Friday Night Videos

Genesis' hit single, "Follow You, Follow Me," is a song that's grown on me over the years. I believe the first time I realized I really liked it was during the "We Can't Dance Tour" in Houston, when they didn't play it. Or rather, they played a small snippet of it during a medley of other truncated songs I'd looked forward to hearing. The video's not much, but what's odd is that Mike Rutherford gets the majority of the camera time, Tony Banks is mostly ignored and there's some unnamed guy playing drums who looks vaguely Phil Collins-like in profile, but isn't Phil Collins. Despite the video's shortcomings, the song more than makes up for it.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Postmodern Jukebox.

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Friday Night Videos

Genesis hasn't always had the best videos to go with their singles, but that changed with "Land of Confusion." Talk about bizarre. Those puppets are freaky beyond reason. And the mild satire here give the impression of being edgy, but is ultimately pretty inoffensive. I saw Genesis in concert a few years later, on their "We Can't Dance" tour. Of all the concerts I've seen, that was one of the more disappointing ones. They did a few token Peter Gabriel tunes, and the rest of the show was almost entirely from the Invisible Touch and We Can't Dance albums. No "Follow You, Follow Me," no "That's All," nothing from Duke at all that I can remember. The whole thing felt overly packaged and polished, with even the "spontaneous" moments feeling like they were scripted. To make matters worse, there was a trio of drunks behind us who managed to spill their beer all over us and kept yelling at the top of their lungs, "PLAY THE OLD STUFF! WE WANT INVISIBLE TOUCH!" over and over. I still like Genesis, but in the unlikely event Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford ever convince Phil Collins to do a reunion tour, I'll pass.

Previously on Friday Night Videos... Crazy Joe and the Variable Speed Band.

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Friday Night Videos

The fact that the Grateful Dead had a top 10 hit in the late 80s to qualify as "One-hit wonders" despite several decades as a successful touring act with many big-selling albums to their credit gives me no end of amusement. "Touch of Grey" was an excellent song, of course, but sounds oddly out of place when listened to in the context of other hits from the 80s. The album from which it sprang, "In the Dark," was pretty darn good too.



Previously on Friday Night Videos... The Moody Blues.

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