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Home By The Sea – Bury 2022
Everyone here at Mama HQ would like to thank all of you who have attended our Next Domino Tour shows so far this year. The audience reaction has been overwhelming and we are really enjoying playing our version of the same set Genesis played on their Last Domino Tour.
We have been recording some of our shows with an aim of putting together a live album for release later this year. We do have a live EP available on our merchandise desk, along with T-shirts and various CDs, but no album featuring the current line-up of Mama.
Currently I am mixing tracks from our recent show at The Met in Bury and I have just finished a mix for our version of Home By The Sea. We are releasing this with a video as a taster of what will be on our live album. Check out the video here and let us know what you think by dropping your comments below. You can also message us via our website or on our Facebook page. We hope you like the video and look forward to hearing from you.
Dave J
The Next Domino?
MW: It’s been a long long time…
JW: Hasn’t it! (laughing)
MW: So how are you all and what is happening with Mama?
JW: Well the band are fine. We obviously took a huge break during the pandemic as did everyone else, but we have had a couple of rehearsals lately and we can all still play and sing the music.
MW: So 2020 was a write off then?
JW: Pretty much yeah, no venues open and we couldn’t get together to even rehearse for most of the year, so it was tough for the band. Now please keep that in perspective with the suffering endured by millions of people during this period. Some losing loved ones and some just struggling to survive with mental health issues and economic issues and we really can’t complain. We had a couple close friends and fans of the band who lost their lives due to Covid-19 so you have to balance our frustrations against the wider issue here.
MW: Of course…
JW: But getting back to your question, we had to cancel some shows in Holland which we were a week away from playing when the pandemic struck. The rest of the shows we were fortunate enough to rearrange to 2022. It’s just unfortunate that Holland won’t let us into the country.
MW: So is Holland going to happen?
JW: Sadly no. The double whammy of Covid-19 and Brexit has put paid to us playing outside the UK for the foreseeable future. But we will be keeping our eye on the situation and you never know.
MW: Brexit?
JW: Yes sadly there are new rules for people working in the EU. We had to register every item of equipment and pay a charge for items and you can imagine we have a lot of equipment to register. Then there are other issues such as Red countries etc.
MW: Moving on, what about Genesis touring again. You must have been thrilled at that news?
JW: Of course. As fans ourselves we were thrilled at hearing that Genesis were going to tour again. Speaking for myself, I have seen every tour since 1981 by the band, so one final hurrah by them was more than I expected after 2007.
MW: Did the band go to any of the shows?
JW: Yes John Comish, James and your good self were at the Liverpool show on the 3rd of October.
MW: Did you all enjoy it.
JW: Of course. I was in tears a few times knowing how much this group of people mean to me. There was a lot of BS about Phil not being able to sing anymore. Well I can tell you that he was superb. The whole band were on fire and the show was the best I’ve seen since 1987.
MW: From my own perspective I loved the show and they sound like they were playing for their lives.
JW: Absolutely.
MW: It also proved that there are still a lot of people who want to hear Genesis music played live.
JW: Yes, that was nice to see as sometimes it does feel like we are banging our heads against a brick wall trying to convince people of that… Venues mainly (laughing).
MW: So a big shot in the arm for Mama then?
JW: Hopefully yes. I think the Genesis tour has revitalised us all. If I’m honest I did think of retiring during the darkest days of 2020. It just seemed like a huge effort to get the band moving again and I wasn’t sure I was up to it?
MW: Really?
JW: Yes. The effort required contacting venues, arranging dates, doing rehearsals and travelling to and from venues etc, seemed too much as one point for me. There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes with Mama that the audience never sees. All they see are five people on stage playing. A show for them means a happy two and a half hours. A show for us means a happy two and a half hours on stage and a not so happy 14 hour day away from our families. Not to mention rehearsal time, promotion effort and costs.
MW: What changed you mind then?
JW: The first rehearsal after 14 months. Yes. I went into the rehearsal room thinking, “if this doesn’t go well then I have to make the call to carry on or not.” So after we set the equipment up and made noises for a bit we started a new song. Halfway through the first verse I knew I was staying. The band sounded great, as good as it ever did. It’s fair to say that rehearsal saved me.
MW: What was the new song?
JW: Burning Rope. It’s always been a favourite of mine and to have the chance to sing that was brilliant.
Through the eyes of JW... Genesis @ Liverpool
MW: So… The Next Domino? How did that happen?
JW: We had talked about doing an audio recreation of whatever Genesis played on this tour as soon as it was announced. We guessed that we probably played a lot of the songs in the past anyway, so it seemed like a good idea. When the tour was postponed we didn’t know if it would go ahead so we still needed to refresh our live set. So we learned four new songs. They will still be played at some shows where we have two nights at the same venue. Now we have seen the Genesis show we are all very keen to do the set they did.
MW: Will you be lowering the song keys like Genesis did?
JW: No. It’s a lot of mucking around and it then makes it easier for mistakes to creep in so we will be playing them in the normal keys as I can still sing them thankfully (laughing).
MW: What about the visual aspect of the tour?
JW: Well we have gone out and spent ten million quid on a light show (laughs). No we are revamping some aspects of the show though.
MW: Sounds great. So when does this all start?
JW: We have one show in 2021 at The Atkinson Theatre in Southport where we will play our normal set with a couple of those new songs thrown in. Then we will start rehearsals for The Next Domino shows in 2022.
MW: So many more years of Genesis music to come from Mama then?
JW: Well things can change in a moment, but yeah, we plan to be here for a while.
MW: Good! Well good luck with the shows and see you soon.
JW: Thanks.
As always, questions, comments and ditties can be posted below and we’ll try to answer each and every one!
Join a Mama HQ band meeting
The 2021 Mama Relaunch Meetup
Hi all. Thanks for stopping by to check out what is happening with Mama as we look to relaunch the band when the virus pandemic has largely disappeared from society. It’s been a long wait!
Here at Mama HQ, we were discussing between us via email how to get a proper meeting up and running even though we cannot meet physically for obvious reasons. It occurred to us that the best way currently available to us as a band is to host a Zoom session or similar. Then someone had the bright idea of inviting friends and fellow Genesis fans onto the call so we could have an online discussion about Mama, the bands future plans and of course all things Genesis.
Join us!
So, that’s what we are going to do and you are invited. On Wednesday 7th April 2021, we will be hosting a band meeting / Q&A session / general online Genesis themed party for anyone who wants to join us. We have no idea if anyone beyond Mama HQ has any interest in this idea, so it’s impossible for us to guess how many people might turn up to such an event. This could be your opportunity to ask the band questions, put your Genesis stories out to a wider audience and impress other Genesis fans with your supreme Genesis knowledge. It might also be rather amusing to watch a band try to control an unruly mass of Genesis fans talking about their number one favourite band (that’s Genesis, not Mama, just in case you were wondering).
So, if this sounds like something you would like to be involved in, all you need is a computer, laptop, mobile or tablet device that can run Zoom. Most such devices will run Zoom easily. Next you need to sign up to our email newsletter, because that’s where we will be publishing the link to join the session (we can’t publish the link in public because then we would be gate-crashed by nasty spammers). Finally, you need to clear your diary on Wednesday 7th April 2021 from 7.30pm onwards. We’ve no idea how long the session might last – it might be an hour or it might be three. You will of course be able to come and go as you please and most importantly, this session is free to join. No fee. Nada.
Is this something of interest to you? Let us know in the comments below.
Here’s the link to sign up to our email list:
We will send the link to join the Zoom session via the email newsletter around 24 hours before the session starts. Add us to your safe senders list when you get the sign up confirmation email, so you can be sure the link will get through your spam folder when we send it.
We might see some of you out there! 🙂
Photos from Heswall Hall shows
At the weekend, Mama performed two shows at Heswall Hall on The Wirral. Both shows were sold out and we had a cracking audience, which really made for a great show all round.
On top of that, Moonshot also debuted their brand new album on the Saturday night which went down really well!
Friend of the band, Peter Lovatt was kind enough to shoot some photos for us at both shows. Check them out below!
Dance on a Volcano – a Breakdown
Here at Mama HQ, we’ve been enjoying our traditional Summer break – you know…. rain, rain, rain and more rain!
As you know, we don’t generally put shows into the diary for the Summer months but that doesn’t mean we stop working altogether. Far from it. Often we are discussing the set list and how we can change it in the future or maybe ideas on how we can improve our show and add things to it to make it even more spectacular. Often, we get involved in other musical projects because each member of the band has such projects going on.
But today, we wanted to share a cool video we found on YouTube. Whilst this video wasn’t produced by Mama, it does a really great job of illustrating in great detail, just how much work goes into each track we perform live. We figured some of you would really enjoy seeing what goes into a Genesis track and hence, getting an insight into the musical genius of Genesis music.
If only Rick Beato would produce these videos for all Genesis tracks – it would certainly make our lives so much easier! How about it Rick? 🙂
Want to check out some more cool videos from Rick Beato? Head over to his YouTube channel here: www.youtube.com
Mama at The Lowry, Salford (2019)
The whole show, for your pleasure!
We’ve never done this before…. Posted a video of an entire show in one go! So, we hope you enjoy our set at The Lowry. make sure you switch the video to full HD quality, if it’s not by default.
Special thanks to everyone who turned out to see us. Thanks for also bearing with the emergency services who were rather busy closing all roads leading to the venue. We know it was a lot harder to reach the venue than it should have been, so it’s great that so many of you made it to the show.
We filmed this on a pro HD video camera and used but ambient and desk audio mixed together to give it a bit of atmosphere. The full set list looks like this:
First Half
Deep In The Motherlode
Land of Confusion
Carpet Crawlers
Squonk
Behind The Lines
Duchess
Guide Vocal
Turn It On Again
No Son Of Mine
Follow You Follow Me
Domino
Second Half
Mama
Lamb Lies Down on Broadway / Musical Box (outro)
Fading Lights
Home By The Sea / Second Home By The Sea
I Know What I Like
Sledgehammer
In The Cage / Cinema Show / Slippermen / Afterglow
Dance On A Volcano / Los Endos / Suppers Ready (outro)
The Knife
Feel free to leave a comment in the comments section below. We\’d love to get your feedback on our show.
In The Cage Medley – Wigan 2019
Wigan Rocked!
We just wanted to thank everyone who came to our show in Wigan. Much appreciated! As always, we had a video camera running at that show, so we pulled out In The Cage Medley from that film and posted it here for everyone to enjoy. The video has ambient audio recorded on the night.
Next Show
Our next show is also fairly local to Wigan. We\’ll be at The Lowry in Salford, Sunday 26th May 2019. That\’s less than two weeks off! If you want tickets to see the show, stop by the theatre box office here: www.thelowry.com
Deep in the Motherlode – Colne 2019
A Weekend of Genesis Music – Kinross 2019
Today we are publishing a video from our most recent show at Colne Muni. Hope you like the opening track to our show – Deep in the Motherlode!
This weekend, we are once again travelling up to Kinross to do our annual weekend of Genesis at Backstage at the Green Hotel. We always have a superb time performing in Kinross and two nights of shows allows us to relax a bit and have a laugh, take in some local sights and hit the coffee shop by the waters edge. Bliss, you might say!
So, want tickets to the show? Perhaps you want to take in a round of golf at one of the many stunning courses in the area and finish your night off with a Genesis party? Kinross is where you need to be!
Tickets for the shows are available here:
2019 marks the year we will be performing two Genesis sets with minimal crossover between the Friday night and Saturday night. No doubt we will also throw in a few surprises along the way too.
Roll on Friday… See you there! 🙂
Photos From Gainsborough
A Mama first…. Photo Gallery!
Due to space in the control box at Trinity Arts Centre in Gainsborough, we were unable to run a video camera or any recording equipment to share some of the show on our website. However, Dave Broome, our resident roadie, came to the rescue by way of his camera and so we thought we\’d share some of his photos.
Unusual this because, we don\’t think we\’ve ever shared photos from one of our shows in this way.
Thanks Broomy! 🙂
You can click the images below for a bigger version. Feel free to post your amusing captions in the comments section below the photos.
