Squonk

Last week I was both shocked and pleased to find a lot of Genesis-related stuff on VH1 Classic; they were part of this year’s Rock Honors concert or somesuch. Let me tell you, I never thought I’d get to see Peter dancing around in his Slipperman costume while flipping channels. There was a long show on their history, which fortunately spent more time and attention on the early stuff than the superstar/sellout phase from the late 1980s. The live footage was amazing, partly because I never expect to hear such obscure music on TV, partly because Peter was such a freak onstage at that time, and partly because I can’t believe live shows were ever like that: all the musicians sitting down, one lunatic jumping around wearing bat wings on his head, and eons of dead time between songs while the band set up the equipment for the next song. Totally alien to the modern pop era in every way. And then they showed an hour-long show of live footage from the Seconds Out concert, where a pre–pop slimeball Phil sang Lamb songs while sporting a beard of mountain-man proportion. I mean, you can’t beat that with a stick.

Unfortunately, my Genesis buzz was totally killed later in the week, when the Rock Honors concert was aired. It was all has-beens: Heart, ZZ Top, and the boys in Genesis, who reformed this year in order to fund the pensions. I watched about two minutes of “Turn It On Again” before I had to look away—man those guys look old, and Phil sang with absolutely no energy. They also knocked the key of the song down a few steps, I suppose in order to spare Phil’s voice, but it was a move that thoroughly sucked the life out of the song. Ugh. I guess I’d better pull out Three Sides Live if I want to experience the full, glorious spectacle that was Genesis.

Oh, and one more thing I must gripe about: at one point during the history show, they interviewed Phil talking about the fact that their early fans were almost always male. Bastard made some idiotic comment about men being better able to handle the complexity of the songs. I know, I know, Phil is a complete tosser, despicable in many ways, but I always held off with my own contempt because of what he was part of, what he accomplished when he was just a drummer in a band. That kind of statement indicates that I should probably give in to the scorn, what a sexist asshole. No more slack for you, pal.