IN LONDON

Long had I lived under the false impression that Genesis became a commercial pop band straight after (my favorite Genesis member) Steve Hackett left the band in 1977. I now know that I was very wrong about that! This excellent 1980 concert proved it to me. The only songs here that might be considered commercial pop songs are Follow You, Follow Me and possibly Turn It On Again. However, both of these are really good songs anyway! (and nowhere near the blatant commerciality of later things like Invisible Touch).

However, the sound and picture quality is not as good as the actual concert. If it was I would have been happy to give this five stars! Considering my low expectations and the low prize I paid for this, watching it was a true revelation for me (from Genesis to revelation?!) I had heard about half the tracks before and there are several songs here from my favorite Genesis albums A Trick Of The Tale and Wind And Wuthering as well as some Gabriel- era tracks. This led me to check this out.

The biggest positive surprise for me was in the (then) new tracks, especielly the ones from the And Then There Were Three album. The opener Deep In The Motherlode (misspelled on the box as Deep In The Motherlodge) is a great song and I have since bought the studio album from where it originally came - the underrated And Then There Were Three. One For the Vine from Wind And Wuthering is fantastic as are most of the other tracks here! One portion of the concert is devoted to material from the then brand new Duke album. This is another, but sadly the last, very good Genesis album.

Maybe this concert can be made better if it is given an upgrade in terms of picture and sound quality in the future. Until then, this version is recommended! Genesis is currently re-releasing all their studio albums on hybrid SACD/DVD-Audio. On the DVD-Audio version of Duke there is, as an extra feature, a selection of live tracks from this very show in London in 1980. Compared to this DVD, the bonus feature on the Duke DVD-Audio is presented in much better sound and picture quality. Too bad it isn't the whole show!

However, this means that it would be possible to upgrade the Live In London DVD and give it the same sound and picture quality as the selection on the Duke feature. We can only hope that it happens! Until then, this is recommended.

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