ARCHIVE 1967-1975

I believe that this effort should either have been limited to a triple CD avoiding the useless fourth one that covers their pre-Trespass career and really useless and boring (what's the use of getting demo versions of this era ? Should it be a quad one, it should have more live moments (or even demo) from Trespassand Nursery (the BBC Archive 1970-1972 is full of fantastic moments from this period). The live CD from their Rainbow concert in 1973 is gorgeous (there is a non-offical CD which covers almost the entirety of this concert with the opener "Watcher Of The Skies" and "The Battle od Epping Forrest". What we were missing in "Genesis Live" is here : "Supper's Ready" as well as the intro sections from Peter. The CD starts with "Dancing Out" which is the second track of the full concert, coming after "Watcher". I like it better than the studio version (the weird guitar at the end being cut for their live renditions). Then comes "Firth" : most of time (like here), the fantastic piano intro is cut off. I really do not understand why. During the second half of their US tour, they did perfrom the track in its entirety (I am not sure if they did so in all of them but I suspect it. On the non-official "Live At The Miami Guzman Theatre" (recorded on March 9, 1974) the whole track is rendered. Anyway, this version is excellent with a great Steve in command. I won't mention anything on "More Fool Me". The live version of "Supper's Ready" is of course a moment that each Genesis fan was waiting for about twenty-five years. It starts with a three minutes'introductory story from Peter. Full of humour and joy. This version is superior to the studio one (IMO) but I still prefer the one recorded in Paris and available on "Seconds Out" (musically I mean even if the flute passages are lissing). Of course, visually it is another story. One can get the full blown picture of this epic song in the non - offical video called "Live At The Shepperton Studios : Peter jerking gently during some passages of "Lover'sLeap", some nice fluting of course, Peter dressd up with a flower mask (a flower ?) during "How Dare I Be So Beautiful" and "Willow Farm", and wering the strange mask we can see on the cover of the "Genesis Live" record during "Apocalypse in 9/8". Quite an emotional moment to SEE these images. "I Know What I Like" will be the last track available from this concert. Fortunately, in those days the audience participation was not in the mood and what we get here is the pure beauty of the track in the standard format. The remaining part of this CD consists of a "live" rendition of "Stagnation" from the famous BBC archives I already have mentioned several times in my Genesis reviews (but hell ! Why only one of those while this double CD contains sixteen (yes 16) songs, some being duplicates like "Stagnation", "Hogweed" and "The Musical Box) ? It remains a mystery. The last three songs are single versions of unreleased album tracks. "Happy The Man" a song in the style of "Harold The Barrel" (from the Cryme period), "Twilight Alehouse" B-side of "I Know What I Like" and really a great track (it should have deserved to be on an album, really). There is also the single (and edited) version of "Watcher". This CD alone is making this expensive effort worthwile (I remember having paid almost 2500 BEF for it - which is the equivalent of 62 ?). For your information, I will mention the full tracklist of the Rainbow concert from 1973 (this is the most probable one since different sources are a bit misleading) : 1) Watcher Of The Skies 2) Dancing With The Moonlit Knight 3 )I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe) 4) Firth Of Fifth 5) More Fool Me 6) The Battle Of Epping Forest (great rendition of this extraordinary play) 7) Supper's Ready

The double CD with the live representation from "The Lamb" was recorded during an L.A. representation at the Shrine Auditorium. I have a particular love for the live rendition for "The Lamb". It was the single concert with their greatest line-up I saw live in Brussels (in 75). During the concert there were three screens where slides were constantly displayed (more than a thousand in total). The "theatrical" style of Gabriel was quite sober I remember (on the contrary of all that has been said about it. Most of the time he was wearing a pair of jeans and a leather jacket. At times there were some effects like in "The Lamia" when he was surrounded by a coloured cylinder and of course in "The Colony Of Slipperman" where he was wearing this ugly, bestial costume of the creature. Some tracks (weak in studio) gain a lot in this live version : "The Grand Parade"and "The Waiting Room" for instance. Something stupid about this recording though : at the end of the show, the technicians ran out of tape and they could not record the end of "It". Yes sir ! Fortunately they did not cut the spoken introduction to the story of Rael, our hero ... Four stars for all these great moments (I would have rate it five stars if the fourth CD had been skipped).