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The second visit by this fine Italian band to these shores with the promise of plenty of early Genesis material to compliment their own original material was too enticing for us not to attend. My mate Carlos and I set off early afternoon to attend The Peel for the first time with a huge air of expectation. The journey was straightforward enough and with a few hours to kill we wandered around the area, found some dinner and then returned to the venue for a couple of beers before the show commenced. On the way down we had made a list of six favourite early Genesis numbers we hoped they would play; Looking For Someone, Twilight Alehouse, Dusk, Seven Stones, Stagnation and Fountain of Salmacis. We felt this was entirely optimistic but hoped that maybe one or two would appear in the set list. As it turned out our optimism was not unfounded.
After the set opener of Shining Bald Heads, a favourite from the album "Vacuum" they were straight into the early Genesis material with a wonderful rendition of "Looking For Someone" followed by the equally great "White Mountain". Then came a huge surprise, a number from "From Genesis to Revelation" which quite frankly I really hadn't expected. The song they chose was "Going Out To Get You", and they certainly beefed it up a bit from the original! As the evening wore on they played a couple of songs from the "Primitive" album but also covered some unexpected Genesis material including "Twilight Alehouse", "Dusk", "Time Table", "The Fountain of Salmacis", "The Return of Giant Hogweed", "Seven Stones" and a really superb rendition of "Harold the Barrel". There was almost certainly another song from "Genesis to Revelation" but sadly I cannot remember which track it was. Predictably the set closed with "The Knife" and then "The Fisherman" from the Night**tch album "Twilight" which towards the end merged seamlessly into the "Apocolypse in 9/8" and on to the end of "Supper's Ready". An encore of another of their original songs rounded off the evening nicely after a set of two hours without any break.
All round this was a tremendous gig, the bravery of their choice of Genesis material coupled with the incredible passion that was so evident in their performance made it a truly memorable occasion and the only real disappointment of the evening was the paucity of paying punters for the evening. For those of us who were there this was an evening that we will remember for many years to come and I cannot wait to see them live again.
After their performance they were happy to chat to many of the audience who were still there and perhaps unsurprisingly they turned out to be extremely nice people! The humility of lead singer Simone Rosetti was most unusual for a frontman of a band, he clearly loves both his own music but especially that of early Genesis and the passion with which the whole band played was also evident in conversation with them afterwards. I beg anyone who reads this review to go and check out these guys if you have the chance, it will be the best money you have spent in a long time! In my opinion there is no other band who come close to capturing the flavour and magic of early Genesis as well as these guys do both with their own material but also with their covers of Genesis material. Yes the Musical Box and G2 are amazing at replicating the early Genesis shows, but only at large scale venues, the like of which Genesis only played after some years of struggle in tiny venues. This was so much more like how it would have been for the fledgling Genesis back in 1970 as they struggled to make an impression in this country. Of course it was in Italy that Genesis first made decent chart positions and it seems fitting that an Italian band should go further back in time than any other band has to my knowledge in paying homage to their heroes. I have to be honest and say I never thought I'd ever hear any band play "Harold The Barrel" or "Dusk" live in a Genesis tribute but I have been proved wrong in a manner that has left me feeling content, excited and eager for more! Well done to The Watch for a splendid evening!
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The Watch at The Peel, Kingston 16-5-2008
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