Finnish fire regulations.

The band was in rather good shape. In a way it felt that they’d never been away — or never been without Collins — they sounded that much like a unit. Well, most of the time. There were a few misses here and there — shows they’re human after all, but for most of it, Genesis sounded great, and so did Phil’s voice. Collins entertained the crowd with a few fun and pointless speeches. As an intro for Domino, he demonstrated The Domino Effect by orchestrating different parts of the crowd to shout… in domino. Sure it was cheap, but it was fun! Another crowd-flirting trick was taking pictures of the crowd. We ate from his hand.

As i had a press ticket, i had a seat at the zombie stalls, where people who don’t pay for their tickets are seated. Sure, it was a good seat, at the side of the stage, but most of the people were really lame and overly cool about the fact that the Prog Dinosaur is playing tonight. There were a few more lively folks in section A11, but not enough to make a vibe. But i had a heck of a time, playing a whole set of air instruments and quite possibly annoying the heck out of the übercools around me, but hey, i was there to have a good time. If they felt disappointed that they didn’t get a catering of back-to-back hits, well, tough on them. In fact, they shouldn’t complain. Looking at the track listing of Turn it on again: The hits, they played twelve of the eighteen tracks from it. And they still managed to keep it a predominantly proggy show.

Here’s a short run-down of the set list (spoiler alert, Watson).

Behind the lines/Duke’s End — nice instrumental starter to set the tone of the show.

Turn it on again — obvious title track of the tour. Quite a lot of cheers and hands-in-the-air from the folks on the grass.

No son of mine – obvious hit material, but well executed. Some video effects with the fast-paced clocks from the No son of mine video clip.

Land of confusion — good rocker but i’d wished the backdrop effects had been more political, with greetings to the G8 folks. There’s a recent cover of Land of confusion by the band Disturbed, which brings it all on to those who deserve it.

In the cage, with assorted oldies tacked to the end — one of my highlights of the night, and a bemused yawn from the folks in fashionable clothes and sunglasses around me.

Hold on to my heart – yawnie for me. Drum machine, Phil on a barstool, meeeeh. Coulda gone for a leak or a pizza slice on this one, but hey, you’ve got to respect them dinosaurs even if you don’t respect all of what they’re doing.

Home by the sea, parts I and II — the second Highlight for me. Intro speech about scary people by Phil. Especially Part II was Really Heavy, with a Very Thumpy rhythm section.

Follow you follow me — re-yawn and a waste of good concert space. OK, the end bits where there’s some actual instrumentation wasn’t complete waste, but they could have dropped this one and Hold on for something else. IMHO.

Instrumental bit of Firth of Fifth — yeah, why not drop Follow you (and Hold on) and play all of FoF? Included a Very Well Executed guitar work by Daryl Stuermer.

I know what I like — fun track which woke up even the zombie folks for a change. Collins did his tambourine stunts with much ensued merriment

Mama – nice and schizophrenic track with cool triggered retro drum sound, but the psycho-Collins-face-thingy looked rather comical than scary.

Ripples – such a beauty. I think this one went allright with the pop folks too. Genesis really could have stopped writing beautiful tracks after they made this one. This is the Definitive beautiful Genesis track (for tonight — Entangled would have been… too overwhelming much for even me :)).

Throwing it all away up — another waste of good concert space. IMHO (see comment below).

Domino — yet another highlight of the evening. This was actually one of the tracks that made me fall for Genesis back in the ’80s. More of that another time. The second part is the one that i Really Like, but it got a bit drowned in sound tonight. Maybe it were the acoustics at the A11 stall.

The Drum duet was impressive, and i especially liked that it started on two barstools. I don’t know how they managed to seamlessly continue on to the drums after playing the stools … in part because i was uploading the picture of the barstools duet bit just then. Chester and Phil are rather agreeable drummers, one must admit. And the fact that they manage to play in perfect unison is pretty stunning even if i’ve seen it recorded before.

Los Endos — was not the end of the (main) set, but nearly. Here’s yet another highlight for me, and a “what’s this” for many of the people around me. Is it just me (and the band) that has the taste for older Genesis? They could have thrown in some surprise bits of later Genesis material though, just for odd measures.

Tonight^3 — sounded a bit weird, in the bad sense of it, in the beginning. The song is another one that got me hooked on Genesis, and the fact that they played it is worth the kudos.

Invisible touch – at this stage even i was ready for a more butt-shaking party tune. Great fun and awoke memories from when this was new. This was also the end of the main set, marked by fireworks. Nice touch.

I can’t dance – amusingly proved that they can’t

The last song for the night was Carpet crawlers — which also is the song i was humming for the rest of the night. I had half-wished that they’d hidden Peter Gabriel under the stairs and brought him up for a closing of the show here, but this was not to happen. It would have been Really Appropriate (and hey, there are still more shows), but Genesis made a nice ending of the show with this track even without its original vocalist.

So there you have it. A really enjoyable show if you’re a prog’ist like me. Great air drumming/guitarring/synthing/singing opportunities. The merch stalls remained unsponsored by me — 30 € for a t-shirt (that my wife won’t allow me to wear in public anyway ;)) was a bit steep, and Linus is already too big for the I can’t walk body tee. But i would happily like to see the show again. Maybe even pay for it this time :))