IN LONDON

The status of this release is a bit strange: is it a legit release or not? Sold in legit record shops in my city and in well-known websites dedicated to sell CDs and DVDs around the world- I bought it in a legit record shop in my city five months ago. I asked then in the Forums in this website about to include this DVD the Prog Archives database. Finally, after a brief discussion with other Collaborators I didn`t include it. But what happened? For my surprise, it has been added to the Prog Archives database, so I`m going to write a review about it.

GENESIS was a very important band for me when I was a teenager. In fact, in 1980 I was becoming a big fan of the band. After buying for the very first time in 1979 their album called "...and then there were three...", by 1982 I had all their albums released until then. I also read in a Mexican Rock Magazine (now defunct) a review from a "Duke Tour" concert from the Hammesrmith Odeon in London. I hoped to one day to see a video from this tour. In December last year, I visited several of the legit websites dedicated to sell CDs and DVDs, Mexican and from foreign countries, and I was surprised to find at last a concert video from their 1980 tour. I didn`t buy it online because the price was higher due to the transportation to my house, and I couldn`t go to buy it then due to a second episode of sciatica (the first was in late 2004, when I joined Prog Archives as a Prog Reviewer) which didn`t let me walk long distances and even to stand up for more than 15 minutes! So, it was until late January this year that I could go to a record shop and buy this DVD.

Now, writing about this video, I`m going to write some commentaries:

"Deep in the Motherlode": as I wrote before, this song in this DVD has bad mixing, because the drums and the bass guitar are louder than the other instruments, and the keyboards are almost lost in the mixing.

"Dancing with the Moonlit Knight": a fragment from this song only.

"Carpet Crawl": a good version.

"Squonk": Rutherford has some problems to play the bass pedals during the first part of the song, but finally he resolves this problem for the rest of the song.

"One for the Vine": good electric piano playing from Banks, good drums too by Thompson and Collins.

The "Duke Medley" ("Behind the Lines", "Duchess", "Guide Vocal", "Turn it on Again", "Duke`s Travels", "Duke`s End"): each songis played in its entirety one after the other with little time passing between them. Collins`"Story of Albert" told before the Medley starts is funny, but weird, bizarre!

"Say It`s Alright Joe": with Phil acting the character of a sad drunk in a Bar. Very good interpretation, but this acting makes the song longer than the studio version, and a bit boring at the end.

"The Lady Lies": with Phil again acting characters of the Lady who tells lies and her villain friend. Very good guitar solo by Daryl Stuermer, great drums by Chester Thompson and very good synth solo by Tony Banks.

"Ripples": it is a shame that a very good song like this was cut due to a cameras` power failure. In this video, only the last part of the song is shown, while Mike Rutherford plays a guitar synth and Stuermer plays a very good guitar solo. It seems that Collins also played a bit on a little keyboard, because he can be seen briefly doing it.

"In the Cage" / "Slippermen" / "Afterglow": vey good versions, but with the "Slippermen" medley is shorter than in other tours.

"Follow You, Follow Me": good version similar as the one released in the "Three Sides Live" album.

"Dance in a Volcano" and "Los Endos": good versions too, but a bit different to other live versions.

"I Know What I Like": a good version, too.

In conclusion, this is a very good concert DVD, despite the quality of the images and sound is not as similar as in other concert DVDs from this band. It seems that it was recorded and filmed for a TV Broadcast, but I could be wrong.