The Living Years (32 page)

And the weird thing is, when you put Phil, Tony and me in a room, we are the band again. We had been together so long that although Phil had left, I’d never actually thought of it that way. On reflection, that was probably why it didn’t strike me particularly deeply when he’d told us he was going in 1996. I’d thought that he could say he wasn’t in Genesis anymore and that was fine, but I wasn’t sure he could really leave. We had been through too much, shared too much, it was like a bond you just couldn’t cut. We may not have seen each other very much but it doesn’t ever go away.

So there we were in Glasgow, wondering what would happen next, when Phil said: ‘If there is going to be a reunion, we should do the three-piece first. The five-piece would be the finale, but the three-piece should come first.’

* * *

‘What are you doing to prepare, how are you getting fit?’

As soon as we’d announced the 2007
Turn it On Again
tour, journalists started asking us that. Maybe they thought we were eighty-something, not fifty-something. In any case, the answer would always be ‘Nothing’. By the time Tony and I had learned the songs again, we would be fit enough to play them.

It was a bit different for Phil. His voice had dropped over the years and I used to tell him just to sing a different note – you can duck and dive a bit live – but he wouldn’t do that, he saw it as a failure. Then in 2007, after thirty-odd years, Tony and I finally agreed to change keys. He sounded the best he’d ever been.

We were never confident about the tour. I knew we would sell tickets but I didn’t know how many, which is why we only did one show at Twickenham. As it turned out, we could have done many more. It was a great feeling, being back on stage with the band.

The show that meant most to me was the concert at the Circus Maximus in Rome. The ancient Roman chariot-racing stadium was about as far from an anonymous arena as you could get, but it wasn’t just that: Italy had been one of the first places to get us when we were just starting out.

We were on stage in front of 500,000 people, the biggest crowd I have ever seen. The silhouette of the stage was like a sculpture against the city. It was a warm summer’s night, and we came on just as the sun was going down, with the outline of the Vatican just visible . . .

Forty years of Genesis, playing out the highs and lows, from sleeping on floors to private planes, witnessing the changing faces . . . but, of course, nothing has ever been more important than the music. ‘Duke’s Intro’ kicked in as the massive crowd enveloped us in a wall of noise. Everything worked like clockwork that night, something my father would have appreciated

As a young boy my dad was told. . .

‘You’ll never be as fine a man as your father’
.

He was.

I hope I will be too.

My heartfelt thanks to my wife, Angie, who helped me find my voice, provided the humour for many of my anecdotes and put them on paper. I can’t thank you enough.

Andreas Campomar at Constable & Robinson and Matthew Hamilton at Aitken Alexander Associates.

Tony Banks, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett, Ant Phillips, Daryl Stuermer, Chester Thompson, Paul Carrack, Paul Young, Chris Neil, B. A. Robinson, Andrew Roachford, Tim Howar, Gary Wallis, Anthony Drennan, Luke Juby, Richard MacPhail, Alan Owen, Craig Schertz.

Tony Smith, Jo Greenwood, Carol Willis, Robin Moore and everyone at Hit and Run. Tony Stratton Smith, Ahmet Ertegun, Mike Farrell, John Giddings, Doug Morris, Jonathan King, Nicky Pickering, Mandy Swainston, Andy Godfrey.

Dale Newman, Geoff Callingham, Steve Jones (Pud), Geoff Banks (Bison), Hugh Padgham, Nick Davis, Andrea and Rupert Cobb.

John Alexander for introducing me to Angie.

And special thanks to Stephanie Cross, who over many months made sense of my life on paper and gave me the narrative structure for this book.

Section I

Page 5 (top): © Armando Gallo.

Page 6 (bottom): © Armando Gallo.

Page 7 (bottom): © Associated Newspapers/REX.

Section II

Page 1 (top): © Jonathan Silver.

Page 1 (bottom left): © Glen Colson.

Page 1 (bottom right) © Armando Gallo.

Page 2 (top): © Richard MacPhail.

Page 2 (middle): © Armando Gallo.

Page 3 (middle): © Andre Csillag.

Page 4 (top): © Lewis Lee.

Page 4 (middle): © Stephanie Pistel.

Page 4 (bottom): © Stephanie Pistel.

Page 8 (top): © Genesis Archive.

Page 8 (bottom): © Lauren Haynes.

Rehearsing in the summer of ’68.

‘Dear boys, they love you!’ Our first manager Tony Stratton-Smith.

First trip to New York – moodily confident.

First overseas’ trip to Brussels. Feeling a bit queasy on the Mateus Rosé.

Pete selling England by the pound.

How to kill time when on tour.

Phil thought life on the road would be rock ‘n’ roll all the way.

Pegged out after shooting ‘Illegal Alien’ video.

At least the kids enjoyed Tony’s guitar playing.