No. 163 – Abacab

Performer: Genesis

Songwriters: Tony Banks, Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford

Original Release: Abacab

Year: 1981

Definitive Version: None. The definitive version of this song exists in my mind. It’s an amalgamation of at least three live versions, which all feature different drum fills by Phil at various points during the extended instrumental section. I’ve assimilated all of them, so I could air drum if called upon to do so, but no recorded version of this exists. If I had to pick one, I’d say The Hottest Ticket, 1982, or as Scott unfortunately spelled it once, The Hotest Ticket.

After I saw Genesis on the spur of the moment in October 1986, I called Scott and told him everything in a fit of joy. I came to regret doing that when I saw them again in January 1987. That was by far the lesser of my regrets that unfortunate evening.

As I mentioned (good ol’ No. 705), Scott and Beth camped out at Buzzard’s Nest just after I left for Northwestern for tickets to see Genesis in Cleveland. They got four, and it was going to be me and Beth and Scott and his friend Brian.

However, a week before the show, Scott got word from a friend of a friend that his dad had a pair of tickets to the concert that he needed (or wanted) to sell. They were in the lower bowl of the Richfield Mausoleum, midway back. The tickets Scott bought were in the upper bowl … behind the stage. Like anyone would have, Scott embraced the opportunity to upgrade his seats. He had one requirement: I had to sit with him.

It should be as clear to you as it is to me now that the obvious solution was to tell Scott, hey, why not ask Beth’s sister, Erin, to sit with you? Who knows where that might lead? I’d do my brother a solid while currying further favor with Beth. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the solution I chose, and that was my bigger regret. Instead, I said, OK.

As you can imagine, deciding that I would watch the Genesis concert with Scott didn’t go over well with certain parties, particularly those who had spent a night on a sidewalk in front of a record store with a bunch of strangers to buy tickets to see a concert with her boyfriend. I explained to Beth that I didn’t have a choice. She forgave me … to my face.

I at least had the decency to drive down from Northwestern to Columbus and then drive everyone up from Columbus in Dad’s borrowed van. To take the place of me and Scott, Beth brought along Erin, and Scott added another friend, Drew.

The new seats that Scott procured were pretty good, not the best, but way better than had been my behind-the-stage seats at the Rosemont Horizon. When Genesis started with Mama, featuring the same ultralong introduction, and roared into Abacab, we were off to a flying start.

It was all downhill from there. A few technical glitches showed up in the lights, but the first indication of real trouble was when Genesis went from That’s All right into Home By the Sea.

Uh, wait a minute, guys. Aren’t you forgetting something? Unlike at the Horizon, they didn’t do Tonight, Tonight, Tonight, which in addition to being my favorite—and Scott’s favorite—song from Invisible Touch, also was the special-effects winner of the Horizon show. Scott wasn’t pleased.

He was even less pleased when Genesis rolled into their usual medley of old stuff toward the end and came out of … In That Quiet Earth into … Afterglow. Afterglow and not Supper’s Ready.

Don’t get me wrong: Afterglow is a great song; it’s on this here list, but seeing it and not Supper’s Ready is like going to see Laurence Olivier in Hamlet and getting Lawrence Taylor instead. (Speaking of LT, at one point, Phil announced the final score of Super Bowl XXI from the stage, which LT’s Giants won, of course, that very day.)

Scott had been expecting Supper’s Ready based on my earlier review, and he was not to be consoled. In fact, he flat out accused me of lying to him that Genesis played it at all. It was only when he found a bootleg video from the fall leg of the tour that he realized I wasn’t lying. Take it out on Phil, Mike and Tony, man.

So basically we were stiffed out of the two best songs of the Rosemont show (plus In Too Deep and Follow You Follow Me, which I didn’t care about). Fortunately, the Music Gods repaid that debt later, but that’s a story for another time.

My debt to Beth, however, was not to be repaid. I said she forgave me, but I don’t think it’s any coincidence that she happened to meet—and encourage—the guy she dumped me for less than a month later. I can’t say I blame her. What guy drives eight hours to see a concert with his girlfriend and then sits with his brother?

In retrospect perhaps subconsciously I could see the end coming anyway, and I just greased the skids. I doubt it; I think I was just clueless.