LIVE - THE WAY WE WALK VOLUME ONE - THE SHORTS

A compilation of "Greatest Hits Recorded Live in Concert". Almost all the live recordings (very good recordings, I think) included in this "Vol.1: The Shorts" album were recorded during the "We Can`t Dance" tour, 1992, with the exception of "Mama", "That`s All" and "In Too Deep" which were recorded during the "Invisible Touch" tour, in 1986-87. This album was of my interest for buying because I like the "We Can`t Dance" album. So, the best songs in this live album are the songs from "We Can`t Dance". There are some differences to the original studio versions.It seems that Collins couldn`t reach anymore with his vocals the high notes of some songs, like "Land of Confusion", "We Can`t Dance" and the short version of "Tonight...", so these songs are played in lower tones by the band. It also seems that by 1986-87 Collins was already having problems with some songs, so, for example, "Mama" is in a shorter version which doesn`t include the last verse, which in the original version was sung in a higher tone by Collins (maybe an octave higher). Long tours are really hard for singers, mainly. The best live versions included in this album are: "No Son of Mine", "Jesus He Knows Me" (with Stuermer on lead guitar), "Throwing it all away" (with Collins making jokes with his voice as he asks the fans to sing the song), the humorous "We Can`t Dance" (with Collins, Rutheford and Stuermer "dancing" around the stage, and with Collins trying to "play" an "harmonica" solo with his voice), "Hold on my heart" (better than the studio version as it has Collins singing "with feeling"), "That`s all" (with humorous lyrics, too), and the very good Pop song called "Invisible Touch". "Mama" has never been one of my favourite songs, so I often skip this song when I play this CD, the same as with the "too much sugar ballad" called "In Too Deep". "Land of Confusion" is good, but it`s not one of my favourites. "Tonight..." is played in a shorter version, so the full lenght live version included in the "Never a Time" CD single or EP is more interesting for me, despite Collins had problems to reach the high notes as this version was recorded in 1987 in the original tone.The most interesting things in this CD are the contributions of Thompson and Stuermer to the live versions. Collins is credited as playing drums in this live album, but I don`t think that Collins played drums in the songs of this "Vol. 1". They also released in late 1992 a video recorded in concert called "Genesis Live-The Way We Walk-In Concert", which was released in the VHS and Laser Disc formats, with very good sound and video, and it was also released in DVD a year or two ago. I prefer the sound mixing of the CD, as the sound of Collins`vocals is lower in the live versions included in the video.