To be fair, apart from a debilitating back operation and bad legs, the 80s superstar hasn’t changed much since he was last in the limelight.
That’s one advantage of looking old when you’re young. And I guess the past 30 years haven’t been all that kind to many of us, have they?
Yet the one thing that shone through was that voice. Still higher pitched, a bit of echo mic and a lot of the Phil Collins we all remember. The sound quality was superb. If you’ve still got a copy of No Jacket Required or Just Seriously in the loft then dust it down and compare it to what you heard at the Arena. His body may be crocked but the tools of his trade are still functioning perfectly.
Some of the old videos played out during Follow You Follow Me only served to accentuate his current plight. He was featured as the cheeky chappie, sporting an impressive mullet and bouncing around for the cameras. (His son Nic is on the drums for this tour, perhaps taking over what his dad can’t manage these days).
From the start with Against All Odds followed by Another Day in Paradise, it all seemed a little sedate up on stage to start with but rattling through One More Night and Separate Lives, the music soon took over.
Something on the Way to Heaven was the track that got people to their feet at the start of the second set, followed by a string of hits In the Air Tonight and You Can’t Hurry Love (let’s face it, hands up who DIDN’T don a pair of sunglasses and do all those action at the school disco back in the day?)
Invisible Tough, Easy Lover and Sussudio worked the crowd into a mature kind of frenzy to finish off – and as Mr Collins closed on Take Me Home, we’re pleased he got another tour under his belt in the nick of time...
SET LIST
- Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)
- Another Day in Paradise
- One More Night
- Wake Up Call
- Follow You Follow Me
- Can't Turn Back the Years
- I Missed Again
- Hang in Long Enough
- Separate Lives
- Only You Know and I Know
- I Don't Care Anymore
- Something Happened on the Way to Heaven
- You Know What I Mean
- In the Air Tonight
- You Can't Hurry Love
- Dance Into the Light
- Invisible Touch
- Easy Lover
- Sussudio
- Take Me Home
