WHEN IN ROME

It's kinda funny how strong emotions a GENESIS reunion can raise among fans. Or rather, the idea of a reunion in which also the names Hackett and Gabriel pop up - and which is why their return as the core trio (plus long-time live members Stuermer and Thompson) can only be a minor prize, no matter how long they were inactive during all these years. I can understand the feeling, but I myself can easily enjoy their performance without thinking of what it isn't.

Are they really two decades older than at the time of their last studio album We Can't Dance? Well, some have mentioned the restrictions in Phil Collins' voice, but I'd say you can hardly tell the difference. They sound quite the same as before. In their concert appearance not much of anything has changed. Apart from Collins' showman manners the band likes to hide under the huge technical stage constructions, as they did before. The visual side doesn't steal the show however, instead it could have been more colourful. I wasn't so impressed by the cold digital graphics. At times they are quite blurry (e.g. poolside growth during 'Ripples' or ghostly figures of 'Home By The Sea'), and the running figures ('In The Cage') or city views ('Domino') taste somehow outdated. And always they are very repetitive. During 'Follow You Follow Me' the canvas shows some old band photos from the seventies and figures of album covers, mainly Duke, as moving colourless line drawings. We are not talking of the kind of sharp screen videos you can see in a Pink Floyd concert.

The programme has a good deal of classic stuff of the seventies, both from Gabriel era and the quartet era. But from later albums the choices have no notable surprises. Again the hit album Invisible Touch (1986) is too dominant, and We Can't Dance is represented by the hits, ignoring the more progressive contents of the album. This orientation into band's more commercial output is sad, much sadder than the absence of former band members. But anyway, as a whole I was quite satisfied, because I wasn't really expecting anything more.

Oh, almost forgot to write about the third disc, the nearly two-hour document about planning the tour. In a word: BORING!!! One hour of it would have been more than enough.