CONCERT / Ray Wilson and Axel Nagel in Aalen’s live club „Rock It“

Celebrity living on petit style

The man has truly played in front of a larger audience before. But that he let a larger audience have more of him is hardly imaginable. As former singer of “Stiltskin” and most of all as successor for Phil Collins with “Genesis” Ray Wilson had lived in real grand style before. Well, both bands don’t exist anymore, but Ray Wilson does: on Saturday evening he performed at “Rock It” in front of as little as 100 guests. But he proved that this style can be just as good as the grand style one.
God, how can he only bear with this? That’s what many guests asked themselves in view of the meagrely filled venue at “Rock It”. To put a long story short – that was no red carpet treatment for the former singer of a world renowned band and of the “Stiltskin”-song “Inside”, that haunting tune from the Levi’s advert.
Axel Nagel hasn’t come so far yet, but he again proved his skill, too. He, Markus Braun on the contrabass and Steffen Köble on percussions acted as support for the Scot for 45 minutes in an unexcited manner and with humorous stories to the bluesy songs from Nagel’s solo record “360 Grad” (360 degrees). The audience liked the music and didn’t give the impression of just waiting for Wilson.
He entered the stage in a woollen cap, re-arranged the stage and helped lead guitarist Steve Wilson, who had to cope with a plastered leg and walk on crutches, to the stool. And he began – with a Genesis song. As the happy faces with “No Son of Mine” proved, there were quite a lot of them, who most of all came for this reason. And Wilson didn’t disappoint them: He presented hits like “Carpet Crawlers” or “Turn it on Again”, but also rather unknown songs like “Ripples” in his own style: acoustic, yet voluminous, but less bombastic and slightly more melancholic.
He also achieved this by absolutely harmonically playing in key together with keyboarder Irvin Duguid and Steve Wilson, who often sang the background vocals with his soft and bright voice, perfectly fitting to that of Wilson. His one sounds bright too, but more rocky and powerful than that of Phil Collins.
But Wilson is an independent singer and songwriter, who expresses himself impressively melancholic and from his very heart. In between the Genesis hits he placed his own songs like “Magic Train”, “Goodbye Baby Blue” or “The actor” – melancholic and rocking songs making you close your eyes and get goose-pimples. And most of all it was by this where Wilson pointed out, that playing in front of a small audience is no disgrace but a pleasure. In the end he had won some new fans with his music, his modest nature and several encores. But at least he could easily have even done some more.