Genesis Reuniting With Phil Collins For Tour
Mega-selling pop trio Genesis is reuniting with Phil Collins for its first tour with him since the summer of 1992. An official announcement will be made Monday (Nov. 7) in London. Genesis hasn’t toured since 1998, during which Ray Wilson replaced Collins on lead vocals alongside principal members Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford.
Former frontman Peter Gabriel will not be participating in the reunion with the group he exited in 1975. “Tony, Mike and Phil are rehearsing now,” he said in a recent video message on his Web site. “I’m not involved in this round or this year. I haven’t ruled out the possibility of doing something in the future, but right now I’m going to focus on my own work.”
Also apparently not involved is guitarist Steve Hackett, who played with the band in the Gabriel era but left in 1977.
Collins hasn’t toured since 2004, an outing billed as his First Farewell tour. Of late, he’s been busy writing the music for Disney’s “Tarzan the Musical” on Broadway; his contribution to the animated film’s 1999 soundtrack, “You’ll Be in My Heart,” won the Oscar for song of the year.
And while he now seems ready to tour with Genesis again, Collins sang quite a different tune in a 1996 interview with Billboard, when he declared, “How interested am I in old Genesis material? Not very interested, to be honest.”
“If I’m to be completely candid, I’ve never been our biggest fan,” he continued. “I have no reverence for the older material, apart from the fun we had making it. I never really felt like we quite got it right on record, especially in the olden days. I can see Genesis fans sticking pins in my effigy as I say this, but you know, I have to be honest — there’s no point in being anything else in life. I’m very proud of some of it, and I could take or leave some other stuff.”
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