Genesis Live

Yeah, I'm a little thrown by that. Three Sides Live is pretty weak, and I loathe the studio albums post-Genesis (and all but two or three songs from that one), but I listen to Genesis Live more than any of the contemporaneous studio discs.

The drumming on the live "Musical Box." The cymbal shit is next level.

unaccompanied bass pedal solo imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FBcz3tBH74

Musically it's great, but I wish I hadn't looked this up & seen Peter Gabriel in Genesis now :-/

Some of you are going to die ;_;

What IS it with this album? Tried to get into the studio albums but completely failed to - dated and pretentious, bah. But this, this mesmerising masterpiece, I can listen to this once or twice a day for weeks on end (even during new Burial EP or Arcade Fire times).

listening to Seconds Out now - this is probably my favorite of their live records. perhaps heresy but I love Phil Collins taking on "Suppers Ready"!!

So do I. That was the album and song that made me a Genesis freak.

I still like that version more than the ones on Foxtrot and Genesis Archive. Phil's smoothness fits the song better than Gabriel's bark.

yeah - I just wrote a bit on Wind & Wuthering here in which I kinda realize that Phil wasn't really a downgrade
http://critterjams.wordpress.com/2013/12/18/genesis-wind-and-wuthering-1976/

the incredible second half of "Cinema Show" is also ace

Great piece. It's impressive that in 1976, they could still make a record as totally confident and casual as Wind & Wuthering. There's not a trace of strain over the prog-rock crisis on that album.

Phil I see as being a lateral move. Somehow I don't think that he could pull off "The Battle of Epping Forest" (not sure if he ever attempted it).

during my brief all-prog phase in high school I ran with a crowd that considered no-Gabriel era The Beginning Of The End - really enjoyed reading a clear-eyed take on Wind and Wuthering even if every time I try to revisit Genesis I feel like my departure from them was permanent and I can't ever really get back inside

That "Daddy, you promised!" bit sours me on the album every time.

They did "White Mountain" on the '76 tour. Phil's thin melodic voice made it sound especially silly — there was some combination of Gabriel's rasp and his aura of lunacy that made the words he sang seem almost meaningful.

Somehow I don't think that he could pull off "The Battle of Epping Forest" (not sure if he ever attempted it).

I don't think he did and you're probably right, but I would've said that about "Supper's Ready" too. Never heard the '76 band do "White Mountain", but that's kind of a ridiculous song anyway, isn't it?

Re-listening to some of this I'm astounded by how much of both W&W and Spot the Pigeon draw off the second disc of The Lamb, in particular the bits that I was always bored by. I wonder if they would've included any of that stuff had the storyline not been so long.

"All in a Mouse's Night" a bit of a let-down on W&W, "Epping Forest" no great loss in any situation. kinda feel like if they'd made a W&W a couple of years later it wd've been perfect

the gloss and distance they're on the way to acquiring on W&W might as well be a different band to the sludgey doom of Genesis Live tho

"All in a Mouse's Night" was my favorite song on it the first time I listened to it. That's the one that everyone seems to say would work better with Peter but I love the way Phil sings the main melody line ("come on baby, let the poor thing go"). Also the story itself isn't very interesting. My main point through all that is that even if Peter does some pretty amazing things (especially on The Lamb) I feel like Phil serves the actual songs a bit better. W&W having three instrumental tracks really says a lot about the direction the band was going (and pulled back on)

W&W is mainly let down by cloudy mix and production (the only case where I think the remix/remasters bettered the original), always felt like there was a veil over the music or a blanket on the speakers. The second side of the album is tremendous.

That Ylvis song is basically just a Genesis rip-off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tYyqf0KJWY

Could be bullshit but I heard a radio DJ last week say that Collins and Gabriel are in talks for a real Genesis reunion...

They're always in talks. Genesis may be the only huge act constantly breaking up and reuniting where every member old and new is still friends.

I thought Phil could not play drums?

I have heard Phil can't drum from a whole bunch of people. Didn't know Genesis were all still friends though, doesn't Gabriel routinely refuse to sign off on reissue extras & stuff?

Money talks.

Gabriel recently acknowledged recently that them all being still alive might be good reason to consider playing together once more

collins recently returned to drumming.

i wouldn't be surprised if they didn't pull off a show or two at the 02 or something. would have to be very different from the old shows, I'd expect.

They're always in talks. Genesis may be the only huge act constantly breaking up and reuniting where every member old and new is still friends.

Would maybe put Roxy in here too, if not exactly best buddies.

the roxy thing is infuriating to me, mainly because I missed their last tour, and thought there was one coming up, but they backtracked on all their statements. I guess the album resulted in Olympia, which I like a lot, but still

Yeah, almost all the Roxy guys appear on each others records, still. Though not always all at once, and Ferry doesn't cameo.

Peter always participates in Genesis biz, but he moves so slowly they rarely wait for him.

https://store.realworld.co.uk/product-category/peter-gabriel/lego-mini-figures/

Holy shit, those are the best things ever.

https://i0.wp.com/www.musicalbrick.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/legoLambLive06.jpg

These have been around for a while; funny that Peter is now selling them though his official store.

Apropos of the thread:

https://progarchy.com/2015/02/01/genesis-lego/

Uh, LEGO, don;t know what Phil's been telling you but his hair was never that thick

Got a press release about that Genesis covers band The Musical Box playing Hammersmith Apollo in the spring and I am FUCKING TEMPTED

Why does Phil have "Sifilis" on his shirt?

go see the musical box they are awesome!

i have a ticket for the SF show I need to unload (show is on Monday), I'm going to be out of town. mr schwitterz?

The Musical Box are awesome! What set are they doing?

i wish akm! ill be outta town too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijNOt6e2v-o

The best one I saw them do was when they had a bald left-handed drummer who sang like Phil! Apparently they got him from (shock) a Phil tribute band.

they're doing both the black and white sets of the selling england by the pound tour. which is great; but I've seen them do those three times already so I'm not broken up about it. I did see them do the Lamb a few years ago and it was pretty much everything I'd hoped for. I hope they do it again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIZwg1t2iAo

Wow, that's incredible quality.

Amazing. The description of the restoration is incredible too; I'd love to see some of the outtakes where the AI thinks the curtains are made of hair. I imagine in a decade there'll be a fully immersive VR version of clips like these.

whoa, that's unbelievable. kinda want to see what the original footage looked like.

funny how the camera barely captures Steve. you almost forget he was in the band. you can hear him though

also: was Phil Collins the sexiest man in prog in the mid-70s? or does Peter Hammill take the crown?

that is some astounding clean up work. There are really very few film clips of this period (shepperton studios is the famous one) and the quality of them has been getting better and better every year as more people do restorations on them.

incredible... can't wait to see more old stuff being restored like this

When I was a teenager my Dad took me to see a few older jazz/blues musicians at the Glasgow Jazz festival, he wanted to see them at least once before the possibility of them not touring became a reality, which I totally understand and I can see why devoted fans would feel the need to go see Genesis, despite the current presentation.

But I'm sure none of those people had such debilitating health issues and the tickets were probably like £30 (in today's money) not £100++

I just grabbed a recording of the last night to hear it, he doesn't sound *too* bad maybe, idk, certainly his timing is better than the earlier shows I heard, pitching is still pretty wild tho, but I'm listening to the last tune (Carpet Crawlers), and feeling a little sad that the music that I've listened to since I was a young 'un won't ever be rendered live again.

They ended with Carpet Crawlers? That's a bit of a heart-breaker.

Wonder which music means the most to Phil overall, Genesis or his solo stuff?

I saw them in November and again last night and Phil has improved massively since back then.

If they dedicated and sacrificed so much of their life to get that, it's no surprise they'd want to hold on to it for as long as they can.

The first concert I ever saw was Count Basie And His Orchestra in early 1983. Count was 78.

I’m seeing the Who at MSG in May. Roger Daltrey is 78.

I mean if we're talking age as a factor, having seen Sparks twice recently, Ron's 76 and Russell's 73; they have the advantage that their backing band is all younger by some decades, and I did note that there's been a second keyboardist added. But Ron didn't seem any different at all, steadily playing away looking nonplussed as he always does, occasional vocal moments aside (and he still does the Ron dance). Russell was all over the stage, singing away as he always does. Maybe it's all that comfortable SoCal living.

And Russell works out regularly, based on a clip from the Sparks Brothers

The record for me is 7 or 8 weeks shy of 90 years. That was Lee Konitz on August 26, 2017, who kept on performing until COVID hit, and sadly he died from it on April 15, 2020. (Besides his age, he had health issues that made him especially vulnerable.) He was great though, as soon as he played, there was no mistaking who it was. At one point during his set, this very old couple got up and danced together, and they even seemed to move slowly from age. It made me think of something Greil Marcus's wife said when she listened to Dylan's Sinatra albums - it's sad when you realize the mass audience this music once reached was now mostly gone. Such is life, it'll happen to everything, and just further reason to catch these people while you still can. It blows my mind when I meet someone who went to Duke Ellington or Benny Goodman concerts back in the day, like BEFORE rock 'n' roll.

It's a big thing for me watching the rock generation move so rapidly towards fragility and mortality - seems to me that from 1989 on a lot of those bigger groups settled back into their "classic" sound - which has helped band and audience to perpetuate a kind of time bubble of cheerful denial where everything was fine and these guys would soldier on forever. But it's just not sustainable any more, and watching these groups accept their limitations and mourn their losses is quite profound.

Like, I don't Believe In Rock or anything, but the aftershocks of the 1960s beat boom (and I guess 50s rock, and punk, etc) - still shaped my life, and gave me a way out of suburban small-mindedness, and eventually pointed to areas of music that were more interesting - and I guess I never totally stopped believing in the power these guys accessed as teenagers, and have always sought ways to keep connected to my own teenage self. But we are clearly none of us teenagers anymore - and seeing the old ones shuffle offstage does make me think about the ephemeral nature of the value system I still kinda sort of hang onto. Like, definitely already get a sense that the Beatles or the Germs or the Blue Nile are indistinguishable from James Last to my kids which is fine and even good, but still...).

It's also tied into the mortality of my parents, who are boomers of this kind of age.

(Also really respect Bowie for going there with his songwriting in a way that I wish more people of this generation had done)

Anyway, I think a lot about Mick and Keith holding hands at the front of the stage when they introduced their first show after Charlie died. It was so vulnerable and beautiful, and unlike anything you'd associate with the Stones.

Uh sorry about the lack of Genesis-specific content in that post.

watching these groups accept their limitations and mourn their losses is quite profound.

This. For a generation of us, this is literally watching our forbears crumble away. My dad's been gone twenty years this week, but he was entirely of his geenration - did tonnes of drugs, free love, saw Hendrix, The Who, Cream, etc - and it's hard not to feel especially maudlin as the rock generation slow drifts on to the next realm.

In the wake of the death of Charlie Watts, I revived this thread with a post about a 1970 rock magazine cover story wondering about the life expectancy of 20 musicians, half of whom are still around 52 years later. Of course, they were talking about musicians dying young rather than aging per se; and in February 1970, maybe Brian Jones was the only big name rock star of that era to have already gone.
I feel like the death of George Harrison in 2001 was the "watershed" for attitudes about the loss of musicians of that generation. 58 is not old but the manner of his death and perhaps his retreat from public life beforehand made it seem more "natural". For instance, I never heard anyone say of George, as they did of Lennon, "what would he have done if he had lived"?
For so many years, there was this small canon of dead rock stars, appearing in airbrushed paintings - now those paintings would be too crowded.

I guess everyone has their notebook with their own personal favourites that will be devastating when they finally go, Ivor Cutler was the first big one for me, as odd as that sounds, we went to his last gig at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and he was so frail.

At the end he came out to the front of the stage, fingers in his ears, then after the applause died down he quietly said something along the lines of 'you all have such beautiful bright faces' and I realised at that point I wouldn't be seeing him again, it was so sad.

yeah its getting to the point where there's a "now or never" feeling to seeing your favorite bands especially given the unpredictability of Covid. I missed a King Crimson show due to my daughter getting sick (thought it was appendicitis, turned out to be a relatively harmless infection) and right after they announced that was the end. couldn't make seeing Sparks in Chicago work and now I think I'll probably never get the chance for them. Gary Numan just played Milwaukee - last show before they all tested positive for Covid - and I couldnt go because it was Spring Break and shit was too complicated with the kids. I guess I should stop making excuses b/c yeah for the first time in my life "they'll be around again" is very much not a given

Was just telling someone how frustrating it was to hardly be able to hear Ivor at that last show, although I suppose that is what he probably wanted

It was filmed by the BBC, I think I have it somewhere.

Here it is, apologies for the derailing, folks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS0-vN8E3FU

COVID has definitely made things brutal. Besides Konitz, I also saw Toots & the Maytals in 2019. I was front and center holding the edge of the stage and Toots even gave me fist bump. What a wonderful man and full of life, I can't believe that was the last time he played in NY because I left thinking I was definitely seeing the next one.

And I never saw John Prine. Really sad about that.

you're not missin' much by not seeing gary numan in 2022

yeah he's been goth industrial for quite some time. I know people who are still very very into him though. Anyway, I'm still sad that I never went and saw Genesis; they toured so infrequently and the times I was passionate about them never lined up with times when they were touring. I really assumed they'd hit the west coast on this one, and it wasn't to be. At least I've seen Gabriel half a dozen times. I do make it a point now to try to see people; had I not seen Bowie on his last tour when he played right down the street from me I would have really hated myself. I'll be going to Roxy this year as well. I see McCartney every time he comes to town and each time I've assumed it was the last opportunity; guy will probably still be touring 15 years from now.

Reminds me of someone I knew who decided to see B. B. King over Stevie Ray Vaughn, thinking "I'll be able to see Stevie anytime, this might be my last chance to see B. B."... and King outlived Vaughn by 25 years.

idk I like Numan's recent stuff

xp apologies, dying young is terrible, but with the way that joke was phrased, LMAO.

Reminds me of someone I knew who decided to see B. B. King over Stevie Ray Vaughn, thinking "I'll be able to see Stevie anytime, this might be my last chance to see B. B."... and King outlived Vaughn by 25 years.

I saw Stevie Ray Vaughn and I'd give anything to take that directionless, opiated show back for a solid BB King show.

The couple of years where Bowie, prince, Mark Hollis and Scott Walker all passed away kind of ushered in a new era for me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLdFLl6iMek