ARCHIVE 1967-1975

For many years the fans of Genesis with Peter Gabriel (like me) had to listen to vinyl bootlegs, some of good quality ("In Concert 1973", from the "Selling England..." tour), some of awful quality ("Swelled and Spent", from the "Lamb" tour) to have an idea of how good were the years of Genesis with Gabriel in concert. At last, in 1998 the band released live recordings from those tours. Also, the band released other songs which were also released on bootlegs (like the BBC recordings), the "lost" b-side "Twilight Alehouse", the single "Happy the Man", and the different short lenght version of "Watcher of the Skies", plus Demos from their very early days as a band (1967-69). So, this is a very interesting Box Set,despite the overdubs to some of the live recordings.

CDs 1 and 2: The complete "Lamb" album played in concert during the 1974-75 tour.

"Swelled and Spent" was one of the few bootlegs which I listened which had a complete "Lamb" show (somewhat edited), but the recording is awful. I have listened to two Radio Shows from that tour: one very edited from the same show included in this Box Set (Los Angeles), and another recorded in Wembley, with more songs. In the Radio Show recorded in Los Angeles, the voice of Gabriel sounds good, and it has "it" recorded in concert. Tony Banks justified the inclusion of a "new studio version" of "it" in this Box Set (the same old studio version, remixed but with new vocals by Gabriel) saying that "the recording engineer forgot to change tapes, he was asleep at the job, so we lost "it""). It seems that the same source for the Radio Show were the tapes that Genesis recorded from this show. So, apart form a "mistake" from Collins, who lost the beat slighty because it seems that he threw a dum stick, the live version of "it" is still very good. In comparison, in the Wembley concert, which was recorded almost at the end of the tour, Gabriel`s vocals sound tired. "Swelled and Spent", which was recorded in May, also shows that Gabriel`s voice was tired of many dates on tour singing the complete "Lamb" album (plus one encore, and sometimes two encores). So, I think that in the case of the Los Angeles show there wasn`t, IMO, a very strong reason to overdub new Gabriel`s vocals. The band had their reasons to do it, and I respect their reasons. But...it could have been better to have the "whole real show". I think that Gabriel re-recorded most of his vocals. I think that old fans should have "forgiven" his original vocals even if they weren`t very good in some parts. The L.A concert was in January, and I think that his voice was still good enogh to leave it intact in the Box Set. It is also known that Hackett re-recorded some of his guitar parts, this is clear in "Hairless Heart" (he recorded an acoustic guitar part similar to the studio version; in the Wembley show he played this part in his electric guitar) and in "The Lamia" (he re-recorded the lead guitar). Despite this "studio tricks", the recording and mixing of the concert is very good. Unfortunately the band didn`t film a "Lamb" show during that tour which could have been a very good companion to this Box Set.

CD 3:

Recordings from the "Selling England by the Pound" tour, Rainbow Theatre, Oct. 1973: I listened to this recordings without ovedubs in the "In Concert 1973" bootleg which also includes "Cinema Show", "Watcher of the Skies" and "The Battle of Epping Forest", but not "More Fool Me". For this Box Set Gabriel also re-recorded some of his vocals, and again I think that it wasn`t really necessary, apart from the occasional out of tune vocals, Gabriel sings very well in the original live recordings (which I think that they were also broadcasted in the Radio in England in the same year). Hackett re-recorded his lead guitar part in "Firth of Fifth" (there even was a short video of Hackett filmed while re-recording this part in the official website dedicated to this Box Set). In the original live version, it seems that he lost some concentration and he played the part like he forgotten it a bit. In this case, again, I don`t think that it was really necessary to re-record it (a bit of variety in playing the songs is also interesting, IMO). I think that Gabriel and Hackett also re-recorded some of their parts in "Supper`s Ready". Again, these live recordings and mixings (of all the live songs in this CD) are very good. "Stagnation" is a BBC recording from 1971, with Collins and Hackett in the band, in a very good version of this song. "Twilight Alehouse": a B- side from 1973, a very good song from the band, one of their best. I also have listened to live versions of this song which also sound very good. "Happy the Man": a single from 1972, not very interesting for me. "Watcher of the Skies": a different version of the song, shorter in duration, which it seems it was previously available in France in a compilation called "Genesis Rock Theatre". I prefer the original version.

CD 4:

Demos from 1967 to 1969: very interesting for the old fans, and particularly for the fans of their first album. They also included some songs from that album in rough mixes without the orchestral arrangements. In this case I think that the orchestral arrangements helped the songs to sound better. The band sounds still very "inmature", but with some good quality. Some songs are naive, really, but still good. The BBC recordings from 1970: some of them are very good, like "Sheperd" (with Banks sharing lead vocals with Gabriel; Banks sang very well) and "Pacidy".

In conclusion, this is a very good Box Set.