When the Oceania dates for early 2019 were announced it became official: This will be the first time in his solo career that Phil Collins extends a concert tour across three calendar years. The tour motto has been updated to honour this circumstance: Not Dead Yet – Live becomes Still Not Dead Yet – Live. In a similar manner, the Both Sidestour became the Far Side Of The World tour in 1995, while the Trip Into The Light tour became the Dance Into Europe tour in 1997 when it crossed the Atlantic (reports from those tours can be found on our website).
The tour began at the Echo Arena in Liverpool, UK, on 2 June, 2017. At that time it was the return no one thought would happen anymore, the return of a visibly frail Phil Collins to the big stage after almost ten years. What began as a brief comeback tour through a handful of European cities extended by no less than five other legs of the tour. England and Scotland were next (in November 2017), then South America (February and March 2018), then North America (October 2018). Soon Phil Collins will tour Oceania (January, February 2019). Almost exactly eighteen months after the tour left Europe (after the Birmingham show on December 03, 2017) the tour will come back to Europe. Additional concerts in the "old world" had never been ruled out and became ever more likely, especially when Collins’ tour bass player Leland Sklar talked about it a few weeks ago.
The third European leg of this tour will begin exactly two years after the initial tour start in Liverpool at the Ernst Happel stadium in Vienna, Austria. Does the name ring a bell? Indeed, a show at this stadium had been planned as the second show of the First Final Farewell tour in 2004 before it was moved for logistical reasons (slow ticket sales may have been the real reason) to the smaller Stadthalle. That show took place on 3 June 2004, almost exactly fifteen years before the day Phil Collins will play in Austria’s capital again.
From Vienna they will go to Lyon, France, where Phil Collins has played on every tour since 1985. This will be the first time he does not play a theatre show but at the Stade Groupama, which was inaugurated in 2011 as Stade des Lumières. The venue is also known as Parc OL (short for the local football club Olympique Lyon) and has nothing to do with the old Stade Gerland, where Genesis played in 2007.
After the brief stint in France Phil Collins comes to Germany, as he has done on every European tour. He will play in stadiums in Stuttgart and Berlin. This is going to be a first for Stuttgart because he has only in the Schleyerhalle. Open-air concert are not rare for Phil Collins in Berlin – remember the famous Waldbühne video of the Serious tour and the 1994 show at the Maifeld next to the Olympiastadion. You could say that Phil Collins has slowly approached his 2019 venue over the years.
A show in Denmark was not necessarily in the cards. It was 1998 when he last played there, at the Copenhagen Tivoli on his second Big Band tour. Collins will leave the Danish capital for the first time and play in central Denmark: Aarhus is the second largest city in Denmark (though Copenhagen is much larger), and the Stadion Ceres Park, home to Aarhus GF football club, is going to host his show.
The tour stop in Bergen, Norway, is a similar surprise. As in Denmark, Collins has only played the Norwegian capital so far, with his last solo show there dating back to 1997. In 1998 he played a brief set at a show to celebrate the awarding of the Nobel Peace prize. Like Aarhus in Denmark, Bergen in West Norway is the second largest city in the country. The venue, Koengen, is not a stadium but an open air concert venue where several concerts and festivals take place every year.
The tour of Scandinavia ends in the Swedish capital Stockholm. As of now (27/11/18) no venue has been given, though Phil Collins has played the Globe Arena every time since 1990. The exact venue will be announced in the next week or two.
Back to Germany. Hannover is a Phil Collins (and Genesis) stronghold with no less than four sold-out shows at the Niedersachsenstadion in 1994. The HDI Arena, where Genesis played in 2007, stands on the very same location. There might be an additional show in Hannover: There is a two-day break before the show continues in Italy, and if demand for tickets is high that gap may be stopped with another show.
Milan hosted the first show of the First Final Farewell tour in 2004. The Mediolanum Forum was still called Filaforum when Phil Collins played there. This will be (depending on the Stockholm venue) the first and one of only two indoor concerts next summer.
It may remain the only show in Italy, too, for the next day will see Phil Collins cross the Alps to play the only show in Switzerland. As in 2004, the Collins tour circus will stop at the Letzigrund Stadion in Zurich.
Moving down the river, Phil Collins will play Nijmegen, The Netherlands, for the first time. He has not played there with Genesis nor solo. Their usual tour stops in the Netherlands were Den Haag, Rotterdam, Utrecht and Amsterdam. The show at the biggest town in the Gelderland province will take place at the Goffertpark, an open-air venue in the park with the same name.
Cologne is (besides London), the second city on the (Still) Not Dead Yet – Live tour to which Phil Collins returns. London happened, of course, because he fell in his hotel room and had to cancel two shows at the Royal Albert Hall. These cancelled shows were made up for in later 2017 on his tour through England and Scotland. Cologne, Germany, hosted no less than five shows at the Lanxess Arena in June 2017. Some two years later the returns to the city with the famous cathedral to play the RheinEnergie stadium for the second time after 2004. After this show there is another two-day break which suggests that an additional show may be inserted here, but Cologne will definitely be the Not Dead Yet capital.
Phil Collins has always played in the Olympiapark in Munich, Germany. In 2004 he moved to the Olympiastadion from Olympiahalle. In 2019 he is going to play at the stadium that is only used for concerts nowadays. The fact that no less than five (and possible even more) concerts are scheduled in Germany indicated how large a fan basis Phil Collins has here. The logistically advantageous position in the centre of Europe does not hurt either.
Phil Collins has played in Prague only in 1997 and 2005. Had he not fallen ill just before them, his First Final Farewell tour shows there would have been two of many. As it was, the concerts were moved to the end of the tour and became his last full solo concerts until he returned to the stage two years ago. This (and Milan) is going to be the only indoor concert on this leg of the tour.
Despite many shows in Eastern Europe on the First Final Farewell tour 2005 there is a glaring gap in his tour schedules: Poland. Phil Collins is going to play in Warsaw for the first time. In 2007 he played a famous show in a thunderstorm in Chorzow near Katowice, now he plays the capital. The tour will end there at the PGE Narodowy – at least for the time being. There is no need to worry about bad weather: They roof of the Warsaw stadium can be closed.
Despite all the enthusiasm the tour dates will have triggered in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe the disappointment on the Iberian peninsula will be equally large. Spanish and Portuguese fans will have to travel at least to Lyon or Milan to see Phil Collins. And British fans will wonder despite the exclusive shows in late 2017 why Collins does not play a single show on the island.
This leg of the tour comprises at least fifteen shows. This brings the total for the tour up to 79, and the concept can be extended indefinitely. If one additional show is announced the number of gigs equals those of the Dance Into The Light tour in 1997, and surpassed it if a second one is added. Never mind a “selection of shows”, we are talking about a full-blown world tour that has quite the size of all his previous tours. Who would have thought two or three years ago? In 1997, his tour was sponsored by Toyota. Their slogan in Germany was “Nothing’s impossible” back then. But it obviously very true today.
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