Phil Collins, Genesis To Reunite For First Tour In 15 Years

LONDON (November 7, 2006) — Genesis will reunite next year for a “Turn It on Again” tour of Europe, their first tour in 15 years.

The 20-date stadium tour, announced Tuesday, will open in Helsinki, Finland, on June 11 and end with a free concert in front of the Colosseum in Rome on July 14.

Genesis last toured in 1991. Phil Collins, who quit the band to go solo in 1996, said the reunion wasn’t motivated by money.

“I think we are all loaded enough not to worry about where the next million or two is coming from,” the 55-year-old singer said Tuesday. “I just felt now was the right time to have a go at it.”

A series of U.S. dates will follow the European tour, said Collins, Mike Rutherford, 56, and Tony Banks, 56.

Genesis was founded in the mid-1960s by Rutherford, Banks, Anthony Phillips and Peter Gabriel, who left the group in 1975 and was replaced on vocals by drummer Collins. They became one of the biggest bands of the 1970s and `80s, with hits such as “Turn It on Again,” “Follow You, Follow Me,” “That’s All” and “Invisible Touch.”

Banks said the tour would let fans hear a side of the band that went beyond their hits.

“Genesis has another side to it, a more complex area of music,” he said. “One side gets slightly more attention than the other. We are trying to reacquaint people. Genesis is not particularly a group mentioned very much these days and we want to remind people we did do a lot of things.”