GENESIS LIVE

In 1973, Genesis released their fourth studio album, Foxtrot. This album featured their epic masterpiece Supper's Ready. The band would hit the road in 1973 to promote the album. This tour would mark two firsts in Genesis history. The first being the start of Peter Gabriel's use of bizarre costumes onstage. This started after he wore his wife's dress and a fox mask during a show in Dublin, Ireland. The second major event is the recording of their first live album.

Genesis Live was recorded on the British leg of the Foxtrot Tour. The audio is taken from two seperate shows. Most of the album was recorded at De Montfort Hall in Leicester, with one song, The Return of the Giant Hogweed taken from the band's show at Manchester's Free Trade Hall. The quality is good, with the only major complaint being that Peter's vocals are distant at certain times. The album features five cuts, Watcher of the Skies, Get em out by friday, The Return of the Giant Hogweed, The Musical Box, and The Knife.

Although the album cover features a picture of Peter Gabriel wearing the Magog costume during a peformance of Supper's Ready, the song is not featured on the album due to time constraints. All of the songs pass the 8 minute mark The album opens with "Watcher of the Skies" as most of the band's live performances did on that tour. The swirling, dark mellotron chords provide a very eerie opening to the show until the bass kicks in and the song picks up pace with the rest of the band's frenetic playing. "Get Em Out By Friday" continues the same rythmn that Watcher of the Skies did but is a generally forgettable track.

"The Return of the Giant Hogweed" is from the band's show in Manchester and is a jumpy upbeat tale of mankind's war with vegetation that ultimately consumes humanity. Guitarist Steve Hackett's playing is superb here as it is on the rest of the album. "The Musical Box" is my favorite off this album. It starts off very peaceful and serene up until the guitar-keyboard duel in the middle and the climactic finale in the song with Gabriel screaming TOUCH ME NOW!

The album ends with a performance of one of the band's oldest songs "The Knife". The military drumbeats and oratory from Gabriel make the listener feel as if they are at a nationalist rally of some sort.

For a band that had only released four albums so far, they were very fine performers and musicians. They would not breakthrough into America until the release of their next album, Selling England By the Pound. This album itself is a fine document of the band's live performances before Peter Gabriel left and gives the listener an idea of how the band was able to transfer the sound of their albums into something much more grandiose.