Not Dead Yet

by Phil Collins

  As soon as talk turns to business, we quickly revert to long-standing type: Peter still a little edgy, umming and ahhing; Tony still digging a little at Peter; Steve still the dark one; Mike still the cordial mediator; me still clowning and joking to defuse any tension. Same as it ever was.

  It soon becomes clear that performing The Lamb set with today’s technology—that’s to say, with today’s technology working properly—will require a huge amount of time, commitment and enthusiasm from everybody. Without as much being said, we all know that this means some kind of truce between Peter and Tony. The viability of this whole endeavor will revolve around who holds the reins and directs traffic. The potential is endless, but with rapidly evolving production technology opening up all manner of avenues, so are the pitfalls.

  Equally, we all know that there can be no bickering about the ideas, but that—again reverting to long-standing type—Peter will want to explore all the creative options. Peter will therefore, unavoidably, take charge of some aspects of the operation. And with the best will in the world, there might be some resentment from some quarters at this. It won’t just be the technology that will be pushed to the limits.

  Then, courtesy of the management, we come up against hard economic and logistical realities: it will take months of preparation and a huge team to get this off the ground. And even if the shows are filmed and beamed around the world, the whole venture will not be financially viable if we only do four or five shows in one place.

  Just as problematic is Peter’s schedule, which seems to be very busy for a long time hence. He’s spent thirty years trying to remind people to forget he was the singer in Genesis, and reinvent himself, a process with which he’s still fully engaged.

  After a couple of hours chasing lambs around the paddock, we decide to adjourn and have a think about it. Another one. Apart from it being nice to see old friends again, we’ve got nowhere.

  As soon as Peter and his manager exit, followed by Steve’s departure, Tony, Mike and I exhale and jovially wonder: “What the fuck was that all about?” We have a laugh about the five of us being incapable of doing the one thing we had all gathered in Glasgow to do: leave the room with a yes or no. So, with the benefit of the familiar, open, relaxed three-way environment we’d built over twenty years as a trio, we recognize the obvious and quietly put The Lamb to bed.

  In fact we’re so relaxed that, in short order, Tony, Mike and I decide that now we’re here, why don’t we three do something together?

  There is a sense of unfinished business between us. After I left the band, Tony and Mike recruited a new vocalist, Scottish musician Ray Wilson (otherwise known as the frontman in grunge band Stiltskin), and made an album, Calling All Stations (1997). But after a tour in 1998 they decided, in 2000, to call it a day. And that seemed to be that, a rather anticlimactic end to the whole Genesis saga.

  Within five minutes we have an agreement. The Banks, Collins and Rutherford-era Genesis will go back on tour one more time. And then there were three, again.

  Personally, I have two key provisos. One, that this will be a sensible—that is, short—run of shows. Two, that I have time to fully meet my Tarzan-on-Broadway commitments before we restart the Genesis machine. This means not only booking the shows to commence eighteen months from now, in summer 2007, but also delaying for fully one year, to November 2006, the announcement that we’re back together. That gives me a good, uninterrupted run of time to concentrate on Tarzan—and, most importantly, to try to bridge the widening gulf between Orianne and me.

  But as The First Final Farewell tour ends its last lap and I face the prospect of returning to what’s left of my home, I feel I’m losing, or have already lost, Orianne. I want desperately to reconnect with my wife, but whichever way I turn I find conflict, work battling real life.

  Sadly, even once the tour is over, as so often in the past, work wins. When Disney tells me I have to be in New York on Boxing Day, I have no option but to agree. Tarzan is a huge Broadway production involving a cast of thousands, and I’m pivotal—it’s a musical and it’s my music. I’m barely home, and then I’m off again.

  I establish myself in the Peninsula New York Hotel and, from the start of 2006, throw myself passionately into this new, third Disney project. I have to, as Tarzan’s opening at the Richard Rodgers Theatre has been brought forward by a couple of months. Being commissioned to write Tarzan on Broadway is the logical extension of writing the soundtrack to the Tarzan movie. But it comes with a huge amount of responsibility, way more even than with the film. It also comes with huge potential. I’m hoping that this kind of work will enable me to change my life, and help me be at home for my kids. If that’s the case, the retirement of that “Phil Collins” character can continue apace. Maybe, just maybe, I can save my third marriage.

  Creatively, working on a stage musical really lifts my game. I’ve gone from writing pop songs to writing material that’s on a different plane altogether: material that’s driving an entire stage production with an overwhelming number of moving parts.

  I’m in the Richard Rodgers Theatre every single day. Rehearsing. Listening to the way the orchestra are playing my songs. Critiquing, giving notes, attending the recording sessions for the cast album. They all think I’m mad to be this deep, this committed.

  In hindsight I should perhaps have done what Elton did on The Lion King: distance myself, go home and let Disney carry on with what it does best. But this is the obsessive me, who used to listen to gig tapes day after day on tour.

  And what price my obsession? By early 2006 it’s been made clear by Orianne that things between us are terminal.

  Tony Smith brings a lawyer to New York and, one Friday, we have a short discussion about the procedures and responses should Orianne press the eject button. The following morning, just before the lawyer is due to return to Switzerland, I receive a registered letter from Orianne’s legal representative, informing me that she has filed for divorce in Switzerland.

  I’m dumbfounded. While I have been contemplating the future, she has been deciding it. This changes everything, so the lawyer and I have a last-minute meeting before his flight. All I’m thinking is: “Here we go again.” And: “Why?”

  But the fact is we’ve painted ourselves into corners, pride has got in the way, lawyers have become involved, the course has been set and the outcome is now…inevitable.

  What I should do is get on a plane, fly to Switzerland and say to Orianne face-to-face what I tried to say to her over the phone: “What are we doing? I don’t want to be without you. I love my children. I want this to work. What does it take? Me disappearing for six months while you try to feel good about yourself again? No problem.”

  But I never do. I just feel, well, that’s that. There’s no rationality, just resignation. Stupid bugger that I am.

  And still the Disney juggernaut will not be stopped. After three months of rehearsals the Tarzan previews begin on March 24. They’re attended by the great and the good of the New York cultural elite. As a desperate distraction to real life, I attend every single preview of “my” show. At one of these, Tom Schumacher introduces me to Dana Tyler. A news anchor on WCBS-TV’s 6 p.m. newscast, she’s a regular theatergoer. She also hosts a Broadway program on CBS, and the following day she interviews me for a segment.

  Dana and I get on very well during the long, in-depth interview. Slowly, carefully, she and I start seeing each other. She’s a lovely woman, bright-eyed and intelligent, and a grown-up from a very different world. We connect sympathetically and naturally. She helps restore my self-esteem.

  I’ve started to dislike the person I’ve become, so when we start dating I ask her to call me Philip. Why don’t I like “Phil Collins”? Because his life is a mess. He’s a guy who’s going through another divorce—a third one—and who’s about to have a third broken family on his hands. After losing Joely and Simon in a separation, then Lily, he’s about to lose Nicholas and Mathew.

  I start to wonder what, or who,
I am. If I give myself another name, another identity, I can most definitely write myself out of the script. I’m Philip, a new man.

  Being with Dana hastens that feeling. As time goes on, after the boys have made a couple of trips to New York, I see that she’s great with them. Joely, Lily and Simon all bond with her. My mum, my brother, my sister all come to love her. She’s easy to be with. We even start playing golf together.

  —

  In November 2006, six months after Tarzan opens, I fly to London to join Mike and Tony for the press conference announcing the European leg of summer 2007’s Turn It On Again tour.

  Things are slowly looking up. I have a show on Broadway and, professionally and personally, both Phil and Philip Collins are surfacing from the funk. Without doubt I’m still missing Orianne, and I ache for the boys, but I’m trying to move on. She’s made it clear I have to.

  Genesis gather in New York for rehearsals, and then later in Geneva. It’s good fun, though not without its inherent problems. We’re an odd bunch inasmuch as we never seem to be able to remember how the music goes. It’s a lovely, honest “school band” attitude. Luckily, our long-serving guitarist Daryl Stuermer is usually on hand to help us with this sixth-form floundering as we look for the right notes and words. A rusty Genesis sounded oddly amateur when we started rehearsing for anything, but now, with a decade, a host of projects and two and a half divorces under the bridge, I find myself struggling to remember parts from songs written in the seventies. A lot of words, and another life, it seems. But being back with these old friends is a great reminder of why it was so much fun for all those years.

  I attend these rehearsals to do what I need to do: get the words right, get my singing right. Tony and Mike, meanwhile, are grappling with the stage presentation—the great production artist and longtime collaborator Patrick Woodroffe is doing the lighting design, while acclaimed stage designer Mark Fisher is in charge of the sets. But I’m not engaged with, or distracted by, that side of things, much to the occasional visible annoyance of Tony Banks.

  While this was always my stance with Genesis back in the day, now, I’ll admit, there’s an added underlying message to my semi-detachment. Yes, this is a reunion tour, but it’s not a full-blooded comeback. I suspect that everyone else involved was hoping that, in the eighteen months between our Glasgow summit and the start of the tour, a new album might have been completed. But that’s not been something I’ve been prepared to even contemplate. I adamantly do not want that. I’ve had enough on my hands, with the launch of a Broadway musical and the collapse of a marriage.

  Fundamentally, too, we don’t need to do an album to turn it on again. That would be a retrogressive step. I’m not rejoining Genesis. I’m saying goodbye. Hello, we really must be going.

  In March 2007 the three of us pitch up in New York for another press conference. This one announces the North American leg of the tour, which will begin in Toronto in September. It’s six weeks (a “month” in Tony Smith world) of venues with the words “Field,” “Arena,” “Stadium” or “Garden” in their names. Our plea to keep it simple and play theaters has long been booted into the long grass by agent Giddings and manager Smith.

  Turn It On Again: The Tour starts in Finland on June 11, 2007. The first leg is twenty-three shows, including two in one day in the U.K., and climaxes a little over a month later with a massive free show in Rome’s Circus Maximus.

  From the off there’s an amazing turnout and the audience reaction is fantastic. Europe’s stadiums are full of young people who wouldn’t have been born even when I took over the singing, and they’re all very into it. The rain that seems to follow us all over the continent that month can’t dampen their spirits.

  It’s my first time in a few places, most notably Katowice in Poland. There the weather is biblical, and dangerously so. The thunder and the lightning force the lighting guys down from their towers. Onstage at soundcheck we’re soaked, but outside there are 40,000 Polish fans waiting to get in. We can’t let them down. We play through the storm and finish with “The Carpet Crawlers,” the entire drenched audience singing along with the drenched band. It’s emotional, and Dana’s in the audience to see Philip’s old band, and their fans, at their best.

  Less good: all-star charity show Live Earth. We’re first on the bill at Wembley Stadium because we have to make it to Manchester for another gig that night. People are trickling through the gates when we troop on. It’s a vast stage with a walkway, which is not normally the kind of thing I would use, but I gingerly feel my way out there during “Invisible Touch.” I’m reminded why I retired—or tried to—from solo touring two years previously, and try to stave off a feeling of “I’m too old for this malarkey,” but I’m only partly successful. The sooner it’s over the better.

  From the ridiculous to the sublime: that evening we’re at Old Trafford, Manchester United’s theater of dreams. Manchester has always been a fantastic place to play and this is no exception.

  The next day we’re back in London for a show at another cathedral of sport, Twickenham, home of English rugby (also the place where a young Master Phil Collins competed as a sprinter at a long-ago athletics meeting for Nelson Infants School).

  All these years later, we have a special addition to our band rider that night: wheelchair ramps. My mum, the only other person who calls me Philip, is in attendance. She’s ninety-four, her eyesight is failing and she needs to be wheeled into the stadium. But she’s there, as passionate a supporter of her youngest child’s band as she ever was. This will be the last time Mum will see me perform. Two years later she has a stroke and will never be the same again. She tries to rally, but after more strokes she slowly starts to shut down. June Winifred Collins dies on her birthday, November 6, 2011. She’s ninety-eight.

  I thoroughly enjoy the whole European run. I have no collywobbles about being back as frontman, the voice holds up, I fall back in tune with the Genesis material, I enjoy being part of a band again and we all get on famously, as if we’ve never been apart. Exactly the way friends should be.

  Orianne comes with the boys to two shows, in Paris and Hanover. Nic and Matt are both too young to have remembered The First Final Farewell tour, and they want to see firsthand what Dad does. After the show Orianne and I get on great, sharing a drink and enjoying the kids’ excitement. Although we acknowledge that things have changed, it’s nice to feel that we’re still close.

  And so to Rome, a fitting climax. It’s something special to feel you’re playing on ancient territoire. This is Circus Maximus, where entertainers lived in fear of the imperial thumbs-down millennia ago. Taking no chances, I’ve prepared all my Italian patter. But once I’m out there in front of half a million people, I realize that all the fans down the front are from Brazil, England, Germany—anywhere but Italy. But ultimately we get the thumbs-up, and these grizzled gladiators live to fight another day.

  After a seven-week break, Turn It On Again: The Tour picks up in Canada. And then, after six weeks of outsized venues across North America, we finish in Los Angeles on October 12 and 13, 2007, with two nights at the Hollywood Bowl. It never rains in LA, but it rains for us.

  The first night feels wholly average—I was never convinced a bowl designed for symphony shows was the right venue for Genesis—but the second night is much better. A good thing: we’re all aware of the magnitude of this show. Everyone connected with Genesis is there—all the kids, the families, the crews. I’m thoroughly moved.

  At the encore of “The Carpet Crawlers,” with the audience as my witnesses, I tell Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford that I love them. These men know me better than anyone in the world and they understand what I’m really saying: this is it, no more. The end of the road. There’s no more Genesis for me.

  To be honest, rather than yet another big North American run, I would have preferred to have played Australia, South America and the Far East. But now my allotted time is up. At last I’ve come to the cast-iron conclusion that my personal life means
more to me than any of that. A month and a half away from my young boys has been enough to shut that door and throw away the key.

  My resolve is unshaken even after receiving some unwelcome news in the middle of the European leg: Tarzan will be closing after only fifteen months. Ticket sales have been healthy but not healthy enough to sustain an expensive show in the hyper-competitive Broadway market. Obviously I feel disappointed by this news, especially as I can’t say goodbye properly to my baby. I’m stuck out on tour somewhere while all the cast gather in tears backstage in New York.

  Ironically—bitterly, even—it closes on July 8, 2007, the night Genesis play Twickenham. A night of two halves.

  Right up until the end, though, I feel pressure to change my mind about calling a halt. In managerial terms, Genesis haven’t “maximized” the possibilities. My resentment at this is there in the reunion tour documentary, When in Rome. John Giddings and Tony Smith can’t help but try to do their job. But if the agents and managers and promoters had anything to do with it, I’d still be out there now. So if I’m not firm, I know what this would lead to. It would become three, four, five months, then an album. It’s why the documentary cameras catch me firmly standing my ground: “Don’t fuck with me, John.”

  My name is Philip Collins and I will not be fucked with. Not by other people, anyway. Unfortunately, my body has other ideas.

  —

  Somewhere during the tour I develop a problem with my left arm. It gets to the point where I can barely hold the sticks for “Los Endos,” the final song in the set on which I play drums. I try heavier sticks, and I try bigger cymbals. During the American leg I visit a few different medical professionals. I even go to see a faith healer. In Montreal, our long-serving promoter Donald K. Donald suggests seeing a massage therapist who’s helped him through back surgery. I’ll try anything to combat the numbness in my fingers and restore the strength in my hands.