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Genesis - In Concert 1976 CD (album) cover

IN CONCERT 1976

Genesis

 

Symphonic Prog

4.47 | 178 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Guillermo
Prog Reviewer
4 stars I knew about the existence of this film when I read Pete Frame`s "Rock Family Trees" book in 1984. After listening many times to "Cinema Show" and to "It/Watcher of the Skies" which were released in the "Seconds Out" and "Three Sides Live" albums, respectively, and considering them as very good live versions recorded duing their 1976 tour, I wanted to listen to more live recordings from this tour. I saw a Laser Disc version of this film, made in Japan, in 1994, but sold at a very expensive price, so I didn`t buy it. Years later I had the chance to listen to three Radio Shows recorded during their 1976 tour, with Bill Bruford on drums. My opinon about his playing with Genesis changed. It was until recently that I saw this film several times in youtube.com . Later, I discovered that this film was recently released on DVD in the Genesis`"1976-1982" Box Set by Rhino Records in the U.S. I expected an expanded and re-edited version of this video, but it wasn`t expanded and/or re-edited .

Track by track:

-"Opening": shows the roadies doing their job on stage while the credits are shown on the screen.

-"I Know What I Like": marred a bit by more images of the roadies doing their job and by showing the band walking their way to the stage. Finally, the band is shown playing the song. Collins looks confident and funny while singing the song, playing his "tambourine routine" during an instrumental section of this song, despite being his first tour as front man. The version of this song played during this tour was shorter than the live versions played in later tours. Bruford`s playing in this song is irregular at the start of the song, improving in the rest of the song`s parts.

-"Fly on a Windshield" (which also includes an instrumental version of "Broadway Melody of 1974" not listed in the track list). Played with Collins on drums and Bruford on percussion and later on drums too, with a very good lead guitar by Hackett, 12 string guitar and bass pedals by Rutherford, and mellotron and organ by Banks.

- "Carpet Crawl": very good vocals by Collins. Rutherford plays 12 string guitar. I thought that he played bass in this song, but the bass notes are played by Banks on the electric piano. Bruford again doesn`t play the start of the song "as it was originally recorded", but his playing improves in the rest of the song`s parts.

-"The Cinema Show": this film only includes the instrumental section of this song, with Collins on drums while Bruford plays percussion and later drums along with Collins. This song is marred a bit by the inclusion of comical silent movie images ( I only want to see how they play the song!). Hackett is out of the stage for this section of this song.

-"Entangled": Hackett plays electric six string guitar and bass pedals, Rutherford and Banks play 12 string acoustic guitar and sing backing vocals (with Banks also playing keyboards at the end of the song), Collins sings lead vocals and plays maracas, while Bruford plays a xylophone very well. This song is played very well, but again it is marred a bit by the images of a sea and a beautiful woman dancing on the sand. These images are good, but again... I only wanted to see how the band played this song in concert!

-"Supper`s Ready": the film only shows this song played from "Apocalypse in 9/8" until the end of the song. Collins sings in a microphone put behind and above his drum kit, and later he "jumps " to the drum kit to play along Bruford during the organ solo. The drums are played very well. Again Bruford plays irregularly in some parts, but he also does very good things, while Collins plays "lead drums" too very well. After the organ solo is finished, Collins goes to the front of the stage to sing the final part of the lyrics very well. The camera focuses in him during Hackett`s lead guitar part, and in the screen there also appear images of ruins (from Greece?) and clouds. Why the cameras were not focused on Hackett after Collins finished singing? Again, I saw Hackett playing some bass pedals parts, so I think that he shared the bass pedals parts with Rutherford, who was the "official bass player" then. The film also shows some images of atomic bombs falling on earth, which, in this case, work very well with "Apocalypse in 9/8", but again...I only wanted to see the band playing the song!

-"Los Endos":marred a bit by images of the lights on stage and the audience clapping. Bruford plays percussion and drums, Collins plays very good drums.The song is marred again by the showing of the final credits!

What can I say now about Bruford`s playing with Genesis? I think that he is a very good drummer, but I also think that in 1976, without being a permanent member of a band and working with other bands not as member show that he needed to work and agreed to play with them, doing his job. Maybe he wasn`t very motivated by Genesis`music, so, him being a musician who likes to improvise, kept himself interested while playing the songs with some variations concert after concert. These variations sometimes worked very well with the songs, but in other cases they didn`t work properly. It is good to see him in this video playing with very good technique and doing very good things in some parts of the songs. But, I also think that Chester Thompson was a better choice as tour drummer for Genesis in later years. Bruford, listed as a "special guest" in the end credits did his job, and it was interesting to see and to listen to him playing with Genesis. He said in one interview that the band let him play the songs as he wanted to play them, never criticizing him. But now I kwow why Genesis didn`t release more songs with him on drums in their official albums (apart from "Entangled" which was released in the "Archives 2: 1976-1982" Box Set in the year 2000). I think that his playing was irregular most of the time. One thing is to add variations which work well with the rhythm of the songs, and another is to play things which sometimes made the band lose the rhythm and concentration. Bruford`s style sometimes didn`t fit in Genesis`music. His best place as a drummer was being part of King Crimson or of his own Jazz-Rock bands. In those bands, his improvisations on drums sound and fit very well. But, to say positive things about his plaing in Genesis, I have to say that he regularly played very well songs like "Dance on a Volcano", "Robbery, Assault and Battery", "Squonk" and "Firth of Fifth", songs which were not included in this film but I heard in those Radio Shows recordings which I mentioned above.

Collins looks confident and enjoying his new role as front man with Genesis. The other members of the band also look confident. Peter Gabriel was out of the band, but they still had a lot of quality as musicians. The audience also looks happy with this new version of the band.

In conclusion, this is a very good concert video. Short, but very good, and marred a bit with images which don`t belong to the concert.

Guillermo | 4/5 |

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