Genesis

I don't consider Genesis a guilty pleasure because I don't feel guilty about listening to them. I even kind of like their shitty '80s stuff, not all of which is as shitty as you may remember it (or may have tried to forget). One reason I'm willing to forgive the indulgence of the ongoing reunion just for the sake of reunion is that the band apparently genuinely likes one another. No feuds here; the reunion was fueled by friendship. Oh, and money. Tickets were over $200 a piece. I got two (I didn't pay). When ticket prices are that high I spend a large part of the show fantasizing what I would have spent on all that cash instead of a concert.

As for the show, the band did a surprisingly great job of balancing its proggy '70s stuff with the poppy '80s stuff, and when they played they latter they often went with the "long" album versions of songs like "Mama" and "Domino." The ballads were perfectly understandable in this case: they had to win back the women bored by the prog excesses.

What made this arena show unique was the way it ended. Usually the hit parade means stick around, but in Genesis' case it meant leaving early. I can't defend "Invisible Touch" or the unctuous "I Can't Dance," even if sitting through that pain would have been rewarded with a run through the pretty "Carpet Crawlers," one of the best songs of the Peter Gabriel era. Oh, well.