ARCHIVE 1967-1975

"GENESIS was my first progrock love and it will be my last. Not the future GENESIS but the GENESIS of the past." I freely quoted John Miles his song "Music" to express my emotions about GENESIS, what a wonderful and captivating music they made in the past ('70-'77- era). One thing irritated me very much about GENESIS and that's the fact that they released so few live-albums, again bootlegs turned out to be a kind of cold comfort for the the freaks. But in '98 record company Virgin (historically nice to prog) released a 4-CD box set with recordings from the "Selling..." - and "The Lamb..." tour, every day I wish I could have been there! It's a perfect addition to the "Genesis Live" album featuring the tracks (on CD3) "Dancing with the moonlit knight", "Firth of Fifth", "More Fool Me" and the epic "Supper's Ready", (including Peter Gabriel's his bizarre stories), all are impressive and very exciting renditions, what a stunning and pivotal progrock sound GENESIS made in those days. The recordings from "The Lamb ..." live contain some re-recordings, made in the studio in the late Nineties by Steve Hackett and Peter Gabriel.

Although these re-recordings are beautiful, I'm more pleased with the original recordings because they sounded more raw and emotional and that was more in the vein of the dark and Freudian "The Lamb .." story and atmoshpere. But in general I'm delighted about "The Lamb .." live (in the USA, on two CD's) because the sound is more powerful and has some great instrumental improvisations. Especially Hackett's guitarplay sounds very moving, perhaps the dooming end of his marriage inspired him. And Banks his Mellotron excertions are awesome, 'Tron maniacs' alert! CD4 contains 20 demo-recordings between '67 and '70, some are very promissing (like "Pacidy" and "Going out to get you") but most sound no more than nice, interesting or beautiful (subjective!) blend of pop, prog and psych. Conclusion:this 4-CD Box is a perfect tribute (including a 80 page booklet with lots of wonderful pictures and amazing stories) to my all time progrock #1 band: GENESIS!