Phil Collins Kicked Off His Long-awaited Tour In Brisbane Last Night - Here's What Happened

Phil Collins

Suncorp Stadium - 19/01/19

For all its easy-listening qualities, Phil Collins’ music has proved surprisingly divisive. His songs are some of the most commercially successful of all time – he’s literally sold hundreds of millions of albums – and, perhaps as a result, his work has often served as an available punching bag for anyone looking to eviscerate pop music for its seemingly-innocuous and disposable qualities. All of which is simply to say that how people feel about Phil Collins’ music usually says as much about themselves as it does about the music itself.

American music critic Steven Hyden said as much last year in an article for The Ringer, writing that Collins has achieved “that rarefied level of celebrity in which people use your art as a way to define themselves” characterising both Collins and his work as respective Rorschach tests.

It’s a compelling argument. Due to the way they’ve been engineered to achieve universality through appealing to the widest range of audiences, the songs this evening could be interpreted in a variety of ways. “Take a look at me now,” Collins sings during the first song of his performance, Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now), “There’s just an empty space.” There was even a time when some people thought In The Air Tonight was sung from the perspective of a man who’s witnessed a drowning (“I saw what you did…”). This ambiguity in his work is not only an indicator of its quality as popular music, but is also a useful way of understanding his enduring appeal.

Tonight is the first Australian performance of the Not Dead Yet Tour, which named after Collins’ 2016 autobiography and finds him in a particularly frail state. Unable to stand through the show due to multiple surgeries, Collins sings from a chair centre stage, looking weathered and aged. He’s dressed in grey pants, a navy shirt, and black jacket, an outfit which unfortunately resembles tracksuit pyjamas. His last album of original music, Testify, was released in 2002. In fact, the album is the same age as Collins’ 17-year-old son, Nicholas, who plays drums this evening.

While Collins has often positioned himself as a tragic figure, both in the media and throughout his many divorce albums, seeing him wince his way through the night brings a new dimension to his status as the modern Prometheus of popular music, dedicated to sharing his torch songs with the world while he’s being tortured by his own body.

Collins talked with Rolling Stone in a recent interview about the possibility of recording some new music in his home, although he’s yet to make the type of album that explicitly engages with themes of mortality the way other musical luminaries have produced in their twilight years. Subsequently, the songs in his set list this evening take on this responsibility.

It’s seems impossible that one could watch Collins singing songs like Hang In Long Enough and I Missed Again and feel that the choruses of these songs couldn’t also be seen to address his perseverance and dogged determination as a performer. Just Another Day In Paradise almost loses its irony in this setting, which it probably would, anyway, in an arena full of thousands of people who have paid hundreds of dollars for tickets to see a Phil Collins concert.

Throwing It All Away and Follow You Follow Me signal a shift towards a more reflective and retrospective selection of songs as a montage from Genesis and Phil Collins music videos plays behind the band. While Collins’ singing sounds weak – he’s able to hit the notes, but not sustain them – thankfully, the band are seasoned professionals (bassist Leland Sklar has played on literally thousands of records) and the audience of enthusiastic fans seem eager to treat some songs more like karaoke.

Nonetheless, Collins seems spirited during Who Said I Would as he mugs as the band members, placing one hand on his hip and pulling inquisitive expressions – a relief from the dour frowns that seem a response to the glare of the stage lights – including the Vine Street Horns, whose brass accompaniment brightens many of the arrangements on songs like this one and Something Happened On The Way To Heaven.

However, it’s in the quieter moments that Collins’ performance is the most compelling. “Sometimes hits me in the morning, hits me at night,” Collins sings, his voice sounding appropriately world-weary during Can’t Turn Back The Years. Daryl Stuermer’s pining electric guitar playing beautifully underscores the song, which is especially moving after seeing the previous images of Collins as a younger man.

Collins sits next to his son Nicholas at the piano as the younger man plays one of his favourites of his father’s songs, You Know What I Mean. “I wish I could write a love song to show you the way I feel,” the older Collins sings. Seeing a man who has spoken publicly about his difficulties balancing his family life with his work schedule bringing his son on tour is a comforting sight, despite the fact that Nicholas rarely makes eye contact with Collins or the audience.

His cover of The Supreme’s You Can’t Hurry Love kicks off a train of festive dance numbers that see out the performance, followed by Dance Into The Light, Invisible Touch, Easy Lover, and everyone’s favourite watered-down-Prince-pastiche, Sussudio. He returns for an encore of Take Me Home, which, just like In The Air Tonight, suddenly seems to herald a different kind of anticipation.