At London’s O2 Arena on March 26, 2022, Phil Collins sat at the microphone while Nic Collins played the drums behind him. For the audience, it was the final night of Genesis’s The Last Domino? tour. For the Collins family, the farewell placed a father and son together onstage, with a daughter watching from the audience.
Phil Collins was 71. Nic Collins was 20. The performance brought their generations together through the music that had shaped the family’s life.
The frustration of being unable to play
In an interview with BBC Breakfast months before the concert, Phil Collins spoke plainly about physical limitations. Holding a drumstick with one hand had become difficult. Phil Collins also expressed frustration at being unable to play alongside Nic Collins.
That detail gives the farewell concert a particular emotional weight. Drumming had been central to Phil Collins’s identity as a musician. Now, during the final Genesis tour, Nic Collins was responsible for the instrument while Phil Collins concentrated on singing.
The arrangement allowed father and son to contribute to the same performance. Nic Collins’s role carried the practical demands of keeping time for an established band, with Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford also onstage. This was a working musical partnership within a family, unfolding in front of an arena audience.
A farewell delivered with a joke
During the London show, Phil Collins acknowledged the occasion directly, telling the audience that the tour’s final stop was also the last show for Genesis.
Then Phil Collins added a joke:
“After tonight we’ve all got to get real jobs.”
The humor gave a familiar, conversational quality to a moment that could easily have become overwhelmed by ceremony. A career spanning decades was reaching its closing concert, and Phil Collins still had room for a dry remark about what would happen on Monday morning.
Genesis had returned to touring after a long absence. By the time the musicians reached the O2, the farewell had acquired a visible family dimension: Phil Collins singing from a chair, Nic Collins at the drum kit, and the songs continuing around them.
Lily Collins watched the family share the stage
Lily Collins attended the concert and afterward shared a tribute to both her father and her brother. Lily Collins described witnessing the final show as a memory to treasure, thanked Phil Collins for being an inspiration, and expressed pride in Nic Collins.
That response helps bring the scale of the evening into focus. Thousands of listeners were watching the conclusion of a band’s touring history. Lily Collins was also watching two members of the same family do their jobs together on a very public stage.
For Nic Collins, the responsibility was audible throughout the performance. For Phil Collins, continuing as the singer meant adapting to what remained physically possible. Their shared presence gave the farewell a story that reached beyond the length of the set or the significance of the venue.
The lasting image is easy to understand without knowing every chapter of Genesis’s history: Phil Collins at the microphone, Nic Collins behind the drums, and Lily Collins there to witness both. A band’s final concert became a family memory, preserved in the sound of a father singing while a son kept time.