A Phil Collins documentary popped up in my feeds, in a Facebook reel, from a source that I wasn’t so sure about and in a format that I couldn’t really use… so that sent me down a very long rabbit hole looking for the documentary on YouTube. I think I found a version that focused on his song, In the Air Tonight, but was weirdly edited… so back to the rabbit hole I jumped. 

I kind’a lost track of things, but settled on “Phil Collins – A Life Less Ordinary” being a more traditional documentary that attempts to tell the whole story. I’d forgotten that I got on the Genesis/Phil Collins train during the mid-80s when I started buying audio CDs, and knew very little about the late 60s/70s Genesis Prog-Rock era. Recently I caught a video of a Genesis show from when Peter Gabriel sported what looked like a Kabuki shaved head/long hair look and could not get into the theatrics or art-school sensibilities. It was painful to watch. I’m glad that Genesis weathered the death of Prog-Rock by going in a more Pop direction. 

The second video is a tour documentary from Collin’s “First Final Farewell” recorded in 2004, only a couple of years after the Life Less Ordinary documentary. After reading about his health declines over the past eight years, it’s great seeing him joking about hanging things up, but still very much able to run around the stage and put a great career-highlight show.  

He would tour three more times, with Genesis in 2007 and 2022 and a solo “Not Dead Yet” tour in 2019. He stopped after the 2004 “First Final Farewell” tour so that he could be there for his youngest son, Nicholas, who was just starting elementary school. During the last Genesis tour, Nicholas took over drumming duties from his father who could no longer hold his drumsticks without pain and finished the last tour having to sit to do his vocals. Enjoy the documentaries and happy Friday, y’all.

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Tags: Genesis (music), music documentary, Phil Collins, Prog Rock, video fridays

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