Genesis reunites for tour

LONDON — Prog-rock giants Genesis announced Tuesday they were reuniting for their first tour in 15 years.

Phil Collins, 55, Mike Rutherford, 56, and Tony Banks, 56, said they planned to kick off a 20-date stadium tour of Europe next June.

The "Turn it on Again" tour — named for one of their hits — begins in Helsinki, Finland, June 11 and ends July 14 with a free concert in front of the Colosseum in Rome.

A series of U.S. dates will follow, the band said.

Genesis was founded in the mid-1960s by Rutherford, Banks, Anthony Phillips and singer Peter Gabriel, who left the group in 1975 and was replaced on vocals by drummer Collins. They became one of the biggest bands of the 1970s and 80s, with hits such as ``Follow You, Follow Me," "That's All" and "Invisible Touch."

The band last toured in 1991 and Collins quit the band to go solo in 1996.

Announcing the tour Tuesday, Collins — whose solo career has netted him a fortune — said the reunion was not motivated by money.

"I think we are all loaded enough not to worry about where the next million or two is coming from," he said.

"I just felt now was the right time to have a go at it."

Banks said the tour would give fans the chance to hear a side of the band that went beyond their hits.

"Genesis has another side to it, a more complex area of music," he said. "One side gets slightly more attention than the other. We are trying to reacquaint people. Genesis is not particularly a group mentioned very much these days and we want to remind people we did do a lot of things."

TorontoStar