"Genesis Visible Touch Virgin Music Video 1987" - A review by Iain Buckle.

The latest Genesis LP has spawned many hit singles and this 41 minutes of video includes the promos to most of them as well as a mini documentary of the Invisible Touch tour.

The first video is for Anything She Does, which was used to introduce the band at their UK shows. It features Benny Hill as an unlikely security guard and shows the escapades he has trying to keep unwanted guests out of the backstage area and more importantly, keeping the group’s food intact!

Throwing It All Away comes next. This song was released on both sides of the Atlantic to differing levels of success. It features footage shot by Phil Collins and cost the princely sum of £25 to make. It is more of a mini documentary on its own but also helps to show the humour and hard work that are part and parcel of a rock group’s tour.

Tonight, Tonight, Tonight is a song about drug addiction and is a very sinister song accompanied by an equally disturbing video. Shot in New York, it uses that city’s slum areas to illustrate the point and with the use of subdued lighting and silhouetted figures, it is very effective.#

Land Of Confusion is Mike Rutherford’s first “protest” song and despite the obvious humour of the caricatures and puppets the message is very potent. The point of the song is to tell us what a mess our world is becoming when it should be so beautiful.

In Too Deep became the film title song for Mona Lisa and as such you would expect it to feature clips from the film. This is not the case, in fact the video is simply a studio shot of the group playing the song and after the theatrics of the previous songs, it is a welcome change.

Invisible Touch rounds off the promo section of the video and is once again a good example of the humour that is part of Genesis. Phil, Mike and Tony play each other’s instruments and Phil has fun head butting Mike and chasing one of the road crew around the set as well as forgetting his cue at the start of the song, something you won’t see him do live!

The documentary lasts about fifteen minutes and is designed to help us appreciate all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes on the latest world tour. The video contains mini interviews with each band member of the band. Tony explains The Brazilian and jokingly plugs his albums “which nobody buys”. Phil talks about the set and the new lighting rig as well as explaining how Chester came to be in the band. Mike lets us know about Land Of Confusion, his first protest song, and also tells us jokingly that this is the group’s last tour.

Visible Touch represents excellent value for money - it is a shame that similar videos can’t be made for earlier tours/albums. For the promo collector, it is really the only way of obtaining the complete promos, but for any Genesis fan it is well worth buying and it retails for £9.95.