A report of the Giants Stadium show. I finally got to see them do the show. It totally blew me away! Loved all the material from Duke!!! I Know What I Like was fantastic... but my experience was over the top unusually good so maybe I should start from the beginning.
I arrive in New York the day of the show. I was going to go to the MSG show but had to wrap up SampleMoog and stuff for the Ocean Way Drum project we've been working on (ironically with Allen Sides who has engineered several albums with Phil). So, Simon meets me for a slice of pizza after wrapping up some meetings with labels and agents for his next record (and all systems go on that front... we'll be touring in about a year and album out before then).
After a nice slice of New York pizza (the best) we head back to the hotel because we have to be there at a specific time in order to be picked up and taken to Giants Stadium. We load in and it's just the two of us. Out of the window we see Tony Banks strolling back to the hotel and then Chester. Simon taps on the window but no one hears or sees us. Then we're off. We're driving through NYC and it is a mob scene with this UN Summit going on and the Iranian President in town. We make our way through the city and then stop to pick up someone. Simon's dad! Now we have Phil and some more friends and family joining us but added at this point is a police escort! I look at Simon and we both say "Niiiiice" but then we both thought at the same time how good it really was (or not?) to be riding around in a black limo/van with a police escort at this particular time. Then we laughed about it but it was still pretty intense getting out of the city. New York drivers. We almost hit another car! When we arrived at Giants Stadium the security was so tight that there was something like a SWAT team with huge guns checking the vehicle before they let it in. I've never seen anything like that at a concert before. It was almost a little bit scary. They were saying "Do NOT get out of the car!" and we all looked at each other "Did we do something wrong?" Haha.
We talked about various things including movies and the subject of Crispen Glover came up because were talking about Andy Warhol (and Crispen played Warhol in the Doors movie). So, Phil and I both remembered Crispen doing a weird interview on the Tonight Show (that poor guy is remembered that way... lesson is don't be a freak on tv). Anyway, Phil was very nice and we were all very excited about the show.
We drive in right up to the back of the stage. I have some pictures I'll upload in a bit. Most are from my horrible camera phone because, of all moments, my good camera's display stopped working (I thought the whole thing wasn't working at all actually then realized it might still work so I took some shots with it later and in fact it did work the whole time... oh well). We went backstage to this "green room" area with food and drinks. The whole band was there. I said hello to Tony and started talking keyboards with him. I told him I had an update for Sonik Synth but Geoff has to download SampleTank 2.5 first to run new combi patches I made for it. We were talking about the ProSoloist sounds. I said "Cosmic Wow" and we laughed at the fact that no one else in the room would have any idea what we were talking about. He was trying to recall what song he used that sound in and I said "Wasn't it Cinema Show?" and I hummed the part and he said "No, I used the muted trumpet sound for that one. I used Cosmic Wow in Waiting Room". Talk about a fun little esoteric conversation between keyboard geeks.
While I was talking to Tony Mike Rutherford stopped to say hello to me. Mike is such a nice guy. He really is. Very friendly. I told him that I ran into Adrian Lee and learned that the Mike & The Mechanics show I saw way back in Sunrise Florida was actually their first show ever in the states (Ironically the band that opened for them was called "Keep it Dark"!!!!). So I told him that. He asked me to say hello to Adrian. I was chatting with Tony and Mike when Simon said "Dude, let's go!" and we went to see the sound man about playing our version of "Keep it Dark" over the loudspeakers before the concert started. It was kind of a mission for kicks. Wink
So, we go back to the sound engineer's station and talk to the team there. Nice people. Most of them are from France. Oui. So, they say "sure no problem". We wait around for a bit and then we hear it. It started out really loud at first and was bizarre to hear the volume pedal guitar lick from Silent Sorrow with Mellotrons blasting over the speakers. I was wondering if anyone noticed. Then they brought it down but it was still louder than the other music (that was totally un-Genesis-related). It sounded good! We were happy. I wasn't sure how many people noticed but since it IS a Genesis song I'd have to think out of 50,000 people there were a few who either scratched their head and said "Hmmm. What's this?" and maybe a few that knew it was Simon. It didn't matter though. We just wanted to hear it played before the show as we had been talking about it for a while. It was sooooo cool to see it all finally unfold the way it did.
My favorite stuff was the old stuff (of course). But, I thought Home and Domino were great as well. I found it odd that there was NOTHING from Abacab but so much from Invisible Touch. Next time I see them I am going to ask them about that. I LOVE Abacab. Oh well. You can't have everything. Dodo would have been killer though at least or Me and Sarah Jane (let alone the hits from the album).
Anyway, after Domino Simon and I went back stage to get ready to watch Phil and Chester do the drum duet. It's Simon's tradition to be sitting behind his dad during the tour to watch this. Since Simon was the one who said to me in rehearsal "Come with me, let's watch my dad from behind the kit on this one" he was excited to do this again with me at the show. Luckily I have both the rehearsal and this show on video for this one moment so I will post a little clip of it just for fun. All I can say is that this rare point of view is fascinating to me as a musician and to see Tony from Phil's perspective and to be that close watching Phil play... it's just priceless. While we were there right behind him (you could probably see our heads pop out a few times) the dry ice "smoke" started rising from behind us. It was intense! You can see it in the video.
After the show we all immediately went back to NYC and in the car we gave Phil some feedback. Simon and I told him that he NAILED In the Cage vocals. He really did. I said I thought that the hot rods with him playing the kit and Chester on percussion really worked well for Follow You Follow Me and he agreed it's sounding better now than it ever had live before. It really needed his feel plus the lighter sound of the hot rods. The percussion really keeps it grooving as well. I mentioned the tambourine bit after I Know What I Like. We all laughed. What a showman.
Here are some photos from the show:
That's Mike, Tony and Daryl talking backstage during the drum duet.
That's Simon climbing the stairs to watch his dad hit the skins.
It sounds really good hearing it from this place as well. Like how Phil hears it. The raw drum kits as well as the monitors. Powerful stuff!
Hope you enjoyed it.
These are better quality pics when I realized my camera might still be working (even if my display was out). I have more pics from my phone camera. Not as good quality but some fun stuff. Coming soon...
