GENESIS LIVE

A decent Genesis live album with good renditions of a couple of tracks from Foxtrot, a couple from Nursery Cryme, and The Knife from Trespass. The main problem with the album is that it doesn't really add much to the studio renditions of these tracks; in particular, the editing out of Gabriel's stories introducing the songs means that it's in no way an accurate representation of the live Genesis experience at the time of recording. Plus, the early 70s recording quality means that the renditions of the songs aren't quite as clean and crystal-clear as the album versions. Sequence the tracks from the studio albums in the correct order, and record a clip of yourself saying "This is [song title]" in your best Peter Gabriel voice to slot between them, and presto: you already own this album. Fun, but in no way vital.

The remaster from the recent Genesis boxed set of their live albums adds a brace of bonus tracks from the Shrine Auditorium stop on the Lamb Lies Down On Broadway tour. It's a nice sentiment, but I think it's fundamentally misguided. For one thing, it means the album is left with a selection of tracks from two entirely separate concerts years apart, even further diluting the authentic live experience.

Another, greater issue is that if you're really interested in a live recording from the Lamb tour, are you seriously going to be satisfied with just a quarter of the Lamb? Probably not - you want the whole rendition of the thing, and that is in fact what you get on the first two discs of the Genesis Archive boxed set, which includes the Shrine Auditorium show in its entirety.

The maddening thing is that a much-bootlegged early version of the album makes the rounds - with exceptional sound quality because it's sourced from an original test pressing - which is greatly improved. This early configuration of the album would have been a double disc release, with Peter's stories intact and a full rendition of Supper's Ready. Hopefully, someone in the Genesis camp will eventually see sense and put out a "restored version" of Genesis Live which reincorporates this material to properly reflect the live experience - I'd gladly tack on another star for such an issue.