First off, the title’s a misnomer that sells this disc short. What you get is an hour of Collins in ’92 and 40 minutes more from ’78. It’s this earlier stuff that displays the real peacock that Collins was back then: an ice-cool lover man in red flares, grunting and gyrating around his Telecaster. Halfway through the opening 10-minute solo he struts through the crowd, sits in the middle of the audience and continues to play with one hand while stroking his chin with the other, as if appraising his own performance. The energy is tangible. His band is good too, laying down tough funk and weighty blues while Collins unleashes his endless supply of guitar mayhem.
The 1992 footage is cleaner and better put together, with a younger backing band. Collins was 62 at this point and he’d mellowed in the intervening years, but not too much. The flashy playing is now tempered with deeper emotion and a greater sense of humour as he scats along to his solos and pretends the sound of his guitar is a fly buzzing around his head. He still busts out an enormous solo while shaking hands with the whole audience though, and finds time for some slow burners too. Hugely entertaining.
