GENESIS REVISITED: LIVE AT THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL

Steve Hackett's massively successful Genesis Revisited tour has now resulted in yet another live album and video following last year's Genesis Revisited: Live At Hammersmith. The present album was recorded in the Royal Albert Hall. (Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford, and Tony Banks should take note: classic Genesis can still sell out arenas of this size.) The set list draws exclusively from the Genesis albums to which Steve contributed: Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot, Selling England By The Pound, The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, A Trick Of The Tail, and Wind And Wuthering. To be exact, precisely three songs from each of these six albums make up this impressive set list. However, out of the 18 tracks featured here no less than 13 were also present on Live At Hammersmith. Moreover, it is the same line-up with Roger King on keyboards, Gary O'toole on drums, Rob Townsend on sax and flute, Lee Pomeroy on bass, and Nad Sylvan on vocals. Even some of the guest performers are the same including a returning John Wetton (though he sings Firth Of Fifth here instead of Afterglow).

The considerable overlap with Live At Hammersmith raises some doubts about whether yet another live release from the same tour was really needed. In the light of this let's look at the differences. Out of the five tracks not also on Live At Hammersmith, by far the most interesting are Return Of The Giant Hogweed and Fountain Of Salmacis, both originally from Nursery Cryme. These songs are not often played live. (When I saw this show live in Copenhagen a little while ago they also played The Knife, but unfortunately this song is not present here.) Another interesting feature of Live At The Royal Albert Hall is the presence of Ray Wilson, the singer that Genesis hired for Calling All Stations in 1997 (some 20 years after Steve had left the band!). Wilson sings on The Carpet Crawlers and I Know What I Like.

In the end I must say that I do enjoy the present live album as much as Live At Hammersmith and I thus think the two deserve the same rating of four stars. Live At The Royal Albert Hall is a great live document in its own right, but it is probably only fanatics like me who will feel a great desire to have both of these live albums.

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