At times during Phil Collins’ first London show for 13 years, it’s hard not to contrast the man we are watching with the images of the past on the big screen. Collins walks on stage slowly, with a stick, spends the whole show sitting in a black leather swivel chair with a side table – like a soft-rock Dave Allen – and his opening words are: “That’s the last dancing you’ll get from me tonight. My legs are fucked and I’ve had a back operation.” The man on the screen dances, grins and gurns. It’s as if he’s deliberately reminding us of the ageing process.
Collins also tells us that, yes, he had said he wasn’t going to do this stuff any more, “but I missed you”. There seems little reason not to take that at face value. He has no financial need to do this; it seems he just wanted to bask in some adoration again. He opens sombrely – Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now) is captivating, though he struggles to hit the highest notes; then Another Day in Paradise and One More Night. Unexpectedly, it is deeply moving to see him so completely unafraid to display the effects of his age. There is no vanity. The fact is rammed home by the drummer being his 16-year-old son, Nicholas, doing the stuff dad can’t any longer.
The set, two halves divided by an interval, isn’t without longueurs.
No matter how pretty the lighting design, Separate Lives is never going to sound like anything other than the dullest kind of shoulderpads-and-sports-casual wine-bar balladry. There seems little danger of any young hip-hop stars recontextualising and repopularising that one for the hipsters. As the second half progresses, though, Collins’ voice slips into gear, and a run of great songs sets the old hall alight with excitement.
In the Air Tonight remains one of the weirdest huge hits from an era
when weird huge hits were not uncommon, and it’s delivered in masterly
fashion. You Can’t Hurry Love might be one of the more pointless cover
versions to have been recorded, but it’s a testament to Collins’ deep
and sincere love of classic soul and R&B (before he takes to the
stage, the PA plays a selection of his 60s favourites), and with a
song that good, it’s hard to go wrong, and Collins does not make a
misstep. Best of all might be Dance Into the Light, rather
overshadowed by other, bigger hits, but sounding fresh and propulsive,
and not sullied by overfamiliarity.
The set concludes with Sussudio, a dazzling feat of construction, the
disco horns pushing the song to some place between Prince and Earth,
Wind and Fire that a bloke from Chiswick would seem to have no right
to occupy. It’s a reminder that being both the singing drummer in a
prog band and the supreme pop craftsman of his generation at the same
time was a fairly remarkable feat.
Two encores – one a Vera Lynn cover – and the two-and-a-half hours are done. Collins might just have wanted to feel the love, but the pleasure has been mutual.
• At the Royal Albert Hall, London, until 9 June. Box office: 020-7589 8212. Then at British Summer Time festival, Hyde Park, London, on 30 June.
• This article was amended on 6 June 2017.
