THE MAMA TOUR

This video was filmed at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, England, in February 1984, during the last dates of the 1983-84 tour for the "Genesis" album. This was the first concert video that I saw from Genesis. I bought it in 1991. Despite being the tour for which I consider their worst album, the performances of the songs are better than in the "Genesis" album, particularly the songs "It`s Gonna Get Better" (with a very good lead guitar solo by Daryl Stuermer at the end of the song) and "That`s All", the best songs from their 1983 self-titled album. "Mama" is played in this concert including all the verses of the song, including the last verse where Collins had to sing very high notes (this last verse was omitted during the next tours). The best part of this concert is the Medley of "In the Cage/ Cinema Show/Afterglow", a Medley which also includes parts of "In That Quiet Earth" and "Slippermen" (both not listed in the cover or in the label). After this Medley, there is a very good "Drum Duet" by Collins and Thompson (again not listed in the cover or in the label). After this drum duet, the concert is finished with a final Medley which includes "Turn It On Again" and "(I Can`t Get No) Satisfaction" (the Rolling Stones`song), and bits of (again not listed in the cover or in the label) "Pinball Wizard" (The Who),"All Day and all of the Night "(The Kinks), "In the Midnight Hour" (Wilson Pickett), "Somebody to Love" (Jefferson Airplane?), "Every Breath You Take" (The Police), and, believe it or not, "Karma Chameleon" (Culture Club!). The concert seems to be without apparent editing, giving the impression of continuity, and for this reason it is like if one has been in a "real time" concert. The sound is very good, maybe with some echoes due to the acoustics of the place of the concert. The image of the video maybe is not very good on VHS, or maybe I saw it this way because it was filmed in 1984. Another very good thing of this concert video is that Phil Collins appears doing his jokes and entertaining the audience, being very funny and showing his talent as a very good "showman", giving with this a very good contrast to the most "sinister" songs like "Mama" , and to the boring songs like "Home by the Sea"/"Second Home by the Sea".I have to say that I don`t like the sound of Chester Thompson`s drums in this video, but he plays very good despite this.In this tour, Mike Rutherford uses for the last time his double-necked 12-string guitar-and-bass instrument, and he also plays a guitar synth in "Keep It Dark" and "It`s Gonna Get Better". Tony Banks is in this tour at the centre of the stage, between the drum kits of Thompson and Collins. In general, it is a good concert video, but it has some boring songs, too.

I still rate the 'Second's Out' film ( where is it???) and the ' Three Sides Live' video as the best viewing from the live archives but Mama is still a good compliment to your music VHS collection.Apart from Collin's going on about spooks for the awesome ' Home By The Sea' intro and the irritating ' Illegal Alien' track the rest shows the lads producing some fine live performances along with Chester Thompson and the grossly underrated Daryl Stuermer. ' Abacab' makes for a great opener, you can feel the tension on ' Second home By The sea' with the solid drumming. The drum duel with both Collins and Thompson is a must see as well. I do not like the medley later in the show. Highlights for me would be 'Mama' and the optimistic ' It's Gonna Get Better'. Worth having this show for sure.

#44 Review

The opening is very impressive with some early use of good 3D graphics on those shapes, while also starting with Abacab, good starting point, even though this isn't my favorite version of this song, the bass sounds really good yet i preffer the Invisible Touch version because of its higher tempo... 3 live video recordings of Abacab?!? That song was very lucky unlike the ones that got shafted from this video and most concert videos from Genesis.

I like the banther done by Phil during this tour, it might get cringy at points but i really like how he messes with the audience, after him doing that we go into That's All another song featured on the next tour, how lucky. At the same time, if you have read my updated review on the "Genesis" album, i said that i liked the solo, a little, well, it doesn't look particularily fun to play now that i watched this again, the solo done by Mike though, so much better than the original.

I like it when Genesis turns off all the lights and starts a drum pattern or an instrument alone, you know that something is going to hit you very soon, a very good way to start the song MAMA, for me it seems surprising that the drum base used live is different than the one in the original vinyl recording, i did a video about that, it's not up for now since i'm "remastering" it. Not a big fan of this song but i have to recognize that the drums and piano would've been sick to hear live at that time, also, Daryl and Mike do much more with the bass and guitar respectively and this version doesn't fade out, this is probably the best version of this song.

Illegal Alien is so much more fun live, from the stage act to the end, this song is a banger. I laughed so much when i heard "Owner of a Lonely Heart" coming from "The Group Radio", also, electri-accoustic guitars??? The road-crew taking part on the stage was really fun. Home by the Sea has the "Audience Participation Time" wich includes some original small instrumentals like Tony "bumping" a note on his keyboard to represent a poltergeist pushing an object... VERY COOL, this is not my favorite version of this song live, the effects are not there yet, same with the cool musical additions done in the IT Tour.

What an odd choice to have Keep It Dark in this VHS since the song wasn't played in all the Mama Tour shows, still, nice to see them play this clusterf^ck of a song, yet this doesn't beat the studio version, also, this one goes into It's Gonna Get Better, another one that's not a favorite, this version features some added effects like a slap, some added piano notes to make this song prettier and a guitar solo at the end, but its also slower for some reason wich i don't like very much.

IN THE BLOODY CAGE, it's funny because the next night the same dude that screamed "Bloody Cage" was in the audience and Phil said "Not Again!!"... About this medley, it was created on the Duke Tour, i think, then perfected on the Abacab tour and this one is where they hit it, this is the perfect version and the recording is so good, you have no idea how many times i have watched this medley. The lights are top notch here, Phil is using a leather jacket to celebrate the 10 years of The Lamb, then the transition, the playing is so good, you can see Phil doing that to the drums, screaming, Tony not failing a single note, Mike playing the bass SO hard... it's beautyful, can't recomend this enough, just watch the damn thing in its entirety, you don't need to keep reading this, go watch the BLOODY CAGE now, even if you watched it like 10 minutes ago, just go!

After that aweosome spectacle, there's a Drum Duet, very technical that sadly gets cut before going into Los Endos to start the dreadful Turn it on Again Medley, i know that its pocking fun or whatever but i just can't listen or watch it, those songs played aren't good and are boring, its very dissapointing really.

So there you have it, if you want to watch the most fresh out of the box versions of songs from the Genesis album, this could be for you, but for me the only real redeeming qualities out of this are weirdly enough Illegal Alien for the fun and THE BLOODY CAGE for its epicness. It's very conflicting, the BLOODY CAGE is a 5 star ranking, while the rest is probably a 2 or a 1, I'll give it a 3 out of 5 stars, i think that its fair.