THREE SIDES LIVE

This album takes a lot of flak, owing to the inclusion of many songs from the 'crossover' albums, Duke and Abacab - the two albums whick took Genesis from being a dying progressive dinosaur, to a more populist, pop-rock band, and their first brush with full on commercial success with the attendant (say it softly) radio play.

Give the album a chance though (ignoring the execrable 'turn it on again', 'misunderstanding', and 'me & sarah jane'), and you will discover Genesis's last progressive outings before the downslide into populism & creative stagnancy that even Phil Collins couldn't take after a while.

Dodo/Abacab in particular show the band in fine form, with the Collins/Thompson duo as always seeming to read each others minds, and Banks (although more restrained than usual) weaving in and around the melody; Rutherford & Steurmer on the whole do a workmanlike job, with Rutherford in particular not seeming to come out of himself until the In The Cage/Cinema Show/Slippermen/Afterglow medley - I'm generally not a fan of medleys, but even in 1981, the days were gone when you would hear any of the old classics in full form. Luckily, Genesis pull this off well, closing with a superb version of Afterglow.

The treat for the old guard came with the second version of the album, which included live recordings from a few years earlier featuring the Hackett / Bruford lineup, all three of which were crisply recorded, and showed Genesis as they were when they still felt they had something to prove, following Gabriel's departure. As a result, therefore, the last few songs on the album tend to eclipse the previous tracks in quality, recording, and sheer verve, and support my personal opinion, that Three Sides Live should have been the final Genesis album.