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 Phil Collins; Flaming Youth
 


As always, see anything you like, email me. All boots are listed in chronological order, and all are on Audio CD-R unless I say otherwise. All dates are written in the European style, as in day/month/year. Click on the text links below to scroll directly to the entry you're interested in.

Page Summary and Menu

HELLO, I MUST BE GOING! (82-83)

Berkeley From the Vault, 16/12/82 (Community Theater, Berkeley CA)

Behind the Lines, 19/12/82 (Perkins Palace, Pasadena CA) - with bonus tracks

NO JACKET REQUIRED (85)

Melbourne '85 (second night), 13/4/85 (Entertainment Centre)

BOTH SIDES OF THE STORY WORLD TOUR (94)

Manchester '94, 29/11/94 (G-Mex Centre, Manchester UK)

TESTIFY "TOUR" (2002)

NYC 2002, 12/11/02 (Premier Radio Network Studios, NYC)

FIRST FINAL FAREWELL TOUR (2004-05)

Live in Amsterdam, 19/6/04 (Arena, Amsterdam, Holland)

Dusseldorf '05, 12/11/05 (LTU Arena, Dusseldorf Germany)

VIDEO (DVD): Live at Perkins Palace | Live '95 in Fukuoka |

FLAMING YOUTH

Ark 2, 1969 - hear Phil before he joined Genesis!


Berkeley From the Vault

16/12/82

1-01 Thunder and Lightning (5:51)
1-02 I Cannot Believe It's True (5:15)
1-03 This Must Be Love (6:42)
1-04 Thru These Walls (5:53)
1-05 I Missed Again (3:39)
1-06 Behind the Lines (4:15)
1-07 You Know What I Mean (3:08)
1-08 The Roof is Leaking (3:33)
1-09 Don't Let Him Steal Your Heart Away (5:51)
1-11 The West Side (6:35)
1-12 If Leaving Me is Easy (7:47)

2-1 In the Air Tonight (6:16)
2-2 Band Introductions (6:58)
2-3 Like China (5:29)
2-4 You Can't Hurry Love (3:32)
2-5 It Don't Matter to Me (4:19)
2-6 Hand in Hand (10:33)
2-7 ...And So to F... (10:01)
2-8 People Get Ready (3:58)

Type/Quality: Soundboard/Very Good-Excellent

Comments: At the Community Theater in Berkeley, this is a soundboard recording pulled off an internet stream from Wolfgang's Vault. The Vault may offer this recording for download, in which case this version should not be traded. For now, it is a nice nearly complete show (according to the audience recording it is missing only the first number, "I Don't Care Anymore"). Unlike other Wolfgang shows I've heard, I don't think the mix is quite right on this one: Phil's voice sounds too far back, and there is major reverb on his intros which made it hard for me to hear him. Phil's voice is tired and gets especially rough on "In the Air Tonight"--perhaps he was mixed back on purpose! There is an odd repeated beep which may be feedback during Phil's pervert story before "Thru These Walls." The band introductions feature an extended night club style talk, very similar to what Genesis did earlier this same year on their Three Sides Live tour. Phil pretends that he has forgotten about Chester, and has to be reminded before he introduces the guy.

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Behind the Lines

19/12/82

01 I Don't Care Anymore (6:38)
02 I Cannot Believe It's True (7:29)
03 Thru These Walls (5:06)
04 I Missed Again (3:40)
05 Behind the Lines (4:12)
06 The Roof is Leaking (3:25)
07 The West Side (6:09)
08 In the Air Tonight (5:25)
09 You Can't Hurry Love (3:27)
10 It Don't Matter to Me (5:10)
11 People Get Ready (3:15)

Studio, Against All Odds soundtrack (1984)
12 Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now) (3:32)
Studio, Brand X: Product (1979)
13 Don't Make Waves (5:28)
14 Soho (3:32)
15 ...And so to F... (6:29)
Brand X, Live at the Roxy, 23 September 1979
16 Don't Make Waves (5:34)

Type/Quality: TV, studio, soundboard/Very Good

Comments: At the Perkins Palace in Pasadena, this is an audio conversion of Phil's first video release (the first 11 tracks, anyway--I have the video from which it was taken on DVD). The date I was originally given for this gig was 15 August 1984--which is very incorrect. Hewitt puts a date of 23 January 1983 on the Perkins Palace gig, but I also believe this to be incorrect. This performance was broadcast on TV, which is probably where this version of the show comes from--it was also released on commercial video, though it seems to be out of print now. Over the beginning of the first song Phil talks about his musical influences--the Beatles. There are some typical Phil intros included on here: "We're going to have some fun!" he says to the audience, and states they will be playing for a couple of hours, "until the drugs wear off." He talks about perverts and how to be one before "Thru These Walls."

At the end is added a bunch of various extras I had on the same batch of tapes that the Perkins Palace show came from (track 13 and 15 have now been replaced with CD-quality versions). All of them are a bit hissy as I had to raise their volume level more than the other songs. The first studio one, oddly enough, I don't have anywhere else (at least not the studio version). This is Phil's first big hit, a leftover demo from his first album originally called "How Can You Just Sit There" which was slightly reworked to fit the movie for which it was used. This version is probably from an LP as it has a few pops on it--it also sounds a tad wavery. I'm not sure if it's from the full soundtrack or from one of the singles it appeared on--the single version appears to have been edited down to a shorter time than I have here, so perhaps this is from the soundtrack. The next three tracks are from the Brand X studio album, Product--they were slapped onto the tape I was given because they have Phil doing vocals. Phil was of course a regular member of Brand X and helped write some of their songs, in addition to the odd vocal track and the drumming. The last track is a live Brand X song with Phil on vocals. In fact, here's the whole line-up: Robin Lumley - Keyboards; John Goodsall - Guitar/vocals; Percy Jones - Bass; Phil Collins - Drums/vocals. The date for that is probably correct, and I believe it may come from a soundboard recording. The sound for all of this is very good--it came off of a tape (mostly), but that doesn't seem to have harmed it much. Interesting that though Phil had by this time released two albums, he was on his first tour as a solo artist. Personally I find his first two albums to have been probably his least embarrassing, so this is a nice period to have live music from.

BTW, the title for this boot I got from Halley and Scott McMahan, who both have a boot with this title that matches my track list and venue/date--at least for the first 11 tracks. A good deal of these extra tracks I used to have on an additional disc, which had live material that was labeled "Milton Keynes 1990." This erroneous venue confused me, and I found the performance impossible to date--until I discovered that it was just Phil's official live album from his 1990 tour, called Serious Hits Live. I have thus removed this material from my list.

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Melbourne '85 (second night)

13/4/85

1-01 I Don't Care Anymore (6:06)
1-02 Only You Know and I Know (5:15)
1-03 I Cannot Believe It's True (4:28)
1-04 This Must Be Love (5:29)
1-05 Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now) (3:40)
1-06 Inside Out (5:15)
1-07 Who Said I Would (4:56)
1-08 You Know What I Mean (4:04)
1-09 If Leaving Me is Easy (8:24)
1-10 Sussudio (5:05)
1-11 Behind the Lines (4:37)
1-12 Don't Lose My Number (4:24)

2-01 The West Side (7:51)
2-02 One More Night (5:49)
2-03 In the Air Tonight (7:24)
2-04 Band Introductions (8:58)
2-05 Like China (5:29)
2-06 You Can't Hurry Love (3:01)
2-07 It Don't Matter to Me (4:23)
2-08 Hand in Hand (9:07)
2-09 Take Me Home (8:15)
2-10 People Get Ready (3:29)
2-11 It's Alright (2:44)

Type/Quality: Soundboard/Very Good-Excellent

Comments: At the Entertainment Centre in Melbourne, Australia. This is a nice complete soundboard recording from Phil's big time No Jacket Required tour--he visited Australia before Genesis did! Phil is in fine form, using a lot of the same old gags on the song intros that he had used on the Mama tour, right down to the whole "fugitive from justice" bit that he sticks before "Don't Lose My Number." There is even a presage of his "Throwing It All Away" dee-dah-day singing in "Hand in Hand." The quality is great; the mix sounds a little weird to me, the lead vocals in particular, but sometimes the drums.

It seems in Australia bands performing live have to be backed by a string section for at least a few songs. Phil's band, he explains, is the hot tubs, so the strings are the "nine warm jets." The band introduction track, you'll notice, is incredibly long--but I also found it hilarious. This is a good one.

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Manchester '94

29/11/94

1-01 Intro music/Drum Duel (7:49)
1-02 I Don't Care Anymore (5:57)
1-03 Don't Lose My Number (6:05)
1-04 Everyday (6:03)
1-05 Survivors (9:34)
1-06 Another Day in Paradise (7:31)
1-07 I Wish It Would Rain Down (4:05)
1-08 One More Night (4:50)
1-09 A Groovy Kind of Love (2:55)
1-10 We Wait and We Wonder (7:37)
1-11 Separate Lives (6:08)
1-12 Both Sides of the Story (8:06)

2-01 In the Air Tonight (6:46)
2-02 Hang in Long Enough (4:46)
2-03 Find a Way to My Heart/It Don't Matter to Me (9:52)
2-04 Easy Lover (5:05)
2-05 Only You Know and I Know (4:54)
2-06 Something Happened on the Way to Heaven (5:37)
2-07 Knockin' on Heaven's Door/Band Introductions (8:12)
2-08 You Can't Hurry Love (3:05)
2-09 Two Hearts (2:32)
2-10 Sussudio (7:00)
2-11 Get Ready (3:28)
2-12 My Girl (3:36)
2-13 Take Me Home (11:04)

Type/Quality: Soundboard/Very Good-Excellent

Comments: At the G-Mex Centre in Manchester, England, this show comes from near the end of at least the 1994 part of Phil's gigantic tour for the album Both Sides (this is the second day of a two-day run at the venue). The sound is excellent, and I've heard that this show was considered for official release. I was always sort of fond of Phil's album Both Sides; in my mind it was sort of an underdog album, the one that Phil liked but the one he lost some fans on, and I think that's part of what makes me support it and what makes me like this set.

This appears to be a full concert--I can hardly believe he could possibly have played more songs than this--but it has definitely been edited to a certain extent. The stories for some of the songs are shortened and for some songs may have been removed altogether; also applause between songs has probably been edited. Additionally, Phil may have done some editing himself. For a man infamous for messing up and/or forgetting lyrics, this is a very daunting set to take on, and it appears as if in order to lessen the load for his memory and to keep the band from getting too tired some of the songs have had verses removed. "...Rain Down" seems to be missing at least one verse, as does "One More Night" and "Groovy Kind of Love." Indeed, even with all of these precautions, Phil still messes up some lyrics--notably in "Take Me Home."

Phil's opening intro reminds me of his '80s intros for Genesis, with the promise of "songs you'll like, songs you won't..." and the suggestion that drugs will be involved in the evening's entertainment. He thinks things are going well so far: "We're always good on Tuesdays." Phil has a nice modest intro for "Paradise" in which he convincingly urges his audience to give to his homeless charity, telling them to use the money they were going to spend on a T-shirt with his face on it: "Don't buy the T-shirt...I don't need the fucking money." He has an interesting intro for "...Rain Down" in which he talks about men having skeletons in their closet (by which he means past indiscretions or relationships involving women other than the ones they came to the concert with) and does a rather offensive but humorous impression of an offended, shrewish woman. He sings "One More Night" differently than on the album--it's not a bad change. "Groovy Kind of Love" is dedicated to Buster Edwards, who, if I'm not mistaken, Phil himself played in a movie. "We Wait and We Wonder," one of the better cuts off of the then-new album, begins here with an explosion sound effect--it's a good, rousing version of the song, in which Phil almost takes the edge off the didactic moralism of the lyrics.

On the second disc, I began to hear some scratches. They never got really terrible, but I heard them. There were just a few in one tiny part of "Find a Way...," some toward the end of "Something Happened...," and the most noticeable and numerous ones on the ending minutes of "Take Me Home." This last number, always one of Phil's big showcase pieces, expands when played live into an unwieldy behemoth of a song that is too big for its own good and features far too much of Phil's self-gratifying chorus-repetitions--in fact, even after over 11 minutes of the song, it still sounds as though the man is ready to go on for 11 more minutes: the song is cut off before it actually ends. We can only hope the end was nigh. I would like to say, though, that I think "Take Me Home" is one of Phil's best songs and really is a very good tune; I just think that there's only so far you can take a song before you should really stop. In conclusion this is probably one of the best Phil shows out there--I just like ragging on the guy.

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NYC 2002

12/11/02

01 Interview (5:55)
02 Something Happened on the Way to Heaven (5:17)
03 Another Day in Paradise (5:12)
04 You'll be in My Heart (4:20)
05 Can't Stop Loving You (4:37)
06 Driving Me Crazy (4:46)
07 Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now) (4:09)
08 I Missed Again (4:18)
09 Separate Lives (7:50)
10 You Can't Hurry Love (2:56)
11 Two Hearts (2:22)
12 Easy Lover (5:10)
13 Lady Madonna/Sussudio (7:44)
14 Take Me Home (7:26)

Type/Quality: Radio/Very Good

Comments: At the Premier Radio Network Studios in New York City, New York, this is a promotional show in support of Phil's new album Testify. Strangely enough, only two songs in the performance are actually from that album, and there are none from his previous album. He focuses mainly on the classics. This is the whole show I believe, minus the commercial breaks--some of the songs jump into each other abruptly, but I imagine this is due to advertising edits. The band with him features none other than Daryl Stuermer and Chester Thompson, as well as Phil's childhood friend Ronnie Caryl. I am (as you can see) very unfamiliar with Phil's live career, so I won't pretend to know how typical or atypical this set is. I can say that I think it's pretty great--Phil breathes some life into these songs. I can understand him not playing "In the Air Tonight"--it doesn't really fit with the sound of his music anymore, and he's probably played it live about a million times--but I still missed it on here. I like that he chose to cover "Lady Madonna," as it's one of my favorite Beatles tunes--it does a curious segue into one of his own tunes, "Sussudio." There are one or two other covers in the set. The interview is short, and for Phil aficionados the comments probably tread familiar ground. I found them humorous and interesting. The venue is definitely very intimate--at one point when Phil turns the mic on the crowd so they can sing along, you can hear individual people singing into the mic. It's too bad Phil can't tour anymore, but it makes promotional appearances like this one all the sweeter. (Obviously those of you up with events of 2004 and on will realize that my saying that "Phil can't tour anymore" in this review was premature and erroneous! Still, I don't think that lessens the value of this particular recording too much... And, speaking of touring, see my next entry.)

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Live in Amsterdam

19/06/04

1-01 Intro Music (5:01)
1-02 Drum Intro (7:06)
1-03 Something Happened on the Way to Heaven (5:32)
1-04 Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now) (4:05)
1-05 Don't Lose My Number (6:12)
1-06 You'll be in My Heart (4:41)
1-07 One More Night (5:25)
1-08 Can't Stop Loving You (4:34)
1-09 Hang in Long Enough (5:23)
1-10 True Colors (5:34)
1-11 Come With Me (5:14)
1-12 A Groovy Kind of Love (3:46)
1-13 I Missed Again (4:22)
1-14 Another Day in Paradise (5:39)

2-01 No Way Out (4:44)
2-02 Separate Lives (6:04)
2-03 In the Air Tonight (7:53)
2-04 Dance Into the Light (4:35)
2-05 You Can't Hurry Love (3:05)
2-06 Two Hearts (2:15)
2-07 Wear My Hat (4:55)
2-08 Easy Lover (4:57)
2-09 Sussudio (11:19)
2-10 It's Not Too Late (4:08)
2-11 Drum Thing (1:26)
2-12 Take Me Home (11:34)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good

Comments: At the Arena in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, this is one of the many gigs of Phil's "First Final Farewell Tour." I had thought about seeing Phil in Philadelphia on this tour (the closest show to my home in New Jersey), but decided against it because there were no good seats left. So this show is my way of listening in on what Phil is doing these days. It's a nice show, a fairly clear audience gig with no apparent cuts, though you will have to crank your volume to hear it all--especially the intros, though Phil seems to keep them very short, perhaps due to the language barrier. As some hardcore fans have complained about, this is largely a "greatest hits" type of set, with Phil focusing on popular favorites but sprinkling in some of his newer material as well. This was great for me, since I have not paid much attention to Phil's last couple of albums, and Phil does some good versions of his old classics. Daryl, Chester, and many of his regulars help to make this a nice "farewell" gig.

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Dusseldorf '05

12/11/05

1-01 Drum Trio (9:02)
1-02 Something Happened on the Way to Heaven (5:40)
1-03 Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now) (4:05)
1-04 Don't Lose My Number (5:10)
1-05 One More Night (6:52)
1-06 Can't Stop Loving You (4:30)
1-07 Hang in Long Enough (5:00)
1-08 True Colors (6:00)
1-09 Come With Me (5:20)
1-10 A Groovy Kind of Love (3:43)
1-11 Another Day in Paradise (5:57)

2-01 We Wait and We Wonder (7:40)
2-02 Separate Lives (6:00)
2-03 In the Air Tonight (7:52)
2-04 Dance Into the Light (4:37)
2-05 You Can't Hurry Love/Two Hearts (5:34)
2-06 Wear My Hat (4:52)
2-07 Invisible Touch (5:00)
2-08 Easy Lover (5:00)
2-09 Sussudio (9:20)
2-10 It's Not Too Late (4:30)
2-11 Take Me Home (13:05)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good

Comments: At the LTU Arena in Dusseldorf, Germany. I have this show in compressed files on a DVD, but you don't want it because it has multiple errors, including a repeated song, 40-second sections of silence in the middle of two different tracks, and several hiccups. I carefully repaired all of these errors and can give you audio CDs of the corrected show.

I have an '04 gig from this "farewell" tour (see above), and I was surprised to find when doing the track list for this show how little has changed after over a year of touring. The only thing that has happened to the set list is that it has gotten shorter by a few songs, and one song has been replaced. This tour reads like a greatest hits album played live, and listening to it has the embarrassing resemblance to listening to a soft rock radio station, but still Phil has a great band backing him up and they put in an energizing performance. The quality of the recording, with the errors taken out, is not bad.

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FLAMING YOUTH


Ark 2

01 Guide Me, Orion (3:18)
02 Earthglow (2:54)
03 Weightless (2:38)
04 The Planets (12:49)
a. Mars, Bringer of War
b. Venus, Bringer of Peace
c. Mercury, The Winged Messenger
d. Jupiter, Bringer of Jollity
e. Saturn, Bringer of Old Age
f. Uranus, The Magician
g. Neptune, The Mystic
05 Changes (5:47)
06 Pulsar (3:07)
07 Spacechild (5:11)
08 In the Light of Love (3:27)
09 From Now on (Immortal Invisible) (4:21)
Bonus Tracks (mono)
10 Man, Woman and Child (3:43)
11 Drifting (3:53)

Type/Quality: Studio/Very Good

Comments: For those of you who don't know, Flaming Youth is the band Phil Collins drummed (and did a little bit of singing) for right before he was hired by Genesis, in October 1969. Their one album, Ark 2, has an ironically ambitious and pretentious connection to Genesis' first effort; both were concept albums and were released within months of each other. In this case, the music (inspired by the recent moon landing) was entirely written by two men (Ken Howard and Alain Blaikley), neither of whom are members of the band, and tells the science fiction story of a future race of men who set off from a resource-depleted Earth in a giant spaceship to try to save humanity. Sound silly? If you read the liner notes, it will seem even sillier. The music, however, has a surprisingly slightly more mature sound than Genesis' FGTR, and though it is very reminiscent of various other prog rock band albums at around the same time (I was even reminded of Pink Floyd's first psychedelic album, Piper at the Gates of Dawn), it has an interesting eclecticism, particularly in the "Planets" medley (sorry classical fans: though the titles are the same, this has no relationship whatsoever to Holst's piece), and shows an awareness of various musical styles and a certain amount of satire in its choice of tone. Phil has some nice lead vocals, though he's hardly recognizable as the same voice heard on his first solo album, over a decade later.

Like the first Genesis album, this one sounds really quite dated, and is basically out of print (which is why I list it here as a tradeable album). But it's an interesting musical phenomenon; though I am disappointed that none of the compositions were by the band themselves, making it hard to tell what these players really wanted to do with themselves aside from play other people's opuses. Melody Maker actually listed this album as their Album of the Month, and the band got a lot of buzz because of it, but their direction quickly became unclear (the band didn't like the direction their writers were going in, and then they got a saxophone player and started doing jazz fusion!--sounds sadly like Spinal Tap...), and they couldn't get many gigs, so Phil and his friend Ronnie Caryl got out while the getting was good. I'd always wanted to hear this album ever since I heard of it, and it is interesting enough to be worth at least one listen before you put it away for good. This version also features a couple of bonus tracks at the end which are presumably not part of the album's main story.

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