Phil Collins taped this show near the end of his first solo U.S. tour. He had seen significant success from his two solo albums, Face Value and Hello, I Must Be Going! and was playing to intimate theater audiences, enthusiastic to hear his own material, and not necessarily the music he made with Genesis. He assembled an all-star band that included the side musicians that had been on the recent Genesis tours, including Chester Thompson on drums and Daryl Stuermer on guitar. Although Collins would have some of his biggest hits after this show was captured, his solo presence at…entire summary

Phil Collins - vocals, drums
Daryl Stuermer - guitar
Chester Thompson - drums
Peter Robinson - keyboards
Mo Foster - bass
The Phoenix Horns - Don Myrick, Louis Satterfield, Rhamlee Michael Davis, Michael Harris

Phil Collins taped this show near the end of his first solo U.S. tour. He had seen significant success from his two solo albums, Face Value and Hello, I Must Be Going! and was playing to intimate theater audiences, enthusiastic to hear his own material, and not necessarily the music he made with Genesis. He assembled an all-star band that included the side musicians that had been on the recent Genesis tours, including Chester Thompson on drums and Daryl Stuermer on guitar. Although Collins would have some of his biggest hits after this show was captured, his solo presence at the time was enough to deliver a solid performance.

Opening with “I Don’t Care Anymore” the material was a balanced mix of his first and second album, and only contained one Genesis track, the drastically revamped “Behind The Lines,” which also appears on Face Value. Although he had his professional debut at age 14 as an extra in the Beatles film, A Hard Day’s Night, and later appeared on British TV as a teen actor, Collins emerged as a professional musician in 1970 when he became a replacement drummer in the art-rock band, Genesis.

Collins became part of the band’s lineup that would have the biggest commercial break-though, and with the charismatic lead singer Peter Gabriel at the helm, they saw platinum-level success between 1971 and 1975 with rock’s most theatrical stage show. At the onset of the band’s Lamb Lies Down On Broadway tour in the spring of 1975, Gabriel announced his plans to leave the band at the end of the trek. Rather than pack it in because their popular lead vocalist had departed, the band spent weeks auditioning a new lead singer. In the end, due to frustration, Collins decided to sing lead vocals himself. To the shock of the band members and the fans, he sounded remarkably like Gabriel, allowing for the band to carry on without a missed beat.

A painful divorce led him to record a number of introspective songs as home demos, including the track “In The Air.” Knowing they would not work as Genesis songs, he decided to release them as a solo album, Face Value. And the rest is rock ’n’ roll history.

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