POP REVIEW : Genesis Sans Grandeur, Plus Gags

The 1992 version of Genesis really marks the end point of an Exodus . . . from self-seriousness.

In a lengthy show at a nearly full Dodger Stadium on Thursday, the veteran band at one early point--after a crack about bell-bottoms--reached back past its recent spate of pop hits to the more expansive epics of the distant past. “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway” (from 1975), is still musically impressive. But now, of course, instead of a climax with Peter Gabriel in masks and greasepaint, you get Phil Collins banging his tambourine alternately on his foot and his head in a manic little soft-shoe that owes more to Monty Python’s ministry of silly walks than to the delusions of grandeur of the “progressive rock” era.

Whether or not one cares for the bearhug of cuteness that is the trademark of Collins’ separate but equal solo career, whatever of that carries over to his Genesis duties--and a fair amount does--helps offset what little still lingers of the band’s traditional pomposity. And vice versa. Viewed as a system of checks and balances, it’s not an unfair trade-off.

The use of rear-projection film and computer animation footage on three movable rear screens brought back a tiny element of the group’s famous former theatricality. But there was little in the show of the accompanying portentousness that still marks, say, a Pink Floyd--not with Regular Guy Collins always on hand with a preceding nudge and wink.

Lest anyone believe that the computer-generated, shape-shifting Edvard Munch screaming-art knockoffs and dark castles projected behind the slightly mystical “Home by the Sea” were really meant to be ominous, Collins introduced the song with some inevitable audience-participation pep-rallying, encouraging patrons to shimmy their hands in the air in order to “make contact” with “the other world.” (Anyone considering not joining in this mock-spiritualism was summarily warned that they would be branded “cool,” a cardinal sin among this cheerful crowd.)

And even during the song “Domino,” when Collins was elevated on a platform to a spot directly in front of the overhead screens--now projecting a colorful starfield tableaux right out of the “2001” climax--it was impossible to take his ultimate-tripping figure seriously, nor probably would he be expecting us to. Keir Dullea, meet Benny Hill.

After the self-reflexive grandness of the recent U2 shows--the having-the-cake-and-eating-it Big Rock Show that’s really Parodying Yet Embracing a Big Rock Show--the eagerly puppyish, even self-consciously down-to-earth and likably comic figure that Collins cuts isn’t unwelcome in the stadium setting. Even in front of 60,000, he plays the genial, good-hearted, underdressed-for-the-occasion carnival barker who happens to tap a mean tom-tom.

On the other hand, ingratiating comic persona or no, Collins is no satirist. His five-years-too-late impression of a TV evangelist before and during “Jesus He Knows Me” was the most dreadfully uninspired and trendy kind of social commentary. And not to sound like Neil Young, but entreaties against greed aren’t entirely becoming of a band so historically eager to embrace beer ads and corporate sponsorship. (Were the running “pledge drive” figures appearing on the screens a spoof of the Trinity Broadcasting Network, or real-time receipts from the T-shirt booths?)

The goofiness of the main set climaxed with “I Can’t Dance,” featuring yet another of Collins’ and cohorts’ silly walks--a routine that was not necessarily any more or less goofy than, say, the somber shtick that the Cure will be fostering at next weekend’s stadium mega-show. The level of ambition represented here is low, decidedly. But any die-hard fans from the olden days who at this point were grumbling that Genesis has fallen a long way to the middle of the road from its days of purposeful grandeur still have the big Emerson, Lake & Palmer reunion tour to, ahem, look forward to this summer.