20 years after my first ever concert, which was Genesis Invisible Touch tour at Hampden park, Glasgow, in 1987, I get to go and see them again at another stadium, this time the Stade Roi Baudouin in Brussels.

It was really very civilised around the stadium, not at all what I’m used to at big gigs. There were no crowds hanging around outside, and there were loads of seats in the bar. Not like a Glasgow gig at all, really!

The gig itself was really good. We had reasonably good seats off to the right of the stage, but even from that relatively short distance, the band wasn’t really visible and we watched a lot of it on the oval screen off to the side. We couldn’t see the main screen due to its being in a sort of wave shape. A bit annoying really.

Musically it was pretty much as I expected. There were some weak points (Hold on my Heart, Follow You Follow Me) but generally speaking it was really good. The highlights for me were Home By the Sea and Domino
— parts 2 of both of these were really good. I enjoyed all the Invisible Touch tunes, as that was my era. And I Can’t Dance was surprisingly good – that song stands out on that album. It was good to hear Ripples live too — the only tune that isn’t on any other live album of theirs.

The statutory drum duet was really good, too. They began that by playing on chairs before moving on to the drums.

Here’s the set list:

Behind The Lines / Duke’s End
Turn It On Again
No Son Of Mine
Land Of Confusion
In The Cage / The Cinema Show / Duke’s Travels
Afterglow
Hold On My Heart
Home By The Sea / Second Home By The Sea
Follow You Follow Me
Firth Of Fifth / I Know What I Like
Mama
Ripples
Throwing It All Away
Domino
Drum Duet
Los Endos
Tonight Tonight Tonight
Invisible Touch

I Can’t Dance

The Carpet Crawlers

All in all it was a great gig and well worth the long drive to and from Brussels (even including the nightmare that was the Brussels ring road after the gig). Was tucked up in bed by 3.30 am.