GENESIS LIVE

Genesis

Symphonic Prog

4.00 | 1068 ratings

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clarke2001
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator

Watcher Of The Skies: 5 stars. Get 'Em Out By Friday: 5 stars. The Return Of The Giant Hogweed: 5 stars. The Musical Box: 5 stars. The Knife: 5 stars.

Overall rating: 4 stars.

WHAT?!?

How to explain? This is my valuation of ART, not exact science. Songs are great - varying from excellent to astonishing. What's wrong in the overall picture. Obviously, not much, since four stars is still quite high rating, but something is missing here.

Guess what's missing?

Let's take a look at the total time. 46 minutes and 43 seconds. You're right, you've guessed it. It's way too short. Of course, short but excellent material is not the same as shortage of excellent material: I really doubt anyone would rate, for example, PREMIATA FORNERIA MARCONI "Storia Di Un Minuto" with four stars (if a reviewers thinks music deserves 5 stars) simply because is very short.

No. But this is live album, and it ends almost abruptly. An extra minus is lack of communication with the audience; we have "an unaccompained bass pedal solo" and that's about it. Great live recordings must provide an illusion that listener is there, and this one is not the best in that (it's far from the worst though). Sound quality is everything but perfect - why so many (bad) recordings from the seventies have accented frequency mid-range? It's not hissy, barrel-y, or muffled, it's just awfully dry.

Another thing that could be addressed is the performance itself; personally I think it's fine, although I'm missing a minute or two of extended improvisation or jamming (within the symphonic rock context!). Some people prefer live performances to be exactly the same as studio recordings, some want literally decomposed songs, some people love spontaneous jammings - so this is not the major issue. Actually, none of aforementioned issues is a crucial one, but when we sum all that, it turns out this recording is not a five star material. Indeed it is not: it is by no means essential one in GENESIS' catalogue, neither a masterpiece. But it's surely excellent addition to your basket of joy, and surely will reward a listener with miryads of enjoyable moments.

clarke2001 | 4/5 | 2007-10-27

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