Too young as well for me. in fact I just didn't like Genesis at all when I was a teenager and it wasn't until much later than I started to appreciate them.

I did hear a story that when Gabriel quit Genesis he expected the band to fold. After they carried on he was in the front row of their first concert without him arms folded and 'wtf' look on his face. Must have been very intimidating for Collins if true!

 

 

Oh yeah, I was there at the time: a junior in high school too, and Genesis was my first love (musically, I mean!) so Trick still resonates with me. Coming so soon after Steve Hackett's Voyage of the Acolyte, it left an indelible impression, especially the stronger tracks: Dance on a Volcano; Squonk; Los Endos...although Entangled wove a romantic spell around my sensitive teenage psyche.

The tour in support of the album, with Bill Bruford on drums, was my first rock concert too: at the Berkeley Community Theatre, across the Bay from my San Mateo home...my Proghead buddy and me had to ask our parents for permission to go!

43 years later and 2,700 miles down the road I got a chance to relive that experience (sort of) when I saw Steve Hackett in concert at the historic Riviera Theatre in North Tonawanda, New York, last week...a packet house, and I bet there wasn't anybody there under the age of 50..!

That was the night I was also introduced to Montrose's first album.Now that one was an instant like. :-) 

What a record. And Wind & Wuthering was almost its equal.

Too bad the four man Genesis didn't last. It could have eclipsed the Gabriel era - if Steve hadn't left...

When Trick came out I remember thinking that it sounded very much like "the old" Genesis, and that Phil's vocals were quite similar to Gabriel's (now I find them so different!). I immediately loved Squonk, Entangled, Ripples and Los Endos. Robbery, Mad Mad Moon and ATOTT took the longest to sink in.

At that time I was still unaware of the issues which had led to Gabriel's departure.

I was just a kid.  I had a bunch of Yes, ELP, and Pink Floyd albums.  Nothing by Genesis.  Late one night I saw the video "Robbery, Assault, and Battery" on some rock show.  I thought, "Wow, a story song! How groovy different.   Finally, that band Genesis wrote a song I like."   I didn't have a clue, the actors were the band. 

Though impressed, I wouldn't purchase my first Genesis album "Nursery Crimes" till the early 80's.  It took another decade before Fox Trot galloped into my growing collection.  Quickly, a stampede of 70's Genesis albums followed.    

Absolutely.

What was it like? It was like this !

(First concert of the Trick of the Tail Tour)

I agree and although SEBTP was at one point my favorite and admittedly is their definitive album(their CTTE or DSOTM if you will)I have since decided my two favorite Genesis albums are TOTT and W&W with SEBTP being number three. 

It's almost if its accessibility takes it down a notch for whatever reason these days.  But their writing was top notch on this album and their playing at its peak.  All well captured by brilliant production as well.  Overall, one of the best Genesis albums.  On this album, they effortlessly traverse through a variety of styles and throw melody, hooks, virtuosity all in plenty at you. 

SteveG wrote: M27Barney wrote: Well. I got into Genesis first in the hot summer of 1976, aged 11. I had been exposed via my older brother since 1970 but really took no notice as he howled "Lilly white Lilith" to me as I played with Lego...Saw them live in 1977 at Earls court darn sarf...Was hooked straight away...but SEBTP and Foxtrot and Nursery Cryme have always been better than trick and Wuthering... In a strictly prog sense I agree.

 

Apples and Oranges. There is no right or wrong with music. Lamb kicks pretty much beats everything if you just take the good bits. Genesis up to Trick were probably the most important and influential prog band although Tony Banks was never a great keyboard innovator like Keith Emerson or Rick Wakeman which is why I need other stuff. Lyrically though they wiped the floor with almost everything bar VDGG and maybe Tull. It's just great that we don't have to subtract anything and can have it all!

"Ripples" on the "Trick of the Tail" album is one of my favourite Genesis songs, although I much prefer Annie Haslam's (of Renaissance) version.

 

"From Genesis To Revelation" is my all-time favourite Genesis album, closely followed by "Selling England by the Pound".

Sure, I got that that's what you meant and was agreeing with you.  That is, that the accessibility of Trick of the tail is deceptive because it's still full fledged prog.

1.Trick (5.0)

2.Fox (5.0)

3.Three (4.5)

4.Lamb (4.0)

5.Cryme (4.0)

6.Duke (3.5)

7.Selling (3.5)

8.Trespass (3.5)

9.Wind (3.5)  

I wanted to spring "Trick" on him, but he heard it before I could get my hands on him....predictably, he not only became a huge fan of TOTT, but of all Genesis, including Gabriel's era.  It was quite hilarious!  

I only saw Genesis on their ATTWT tour, which was excellent (with Wayne, of course!).  Seeing them with Bruford would have been quite amazing! 

M27Barney wrote: I find it strange that anybody would rate SEBTP so low. Admittedly more fool me is so sh*te it is the iceberg that holes the flawless titanic beneath the waterline...If you replaced that awful track with an extended Firth of Fifth you would put a country mile between that release and every other symphonic prog album ever made...

 

not really paying attention ..you know how much I hate Epping Forest  . More Fool Me doesn't fit well either and I Know What I like is just boring. On top of that the live version of Cinema Show is so much better. Dancing With The Moonlit Knight and Firth Of Fifth though are great and rescue the album.

M27Barney wrote: Epping Forest was an instrumental peice that gabriel then added the lyrics to. Perhaps there is too much going on for some people. But as prog lyrics go I think that Gabriel nails the zeitgeist of sixties gangland culture. Fine comedic social comment. Banks and collins tried to do the same with Robbery, Assault n Battery...but fail miserably...After Harold the Barrel, the lyrics in battle are the best comedy lyrics Genesis did...

 

Agree about Robbery, Assault and Battery although it is the only low point for me on Trick (although I mentioned I love the drumming before so that is something at least) . Nothing on Epping Forest much appeals to me. It starts promisingly enough but as soon as the 'posh vicar' pipes up I just switch off. It does make me think that you can hide a multitude of sins in prog by just extending songs by 6 minutes! They did estue the long form approach on Lamb and that works brilliantly apart from the weird psyche stuff on Waiting Room. Trick was powerful and to the point and knew its boundaries. W&W ( weaker than Trick imo) was their last attempt at Symph prog but they were obviously not alone in moving away from long tracks towards the back end of the eighties. However they could make it work for a while then the 80's fried everyone's brain for a while. 

 

The title track is amazing and quite witty (a bit like Counting Out Time).

Sure it isn't an epic, but I could've struck as a single as a minor hit (the lyrics are still too obtuse for mass consumption), if marketed properly.

 

Furthermore, TOTT had one of the best artwork ever, with that engraved cardboard gatefold sleeve and the amazing inner sleeve to slide the disc in.

 

 

richardh wrote: M27Barney wrote: Epping Forest was an instrumental peice that gabriel then added the lyrics to. Perhaps there is too much going on for some people. But as prog lyrics go I think that Gabriel nails the zeitgeist of sixties gangland culture. Fine comedic social comment. Banks and collins tried to do the same with Robbery, Assault n Battery...but fail miserably...After Harold the Barrel, the lyrics in battle are the best comedy lyrics Genesis did...   Agree about Robbery, Assault and Battery although it is the only low point for me on Trick (although I mentioned I love the drumming before so that is something at least) . Nothing on Epping Forest much appeals to me. It starts promisingly enough but as soon as the 'posh vicar' pipes up I just switch off. It does make me think that you can hide a multitude of sins in prog by just extending songs by 6 minutes! They did estue the long form approach on Lamb and that works brilliantly apart from the weird psyche stuff on Waiting Room.

Re the original question: Gabriel left Genesis when I was about 12 and just as I was getting into music. I was bigtime into Floyd and Hawkwind by 1975-76 in the calm before the punk storm, and I may have been aware that a band named Genesis existed, but it would be a year or two before I started paying attention to them.

This is how it happened from my POV. It's a bit back-to-front. 

At the start of 1977 I saw the clip for Peter Gabriel's 'Modern Love' and was utterly gobsmacked. I still am. It was an incredible song, especially as a proggish song coming out right at the birth of punk. So I immediately got the first Gabriel album (for some reason I remember getting the second album first, so maybe it wasn't immediate).  Then at the other end of the same year, Genesis had a sizeable hit in Australia with 'Follow you Follow Me'. This seemed a pleasant tune, but compared with 'Modern Love' seemed lightweight and hardly an auspicious introduction to the band in the year of The Sex Pistols and The Stranglers (it probably didn't help that there was an Abba single with a similar title).

I had just gotten into music as a prog fan, only to be enthused by new wave,  which left me with a permanent guilty feeling about prog (if you weren't there at the time you have no idea how hostile the music press was to it, and how desperately uncool it was to like anyone who's first album was from before 1976, unless it was the Velvet Underground) Genesis needed to be more not less edgy to capture my alegience.

But I did backtrack into the Genesis discography because of Gabriel. Loved nearly all the Gabriel albums to one extent or another. When I got to 'Trick of the tail', which was a couple of years old by then, it just seemed to lack any real edge to me, and it still does. I had friends who were nuts about it, but to me Genesis after Gabriel were never more than mildly interesting at best. I preferred 'Wind and Wuthering' (perhaps becasue nobody was telling me how great it was), but not by a lot. I had an uptick of interest when 'Duke' came out, but from memory by this time Gabriel had his amazing third album, and again, Genesis just sounded like a proggish pop band whereas Gabriel seemed both genuinely progressive and had a new-wavish edginess as well, in a similar way to Hammill (who I was discovering by now).

I wrote

"if you weren't there at the time you have no idea how hostile the music press was to (prog)"

I should perhaps have been a bit more specific and said 'English music press', or even just got down to naming names: Melody Maker, and especially NME. These papers had a virtual stranglehold on what it was acceptable for a musically literate person to like in the late 70's in the UK and by extension
Australasia, and they were utter snobs, which is ironic since it was one of their main objections to prog.

Fripp still seems to have a major bee in his bonnet over this, if some of the later KC sleeve notes are any indication.