7 minute read
Luxury
turning it on again
With album sales of 150 million and a Grammy to their name, Genesis enjoyed decades of success. Now, says Mike Rutherford, they’re back on the road, and polo must take a back seat
WORDS HERBERT SPENCER ILLUSTRATION JAMES TAYLOR
Madison Square Garden has always been one of my favourite venues, performing with Genesis in the old days and later with Mike and the Mechanics. I can hardly claim to thrill my audiences with a pretty face –it’s the music that counts – so when I went on stage at the Garden one night back in the Eighties, I suspect few, if any, of the fans ever noticed that I was missing two front teeth.
That great Manhattan gig with Genesis came right on the heels of my first 8-goal polo tournament at Cowdray Park. In the second match I was in a collision – both ponies went down and one kicked me in the face. I had a broken nose, dislocated jaw and six teeth knocked out – I looked a real horror. There was no time to get the teeth replaced before our American tour, so I strummed away sans those pearlies.
They say lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place, but don’t you believe it. Some years later, having spent the price of a good polo pony or two on extensive dental work, and with my new front teeth gleaming, I bought a helmet with a faceguard to protect the investment. Then, in my very first match, I topped the ball, something I’ve never done before or since. Where’d the ball go? You guessed it; straight up and under the face guard and into my mouth, smashing my expensive dentures. So it was back into the dentist’s chair again.
Over the past 20 years or so I’ve managed to combine polo with my career as a songwriter and musician, but my polo prospects for 2007 don’t look too bright. I’m 56 now and have been easing off, giving up regular competition and only playing the odd exhibition match. But the main reason polo isn’t on the agenda is that Genesis is hitting the road again for the first time in 15 years.
It’s been almost 40 years since, as a teenager, I formed a group with some fellow students – amongst them singer Peter Gabriel and Tony Banks on keyboard. Personnel changed quite a bit after Genesis turned professional, not least with Phil Collins coming in on drums and eventually replacing Peter as lead vocalist, and later with guitarist Steve Hackett. Then, in the mid-Eighties, I formed another group, Mike and the Mechanics, which was quite successful.
Peter, Tony, Phil, Steve and I have been doing our own things over the years, but we’ve stayed good friends – unlike some other groups. From time to time we’ve discussed getting Genesis back together, then last year we got really serious about it and decided to do a 2007 tour. Peter Gabriel wasn’t available, but said he might join us later. Steve Hackett didn’t want to come in without all five of us. So the nucleus of the Genesis revival is Rutherford, Collins and Banks, plus some others we have played with before.
When we started looking at possible UK venues, our manager Tony Smith suggested the newly reconstructed Twickenham Stadium. We were doubtful, as it’d been so long since we performed in England, but Tony was right: tickets for the July 8 Twickenham show sold out in two hours. We’re also playing Old Trafford on July 7.
We will play 22 concerts in 12 European countries, starting in Helsinki’s Olympic Stadium on June 11 and finishing with a sponsored free concert next to the Coliseum in Rome on July 14. Later in the year we’re off to North America for another 22 concerts.
This revival of Genesis, which we’re calling ‘Turn it on Again – The Tour’ after one of our songs, isn’t about making money. If money were the object, we would have scheduled a hell of a lot more shows: in the old days we would play as many as 250 concerts a year. This tour is about reconnecting with our fans, old and new, and we’ll be playing songs from all stages of Genesis’ musical development.
Touring now is a far cry from the days when a group would pile into a van with their instruments and tootle up the M1 to a gig. Today everything is much bigger, more elaborate, more complex. It’s hard to believe, but altogether our Genesis ‘family’ this summer will number about 400 souls. This includes three stage crews for the outdoor sets. It takes five days to set up and we’re moving fast from venue to venue, so the crews have to leapfrog: while we’re performing on one stage, the next one and the one after that are being built.
We’ll be rehearsing for two or three weeks in April, and in May we’ll test the set design, lighting and so on. Then it’s off to Helsinki, and once we’re done in Europe we’ll be preparing for North America. So sadly there won’t be any time for chukkas this season.
It was after a Mechanics tour in the midEighties that I took up polo. There was no history of horse pursuits in the Rutherford line; my wife Angie is the equestrian in our family. She hunted and evented and is an accomplished dressage rider – she’s represented Great Britain internationally. I finally learned to ride, after a fashion, on a retired eventing horse Angie borrowed for me from Olympic equestrian Ginny Leng. I guess Angie thought I was getting too much underfoot at home, because she told me I should take up a ‘hobby’ and suggested this polo lark. I’d never even seen a polo match.
A good friend, Gordon Roddick of The Body Shop, was playing polo at [polo commentator] Terry Hanlon’s place and suggested I take lessons there. It was typical of Terry’s teaching methods that he had me playing chukkas the very first day. Polo is a sport in which you can start having fun straightaway before you even learn to hit the ball properly.
Once I got the hang of things and earned a handicap, I started playing in low-goal tournaments with Terry. Then, at the end of the Eighties, I moved on to Alan Kent, a 7-goal stalwart of the England national team who has remained my mentor ever since. He took fantastic care of me and my two sons after they started playing. My team was called Mike and the Mechanics and we played a lot of low and medium-goal polo, winning the County Cup and Harrison Cup among others. One year, the American Brook Johnson and I shared a high-goal team as patrons, alternating to play with 10goalers Eduardo and Nachi Heguy and my
son Tom, who was a member of the England team in the Federation of International Polo competition.
A lot of guys in high-pressure jobs play polo for the adrenalin rush. I get plenty of that performing, so for me polo is just relaxation. The greatest thing has been playing with my two sons, and we even had Angie as a fourth Rutherford for chukkas in South Africa a few years back.
I’ve always got a kick out of charity matches with the Prince of Wales and his sons. Before Prince Charles retired at 57 after the 2005 season, we used to joke about whose back would hold out the longest. After playing last summer against Prince Harry – a real gung-ho competitor – I thought, ‘Hey, this is the next generation, maybe it’s time for me to go.’ Getting older, it’s more difficult to keep fit enough unless you play regularly.
Some of the fun has gone out of the game now that my sons are both busy. Tom, 25, has set up on his own, managing some aspiring musicians, and Harry, 19, is learning about studio production during his gap year. Perhaps they’ll get back into the game once they’ve established themselves.
Last season I played in Jodhpur and in charity matches in Palm Beach and in England, but now my pony string is down from a high of 20 mounts some years ago to just a few, and I’m definitely out of polo for this year because of the tours. After that, who knows? As with Genesis, you can never say ‘never’ about revivals.
