THREE SIDES LIVE

Way too underrated album. Even though the set list is not as progressive as on Seconds Out, the quality is far more better in many ways on this one. First of all, Gabriel-era songs featured here are perfectly suitable for Phils voice. Supper's Ready, The Musical Box and Firth Of Fifth on Seconds Out were simply raped: Phils clean sounding voice didn't replace Gabriels creaking old-man-voice at all, on the contrary, it ruined the songs totally. So all we had on Seconds Out, were a shortened version of The Cinema Show + prog songs from Colliens-era with a baby-sounding voice of Phil. In the eighties anyway, his voice matured and stabilized stylisticall. In The Cage on this album sounds thousand times better than the original version, because Phils voice is much more raw and rockier than Gabriels voice ever was, and In The Cage is a quite hard rocking prog song. On the other Gabriel-era song, The Fountain Of Salmacis, Phil manages to imitate Gabriels voice quite perfectly. You can hardly hear the difference. Exceptionally, It/Watcher Of The Skies is recorded in 1978 (I don't even consider it as an actual part of the album) and sounds like shit because of Phils childish voice.

The main reason for why this live album is the best one Genesis has ever officially released (also better than the one with Gabriel from 1973) is the Collins-era stuff that works here perfectly. Technically, only few actual flaws are made here. Tony Banks has clearly improved technically, and plays with certainty (for example, the keyboard solos of the long instrumental section of In The Cage/The Cinema... -medley are played flawlessly) and the singing is exceptionally good. Even the high notes seem to be no problem for Collins. The song choices are good, because that time Genesis had released only one quite poppy album, Abacab. Actually, the pop songs bring a nice balance and atmosphere here. The feeling is much more "live" than on the older live albums. And anyways, Me Sarah Jane is a quite proggy tune for a pop song, right? Turn It On Again, Dodo/Lurker, Afterglow are really good pop songs, too. Behind The Lines/Duchess and One For The Vine are very good prog song selections.

One of the best prog live albums recorded. Recommended.