UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL (DVD AND BOOK SET)

To me it seems that I am one of the very few reviewers who is interested in this kind of releases. Personally I love to experience of blending interesting quotes by band members and music journalists and rare live footage, it carries me away to Progheaven, very exciting! This box set includes a DVD and a 72 pages booklet featuring interviews with Steve Hackett (1974 and 1978), Tony Banks (1986) and Ray Wilson (1997).

The book: it contains lots of wonderful coloured pictures and parts of the interviews in the booklet can also be heard on the DVD. Hackett (remarkably critically in his words about why he left Genesis, the bad Genesis albums sound and working in a rock band) tells about his admiration for Robert Fripp, Peter Banks and Jan Akkerman ("Guitarists wo are able to sketch in as many different styles as possible, without necessarily being a vituoso in any of them."). I was stunned by his revalation that the intro of The Battle Of Epping Forest (the marching soldiers) is done by him, with a fuzz box and an octave divider! One of the reasons why he left Genesis was "that the band spent too little time in the studio and too much time on the road". Other interesting quotes are "Bands have an inbuilt paranoia, everybody is frightened in a band I have discovered", "When Peter left it created an imbalance in terms of power stucture" and "I felt comfortable with Chester Thompson while Bruford often used a piece of music to showcase his own talents, rather than concentrating on the music". Tony Banks got lots of room to talk about his equipment and reveals technical details about his sound like "I like dirty sounds, you know!" and "I bought an ARP Pro Solist synthesizer because of the presets, you didn't have to do anything". In the part about other progrock bands in the Seventies he tells "In many ways I thought th ecomparison with ELP and other bands was false, we were more like 10CC and othersuch experimental pop bands". Ray Wilson is obviously disappointed about his short stay in Genesis as the lead singer but his words are very interesting and honest like "At first I thought is it April 1st?" ( when the Genesis manager asked him to join Genesis), "I think the group disbanded because it didn't work in the USA" and "I think they made the wrong decision, they should have continued...".

The DVD: we can enjoy very exciting footage (excerpts), almost every great live moment is on this DVD like The Knife (Bataclan 1973, black and white), the sunflower mask and the illuminated tube in the closing section of Supper's Ready, Watcher Of The Skies, the old man mask in The Musical Box, the Moonlit Knight, Rael, Slipperman and the 48 Boeing landing lights in Los Endos (also on the cover of Seconds Out). The DVD is embellished with interviews from Genesis members Phil Collins (in a very decent jackett), Peter Gabriel, Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford ("we like audiences that sit down and listen to the music, rather than get drunk or girls") and the music journalists Chris Welch (about "Hackett's quirky guitar playing and original licks" and "in the end Genesis had a kind of Tamla Motown sound") and Huge Fielder ("during The Lamb tour the band sounded better than on the studio album").

To me as a 70-77 Genesis freak this box set is a very entertaining experience!