You might think that this page would contain studio outtakes and demos and things of that sort. It does not, because I have incorporated those recordings into the main tour pages above. Since demos/outtakes, soundchecks/rehearsals, and interviews (many of which are tacked as bonus tracks onto the end of live shows) can be hard to track down on the tour pages, I have compiled a list of them here with links to the pages where their full entries are located.

Page Summary and Menu

The Carpet Crawlers 1999 (single)

Compilations:

Interviews, 1970-1980

PC Interview, 11/12/74 (?) (WRPI, Troy NY)

MR Interview, 5/87 (WYSP, Philadelphia PA)

Studs and Stetsons

Odds, Ends, and Instrumentals

It's Scrambled Eggs

Raretapes 5

Rarities | Vol. II | Vol. VI | Vol. VIII | The WCD Companion | Rarest Live, Volume 1 | Rarest Live, Volume 2 |

Lamb Review/Strawberry Fields

Turn It on Again: The Hits, 1981-83

Box Sets:

Archives 1 and 2

1976-1982

1970-1975

BBC Broadcasts

Official Video (VHS):

Videos, Volume 1

A History

Official Video (DVD):

Songbook

The Way We Walk: Live in Concert

Live at Wembley Stadium

Inside Genesis 1975-1980

The Video Show

When in Rome

The Last Domino?

Memorabilia:

| Autographed items | Selling England by the Pound Note | Tour Programmes '77-'84 | Tour Programme 2007 | Enamel Badges | Vinyl (Bumper) Sticker |

1 The Carpet Crawlers 1999 (5:38)
2 Follow You Follow Me (3:58)
3 Turn It on Again (3:48)

Quality: Excellent

Comments: A German (?) import single in advance of the Turn It on Again best of collection (Genesis themselves prophesied that the release of a best of collection would signal the end of their band). A new mix by Trevor Horn of the original song, with new vocal tracks from Phil and Peter; the closest thing we'll get to a "new" Genesis song (I also have the video for this song on DVD in my videos section--though it is now officially available on The Video Show DVD). I think it's quite good and sounds very slick and professional; it revels in the chorus and variations on the chorus. If you've heard this song so many times that you're just sick of it, this version might breathe some new life into your musical boredom. Keep in mind the last verse of the song about the porcelain mannequin and the tickler who takes his stickle back has been cut from this version. The other two tracks are just the original studio tracks which were featured on the best of collection (interesting songs to run as b-sides, considering their chart history!). I assume they're the versions from the remastered albums. This single is available to order on Amazon.com as of this writing.

Interview, Phil Collins

1 Interview w/PC, WRPI Troy NY 11/12/74 (?) (21:38)

Type/Quality: Radio/Good-Very Good

Comments: I have been unable to find any information on the Movement about this particular radio interview, which definitely comes from the band's initial US leg of the Lamb tour, and which the trader I got it from dated at 11 December of 1974. This seems likely, as the interview is in a New York radio station studio and 11/12 would put it as the same day as their Albany show at the Palace Theater (that venue is mentioned on the recording).

This is an interesting interview because it catches Phil before he was even remotely well-known, and when Peter was still the lead singer but very near his departure. Phil talks about the early days of the band, and the time is so close to when he joined that he has a different perspective on the Gabriel songs than he would in later years, and his opinions about them are interesting. He discusses "Twilight Alehouse" (which the trio of DJs interviewing him do not seem to know anything about), and even mentions the band's 4-piece period, which happened during the first months after his joining. For once, Phil discusses his audition without mentioning the story of swimming in the pool beforehand and learning the parts.

It's funny to hear Phil trying to deal with questions about the band dynamic and recording style, and his plainly inaccurate answer to the question about audience response to the tour. There is a pause, then: "Good!" he says. He quickly mentions that it has been hard playing the complete new album to audiences, but his response is ironic considering later complaints he made about audience reaction on this tour.

Other interesting comments: Phil mentions that Peter's flying on stage during the end of "Supper's Ready" only happened in New York and London during the SEBTP tour. He claims that the original idea for the Lamb was for it to be a three-side album, but the record company forced the band to push it to four sides (since a three-side album is not very sellable!). Phil also says that the idea for Peter's story upon which the album is based came to him in a dream!

Phil has a somewhat interesting answer for what kind of music the different band members like to listen to (King Crimson is mentioned, and Phil admits his own predilection for "commercial jazz").

Unfortunately the interview is incomplete. Phil is answering a question about the content of the live gig to happen that evening, and is just mentioning that there will be no intermission when the sound cuts out. The sound quality is perfectly listenable but the volume is very low. At one point the station does play "Lilywhite Lilith" from the new album, but the song cuts off after a few seconds and the interview continues.

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Interview, Mike Rutherford

1 Interview w/MR, WYSP Philadelphia PA 28 or 29/5/87 (45:30)

Type/Quality: Radio/Good

Comments: Here is another interesting interview which I have been unable to track down on the Movement. The radio station mentioned above is identified during the recording. The period is definitely the Invisible Touch tour, and mention is made of a show at the Vet in Philadelphia, which would seem to date at least the recording of the interview at the end of May of 1987. The quality unfortunately leaves a bit to be desired: the show seems to have been aired in two installments, and though the first one is all right, the second part has reception problems which make it somewhat difficult to make out what Mike is saying.

The interview is really a retrospective on the band, with the DJ taking Mike through their musical history album by album. Snippets from various songs (never a complete song as far as I can tell) are played to break up the talking. They actually spin "When the Sour Turns to Sweet"! Also "Visions of Angels" is heard. Not all of the song bits are studio tracks: there is a live bit of "Musical Box" which is probably from 1977.

Mention is made of the band's live American debut in New York in 1972--the DJ, whose name is unknown to me but who apparently can be seen for a very short part of the backstage scene in the Three Sides Live tour movie, says he was at the '72 show. Mike comments that a lot of radio people that he meets seem to have been there, and mentions the band's lukewarm perception of their performance that night.

Mike complains about the sound quality on their early studio recordings. His comments about some of the albums I found surprising. Selling England, for instance, he calls "Inconsistent," and says that "Epping Forest" has too much in it to work. He regrets that the Lamb was a concept album--he thinks the music was very strong, but isn't so crazy about the story arc. He mentions that Trick was almost all done before Peter had even officially announced his departure from the band! He says Wind and Wuthering is not one of his favorite albums (though it is one of Tony's favorites). Another of Tony's favorites, Duke, is brought up by Mike as an example of the band beginning to become a caricature of themselves (he mentions "Cul-de-sac" as an example of this trend).

Before the recording cuts off, Mike is talking about the b-sides for Invisible Touch, so he has gotten up to the (then) present time and it's likely that the interview was nearing its end. Of course because IT was a new album at that point, Mike is very enthusiastic about it (though he can barely remember the titles of the non-album tracks!). It would be interesting to hear his opinion of the album twenty years later.

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01 Me and Virgil (6:17) (excellent) (studio, 1981)
02 Match of the Day (3:24) (excellent) (studio, 1977)
03 Bye Bye Johnny (9:54) (fair-good) (14/4/72 and 9/4/72)
04 Going Out to Get You (4:23) (good) (18/4/72)
05 Only Your Love (3:04) (good) (studio, 11/73)
06 Silver Song (4:14) (good) (studio, 11/73)
07 Seven Stones (5:24) (good-fair) (22/8/72)
08 The Light (11:43) (poor) (7/3/71)
09 Say It's Alright Joe (7:57) (very good) (7/5/80)
10 Me and Virgil (6:52) (good) (27/9/81)
11 Like It or Not (5:11) (good) (30/11/81)
12 Eleventh Earl of Mar/The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway/Firth of Fifth/The Musical Box (10:23) (good) (3/2/84)

Type/Quality: Varies; quality is labeled above.

Comments: This is the perfect CD for those of you who want those weird songs that didn't make it onto the Archive sets; also a nice starter for beginner bootleg collectors, with a good sampling of stuff. However if you would prefer to have the full show from which any one live song is taken, please click on the corresponding date listed above to go directly to my entry for that show on the appropriate tour page (I have multiple versions from a few dates, but have tried to link to what I feel is the best version from each date--which does not always correspond with the version source of these tracks).

I put this collection together from a CD that another fan was nice enough to send me and from one converted mp3 from the now-defunct "The Path" web site (track 12). I also messed with the version of "Bye Bye Johnny" a little. The title of the compilation comes from a statement Tony Banks made (a "Bankstatement") in the introduction to Archive #2: "No studs or stetsons, the line had to be drawn somewhere." Well, I was not satisfied with where the line was drawn.

Tracks 1 and 2 are leftovers from (respectively) the 3 x 3 and the Spot the Pigeon EPs that didn't make the Archive cut (although they were later released as tracks on the bonus disc included with the "1976-1982" box set of 2007, so they're not as valuable as they used to be!). Track 3 is an early version of "Can-Utility and the Coastliners," which Peter introduces by the title listed above, and which includes more music and different lyrics than the studio track. This version's ending, recorded at Pavia Italy, faded out. I didn't like that, so I tacked on the ending of the song as performed at the Lem Club several days earlier (I think it sounds pretty smooth), which is the same song but was introduced instead as "Rock My Baby." Track 4 is live, and is basically a different song than the studio track of the same name featured on Archive #1; the chorus is the same, but the other bits are utterly different, and there is much more aggression. This is from the 18/4/72 performance in Rome, one of the best shows from the NC tour. Tracks 5 and 6 are actually Anthony Phillips songs featuring Phil on vocals and Mike on guitar. They were demos for a single (a-side and b-side) which (for some mysterious reason) was never released. See my Mysteries page for more on that. Track 7 is a very, very rare live recording of "Seven Stones," played in Genoa near the end of the NC tour. Track 8 is an old, long live number that is actually a very early version of what would one day become "Lilywhite Lilith." It also contains bits from a much, much longer instrumental piece called simply "The Movement," which included a lot of bits of music that were used in later Genesis songs (for more on this, see Scott McMahan's discography--and in my objective lists section under Non-Album Tracks). This version is from one of the inferior boots of this gig that came before the much better HW12 remaster.

Track 9 is from the London Lyceum show of 7/5/80; Phil really milks his dramatic pauses on this track. This is the only song missing from the famous Musica bootleg (though that material has now been remastered by various people and multiple versions of the radio broadcast exist with SIAJ included). The remaining tracks are various live songs that weren't performed very often (for more info on these and other rarely played songs, see my lists section: rarely played live). Track 10 is the very rarely played "Me and Virgil," which was (as far as I know) only played the first two nights of the Abacab tour, both in Spain. "Like It or Not" (track 11) I have compared with my Landover show and they seem identical (the copy from the Landover show actually sounds much better). This song was only played very very rarely on the Abacab tour. The last song (track 12) is the final form of the rare "Eleventh Earl of Mar" medley played during the Mama tour, which Phil described as a trip down memory lane. The medley went through three other versions before settling on this one. By the way, all of the non-studio tracks on this compilation come from audience recordings, except of course the Lyceum track, which comes from a radio broadcast.

1 Keep it Dark (5:00) (very good) (27/11/83)
2 In the Cage/'...in that quiet earth.'/Apocalypse in 9/8 (20:41) (very good) (14-15/10/86)
3 One-Handed Drum Solo (3:11) (good) (18/4/72)
4 Fly on a Windshield/Broadway Melody of 1974 (instrumental) (2:43) (good) (10/6/76)
5 The Carpet Crawlers (6:00) (fair) (23/10/92)
6 The Waiting Room (Evil Jam) (9:35) (good) (15/4/75)
7 It (4:17) (good) (24/1/75)
8 Mama (6:51) (fair) (9/5/92)
9 Your Own Special Way (6:37) (good) (16/2/77)
10 All in a Mouse's Night (6:35) (fair) (2/1/77)
11 Keep it Dark (demo) (4:16) (very good) (studio, 81)

Type/Quality: Varies; quality is labeled above.

Comments: More rare and/or rarely-performed live tracks, plus a demo of "Keep it Dark." Please note that I have better-sounding versions now of quite a few of these tracks--to go to my best full show for each date, click on the date listed above. All of these were mp3s I got off "The Path," except tracks 2, 5 and 8, all of which I took from the next collection (after Scrambled Eggs). In fact, I have learned that all the mp3s on "The Path" correspond exactly with the track list of a compilation bootleg called "Rarities Through the Years 1971-1998," which I found on someone's website. Which came first, however, I don't know. My bootleg compilation is slightly different. I'd like to stress that none of the tracks on this CD are in mp3 format; that's just the form they were in when I first got them. I converted them to tracks that play on any CD player.

Track 2 is definitely from a KBFH show, since you can hear the announcer at the end of the track saying they'll return with more King Biscuit Flower Hour. I've had a heck of a time dating these tracks, and this is one of several that I've had to change. Track 3 also includes the intro story to "The Musical Box" at the end of it; I could have removed it, but it's an OK story. This track is again from the famous Rome show on 18/4/72. Track 4 is actually from 1976, not from the Lamb tour; it's a hearty chunk of the "Lamb Stew." I have the full radio broadcast from which this was taken. Track 6 is a great version of "The Waiting Room," much more interesting than the version on Archive #1 (this one is from the Empire Pool show, which was broadcast over the radio and bootlegged mercilessly).

Tracks 7 and 9 used to have additional bits on them; "It," for instance, had Pete introducing the encore song ("Musical Box") at the end. This version of "It" is from the Shrine Auditorium show of 24/1/75, the same show featured on the Archive box set; however, the box set replaced this live version with an alternate studio take. In the box set booklet, Tony says the tape had run out by this song, but if this is dated correctly, it clearly didn't. (I checked up on this with the knowledgeable David Dunnington, who believes that the whole show actually was taped with two overlapping recordings; it was once believed that KBFH held the recording with the end of the show on it, but Dunnington now believes the KBFH does not have Shrine at all, and that if anyone has it it's the management of Genesis--why it was not available for the box set I don't know!) I have this Shrine Auditorium material in multiple places--the linked entry above is one, and it is also here and here. "Your Own Special Way" included Phil introducing Steve Hackett, who then (they did it this way during the W&W tour) announced the next song, "Firth of Fifth." I removed all of that junk because I didn't see any reason for it being there, especially since the songs they introduced do not appear on this collection. These mp3s came with names that seemed to include the dates of their performances, but as I've said they have caused me a world of trouble, as most of them were faulty. I am now fortunately able to correctly identify the date for this song as 16/2/77, since I have the boot for that whole show and was able to compare.

Tracks 5 and 8 are from the WCD tour, and they're both songs that weren't played very often on that tour. "Crawlers" is probably the one and only performance of the song during the entire WCD tour. However, the recording for both is the worst kind of audience recording. I had thought that The Way We Walk Volume I: The Shorts had a version of "Mama" from the WCD tour that sounded much better than this one, but have since learned that the WWW version is actually from the IT tour (as are one or two other cuts off that album; see McMahan's discography for more info on that--also thanks to Jeff Blehar for pointing this out to me!). So this song, even though it is low quality, is still fairly valuable. Some might not appreciate the demo of "Keep it Dark"--it's only the instrumental part, and some might find it very repetitive and boring. Track 10 is from the 2/1/77 radio broadcast.

As for original sources: tracks 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, and 10 are all from radio shows. Tracks 3, 5, and 8 are audience recordings. Track 11 is a studio recording. Track 1 was supposed to be from 3/2/84, but it's not. I believe I have found a match in the Spectrum show of 27 November 1983.

It's Scrambled Eggs
(Various Genesis)

01 The Musical Box (11:40) (24/1/75)
02 Follow You, Follow Me (a-side remix) (3:15)
03 Mama (7:10) (30/6/90)
04 Throwing It All Away (6:11) (30/6/90)
05 Supper's Ready (soundcheck, from end of "Willow Farm"--possibly by cover band) (9:56)
06 The Knife (3:49) (24/6/77)
07 Afterglow (3:31) (Fisher Lane Farm, 2000)
08 Submarine (4:28) (studio, 81)
09 Deep Green (Phil) (5:02)
10 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (Pete, Mike and Steve) (5:59) (28/1/83)
11 Here Comes the Flood (Pete) (5:12)

Type/Quality: Varies, see below

Comments: This is my third and hopefully last self-made compilation album, put together from some mp3s I got on a CD plus a few I transferred from several tapes. Click on the linked dates above (or sprinkled through this comments section) to go to my entries for full versions of those shows. The first eight tracks are Genesis tracks, the last three are solo songs. Track 1 is the encore played at the Shrine Auditorium in LA on 24 January 1975; it also appears on the boot Twilight Alehouse and on A Living Story. And I have a couple tracks from it on Lamb Stew. Track 2 is from a US remix of the single that was backed with "Inside and Out;" it is supposedly longer than the UK single. Tracks 3 and 4 are from the Silver Clef charity concert held at Knebworth Park on 30/6/90. Both Phil solo and Genesis performed at the concert; these two tracks from that performance were transferred from a tape (as was the "Follow You" remix). I have the full Knebworth '90 performance on audio CD and on DVD. Track 5 is an incredibly high quality instrumental bit of "Supper's Ready" played during a soundcheck, but I have no idea what date it's from; I have heard on good authority that this track may actually not be by Genesis at all (!), but by a tribute band of some kind. If so it doesn't really belong on this disc, but it's an excellent version of the song nonetheless.

Track 6, "The Knife" is probably from 24 June of 1977, one of only three nights on the '77 tour when that song was actually played (as an encore)--they were all in a row at Earls Court, from 23-25 June, but 24 June was the only show that was broadcast in good quality on the radio. "Afterglow" (track 7) is the beautiful version from the Songbook DVD, my personal favorite version of this song. "Submarine" (track 8) is the original studio b-side, which does not fade out like the version on Archive 2--it may also be different than the other studio version of this song that I have on Abacab Complete, which on that bootleg forms a sort of segue between "Lurker" and "Naminanu." (The version of "Submarine" on the bonus disc included with the "1976-1982" box set, released in 2007, also does not fade out and probably is identical to this version--except that it sounds better.) "Deep Green" (track 9) is a very interesting song, the history of which Scott McMahan details in his discography. Apparently it was written by a man named John Lancaster for an album called Skinningrove Bay, but mislabeled as "Save a Place For Me." It was not written by Phil, and all he did was the vocals. There were also a few other bits of misinformation that apparently confused everyone about the origins of this track, but as far as I know what I've told you is correct.

"I Know What I Like" (track 10) was labeled as a version of the song done live by Peter Gabriel during a solo tour of some kind, with Steve Hackett and Mike Rutherford making guest appearances. Help from a fellow fan and some research of Alan Hewitt's indispensable book revealed the correct source for this track: a charity concert in aid of Tadworth Children's Hospital at the Civic Centre in Guildford, UK, on 28 January 1983. It was actually Steve Hackett solo, but for the charity concert he reunited with Mike and Pete, and they did a few songs. They did "Here Comes the Flood," "Reach Out (I'll be There)," "Solsbury Hill," and the song featured here. Mike and Pete didn't come in until the end of the show. I have since found that Hewitt's date of 29/1 is incorrect and 28/1 is the correct date. I have also since acquired the complete recording of this gig, which can be found in the "Solo" section. Track 11 is the "quiet version" of this song, from a Robert Fripp LP called Exposure, on which Peter Gabriel did a lot of work. It includes some kind of sound byte on the beginning with some old guy talking about how there will be another ice age soon; in the background there is some electronic music that sounds very much like some bits from the song "Exposure" from Pete's second LP (very fitting, considering the name of the collection this comes from, and also the fact that Fripp himself produced Gabriel's sophomore outing). This music used to remind me very strongly of a song called "The Heavenly Music Corporation," done by Robert Fripp and Brian Eno on their album No Pussyfooting. Fripp also played variations on this song which were usually called simply "Walk on (No Pussyfooting)," during King Crimson concerts in the 70s. Just some trivia there for you--I guess what I'm trying to say mainly is that it sounds very Frippish. This is a good version of this song, better than the original but still not as good as Gabriel's piano/vocals only version on his best of collection, Shaking the Tree. I feel that version of the song puts more emotion and poignancy in it than any other one, and hits you right in the gut. Also I think I'm a sucker for really simplistic, stripped-down versions of songs. The quality level on most of these tracks is astoundingly good; some exceptions are tracks 2-4, which were transferred from two different tapes, and track 10. I would say that no track's quality ever dips below Good.

1 In the Cage/'...in that quiet earth.'/Apocalypse in 9/8 (20:38) (very good)
2 Mama (6:53) (poor)
3 The Carpet Crawlers (6:00) (poor)
4 Nowhere Else to Turn (4:33) (very good)
5 Small Talk (5:33) (very good)
6 That's All (4:54) (poor)
7 Hold on My Heart (6:03) (poor)

Type/Quality: Varies; quality is labeled above.

Comments: Another unprofessional photo of an album cover, again by yours truly. All of the tracks on this CD got split up and put on other CDs earlier in this section. Tracks 1-3 are on Odds, Ends, and Insturmentals (above), and tracks 4-7 are on After the Ordeal, on the CAS tour page. This disc was put together by a bunch of people from the Paperlate mailing list. It was the last of a 5-disc series of what they saw as essential bootleg tracks spanning the whole career of the band. I think that my Studs and Stetsons disc is probably composed of tracks from the other discs in this series.

1 Firth of Fifth (live) (9:22) 1981
2 Me and Virgil (6:17) 1982
3 Mama (extended) (7:13) 1983
4 It's Gonna Get Better (extended) (6:06) 1983
5 Tonight, Tonight, Tonight (edit) (4:18) 1987
6 Throwing It All Away (live) (7:04) 1987
7 Invisible Touch (live) (5:03) 1987
8 Invisible Touch (reprise) (0:57) 1987

Type/Quality: Varies (see below)

Comments: The tape from which this came originally had way more tracks than this, all of which I removed because they were either b-sides or 12" remixes that ended up on Archive #2. The tape also included the same live version of "Man on the Corner" that was on the box set (though the tape version was taken from the MTV video). The ones that remained here are almost all b-sides to limited edition single releases of one sort or another (which I discovered while flipping through Alan Hewitt's excellent book, Opening the Musical Box). "Me and Virgil" is of course from the Abacab sessions and was originally featured on the 3 x 3 EP, later on the original US release of Three Sides Live (this version is no longer easily available), and later still on the 1976-1982 box set. The extended version of "Mama" is exactly the same as the album version, but has more of Phil telling his Mama not to go at the end of it. Track 4 is the studio version of the song with an extra verse mixed in, as it was performed live on Archive 2. These two tracks were the a and b-side (respectively) to a single that was released in several different forms (7", 12" and CD), but according to the tape these versions are originally from the 12". Track 5 is the single edit of that song, without the instrumental section, from the 12". Tracks 6 and 7 are from the IT tour--I believe they were taken from a cassette single released after the tour, with the live version of "Throwing It All Away" as the a-side and the live version of "Invisible Touch" as one of the b-sides (along with "I'd Rather Be You"). Track 8 starts with the end of the studio version of the song, then fades into Phil and Mike and Tony singing the end chorus without accompaniment. This comes from the end of the promo video for the single--it's a humorous little tidbit and a rather good way to end the disc. Track 1 actually appears on another CD later on in this section, which was an import release but which doesn't seem to be in print anymore. Rather than use the lower quality version from the tape, I took this track from the CD. The performance is from 1981, but this particular song has an interesting history: it was first released in May of 83 by the Genesis Information fan club as a one-sided vinyl "flexidisc." It was also later released as a b-side on a 12" "That's All" single, and finally on the collection that I got it from. Finally, it has appeared on various radio shows and I think on the 3SL video, but in most of those incarnations it was missing part of the last verse--this version is complete. Track 2 I also took from a CD quality source rather than the tape version. The two well-labeled tapes in this series (this volume and the WCD Companion) both have a disclaimer on them that reads as follows:

"This collection of Genesis songs is not for sale or profit. While the band won't see any royalties from this, neither will the people who market and sell the original recordings for large sums of money. This tape is made especially for all the great people on the Genesis mailing list."

Following that on this volume was the message "Compiled September, 1991." I imagine this was the time when most of the volumes were compiled. I copied most of this message onto the insert of the CD, to keep the concept behind the thing alive. As to quality of the recordings, these all came from sources which were at one time or another official releases, so the sources were all excellent. However, this CD was transferred from an old cassette tape, which was probably recorded from another master tape, which probably came from the original sources. I didn't play it much or put it in the sun, so it's in OK condition, but the volume level may be a bit low, even though I tried to fix this by normalizing the levels before burning the tracks onto a CD. Compared to most live bootlegs, it sounds fantastic.

Peter Gabriel
1-1 Sledgehammer (dance remix) (5:19)
1-2 Shosholoza (5:00)
1-3 Biko (live) (6:07)
1-4 No More Apartheid (6:47)
1-5 Walk Through the Fire (3:46)
1-6 I Have the Touch (85 remix) (4:48)
Tony Banks
1-7 This is Love (5:49)
1-8 Charm (5:11)

Tony Banks
2-01 K2 (3:44)
2-02 Sometime Never (3:28)
Mike and the Mechanics
2-03 All I Need is a Miracle (remix) (6:03)
2-04 Too Far Gone (3:58)
2-05 Nobody's Perfect (6:03)
2-06 Nobody Knows (3:08)
2-07 Revolution (3:47)
Steve Hackett
2-08 The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (live) (3:56)
2-09 Time Lapse at Milton Keynes (live) (3:45)
Anthony Phillips
2-10 Erotic Strings (1:04)
2-11 Trail of Tears (5:16)

Type/Quality: Varies (see below)

Comments: As you can see by the track list, this volume is composed entirely of solo members' work. I did not originally have any info on where these tracks came from, but thanks to some research on my part and some uncovered info on the details of these releases, I can now state pretty confidently the origin of each. For the Peter Gabriel tracks: the "Sledgehammer" remix is not quite as bad as the Genesis 12" remixes, and was released as a single (in MANY different forms; in fact, this may be the "extended mix" of the song, not the "dance mix" as it was labeled). "Shosholoza" was a b-side on various singles, mostly on the back of "Biko" (this is in fact from the 12" of "Biko"). The live version of "Biko" is probably from a single that had the b-sides "No More Apartheid" and "I Have the Touch ('85 remix)." "Walk Through the Fire" was on the soundtrack to the movie Against All Odds, and also appeared as a single. This version is probably from the soundtrack, but "I Have the Touch" is actually the b-side from the "Walk Through the Fire" single. All of the Tony Banks tracks are different versions than the songs by the same titles that appeared on his album The Fugitive. These tracks are interesting if only for the fact that the non-instrumentals feature Tony on lead vocals (what some might consider a tortuous listening experience). "This is Love" and "Charm" come from the "This is Love" 12" single. The other two Banks tracks were apparently only on the CD re-release of the album.

The Mike Rutherford tracks 2-03, 2-05 and 2-06 appeared (in another form) on studio albums. 2-03 is definitely a remix, from the 12" single for the song. "Nobody's Perfect" is an extended remix, from the 12" single for that song; and "Nobody Knows" is the single edit, from that song's 12". "Too Far Gone" is an instrumental track which was one of the b-sides on a 12" single for "Silent Running." "Revolution" is a hideously awful cover of the Beatles tune, and probably comes from a promo CD released in connection with the soundtrack to the movie Rude Awakening. The Hackett tracks are live performances; they are both b-sides to a 12" single whose a-side was "Cell 151." The Phillips tunes ended up as bonus tracks on his CD releases ("Erotic Strings" ended up on the CD re-issue of Private Parts & Pieces IV, and "Trail of Tears" was a bonus track on Invisible Men), but I doubt they were on any original studio albums, simply because of their inclusion on the original tape. According to info on the Rarities volumes, the first song comes from the Harvest of the Heart LP, while the second is labeled simply "Anthony Phillips, LP." I'm not sure what this means--apparently the taper was not sure of the source LP's name, or they thought it was self-titled. This tape wasn't in quite as good condition as the last one, plus the sources may have been older than in the previous volume, so the quality is not quite as good. The sound can be wavery at times, and the volume level is low. There is also some tape hiss.

Genesis
1-1 Illegal Alien (edit) (4:32)
1-2 Turn It on Again (damn) (9:23)
Marillion
1-3 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (5:58)
Phil Collins
1-4 ...And so to F... (live) (8:52)
Steve Hackett
1-5 Hercules Unchained (2:36)
Phil Collins
1-6 Tomorrow Never Knows (3:19)
1-7 Please Don't Ask (4:08)
Anthony Phillips
1-8 Silver Song (4:02)

Genesis
2-01 Back in N.Y.C. (5:59)
2-02 The Carpet Crawlers (5:16)
2-03 Watcher of the Skies (7:08)
Anthony Phillips
2-04 Souvenir (3:30)
(featuring) Phil Collins
2-05 Island Dreamer (4:05)
Phil Collins
2-06 Groovy Kind of Love (3:32)
2-07 Two Hearts (3:15)
2-08 In the Air Tonight (2:07)
Genesis
2-09 Billboard Introduction (0:50)
2-10 No Son of Mine (6:21)
2-11 Behind the Lines (Part 2) (3:23)
Phil Collins
2-12 That's How I Feel (4:59)

Type/Quality: Varies (see below)

Comments: This is basically a very eclectic mix of Genesis and Phil Collins, which also features one track each from Marillion and Steve Hackett and two tracks from Ant. I could have reorganized the ordering so that tracks from the same people stayed together, but I decided to stick with the tape's eclectic listing, in the assumption that there was some reasoning behind the structure. The first track was originally from a rare 7" promo single. The second was taped from a 12" single of "Illegal Alien." I actually took the tracks used here from CD cuts that were identical to those on the tape (the source CD was the same one used for the first track on volume 2--it's called Turn It on Again, and its entry is three after this one). "Illegal Alien" is the studio album version, but for the fact that the line of lyric in the bridge of the song about his sister who will be "willing to oblige" has been cut out. "Turn It on Again" is the live "damn" medley version of the song, which mixes a bunch of classic rock tunes together; the result is why some fans have labeled it "damn." This performance was their last night in Philly during the Mama tour; the CD I took it from was identical to the tape version, except for the fact that the tape version had a longer bit at the end with Phil saying "Thank you, good night!" So I added that bit on to the end of the CD version for this track. "I Know What I Like" is a very crude-sounding bootleg recording of Marillion covering the tune; they put a few lines from "The Lamb" and even "Counting Out Time" in there, and generally mess around until the song seems to break down and devolve into an argument amongst the band members. The source is basically unknown. "...And so to F..." is a great song. It was originally recorded by Brand X, but a version, released as the b-side to a 12" single of "I Don't Care Anymore," actually had Phil's live band performing the song. In fact the source for this particular version is a radio broadcast, not the single--it may not even be at the same performance as the single version. The performance is from 1983 at Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C. I can even give you the band line-up: Daryl Stuermer, Chester Thompson, Peter Robinson, Mo Foster, and the famous Phenix Horns.

"Hercules" is the b-side to the 1980 single "The Show." It's a very energetic song, and a lot of fun. Tracks 1-6 and 1-7 are both demos that were played on radio shows. The recording (1-7) also includes some dope coming in at the end and saying "That's my favorite song by you, that and 'In the Air Tonight.'" The fact that they are grouped together here, and that the announcer seems to be talking solely to Phil, and that "Please Don't Ask" was written by Phil, leads me to believe that both demos were performed only by Phil; thus, they both go under the heading of just him instead of "Genesis" on my track list, even though "Please Don't Ask" became a Genesis song. Then there's "Silver Song." I have multiple copies/versions of this song elsewhere, but this is a somewhat unique recording, as this one was definitely taped from the radio: an announcer comes on at the end (actually I have this version of the song taped from the radio complete with an interview on my Worcester '83 show, of all places).

On to disc two. The first three tracks are definitely live Genesis with Pete, and the first two are definitely from the Lamb tour. The original info on these tracks claimed they were all from the "first public performance of the Lamb, recorded from a radio auction of the original tapes," but I doubt the authenticity of this claim very much. I assume that this version of "Watcher" is one of the rare times they played it as an encore at the end of a Lamb show. The quality here is only so-so. (I can now pretty confidently date these first two tracks: 15/4/75, the Empire Pool show, which I have on many different bootlegs--the corresponding tracks are identical to these. "Watcher" however does not match the "Watcher" on my Empire Pool boots, so I don't know where that's from--it may or may not actually be from a radio tape.) "Souvenir" is a beautiful song that was eventually released on the CD re-issue of Ant's album Sides--however this version is supposed to be the b-side from "Um & Argh," 1979. "Island Dreamer" actually comes from the album Scenario by Al Di Meola (I looked it up and tracked it down! and was also later confirmed in my opinion by the Paperlate post giving info on these releases). His band for that album included, among many others: Bill Bruford, Tony Levin, and Phil Collins (on drums only--the song is an instrumental). This particular song sounds very tropical and world music-ish, and kind of dinky, really, placed in the context of all this rock and pop. The next three Phil tracks are actually from a performance he gave on (of all places) the Phil Donahue Show in 1988. They're some nice, stripped-down versions of the songs, especially "In the Air," which is just him and a piano--very cool. The next two tracks are from a performance at the Billboard awards of 1991. Track 2-09 is just some guy (actually Paul Shaffer of David Letterman fame--I didn't know it was him until I got this performance on VHS) announcing the band by focusing on the individual members' solo success. He has a loud, grating voice, and to some he might be very annoying, especially on repeat listenings, until you just want to find out where he lives and knock on the door and--when he opens it--punch him in the gut!! So I put him on a separate track from the song--you can just skip him if you want. Amazingly, I have this Billboard performance on this disc, on VHS, and on DVD. I believe the date of the performance is 9 December 1991, long before the tour began. "Behind the Lines (part 2)" is really just an edited version of the album track, missing the instrumental intro (and, of course, fading off before it goes into "Duchess"). It was the b-side to the 7" "Turn It on Again" single. Finally, "That's How I Feel" is a standard Phil Collins track (from the But Seriously sessions) that for whatever reason never made it onto an album--instead, it was one of the many b-sides linked with the a-side "Hang in Long Enough" (to be more specific, the German b-side release from 1990).

The original tape had one additional track--the 12" remix of "Invisible Touch," which is not very good and is also already featured on Archive 2; so I omitted it here.

01 Prologue: Very Private/Really Great Pop Song (1:14)
02 Invisible Touch (live) (4:58) 1991
03 Interlude 1: Only Son (0:42)
04 Interlude 2: Full Up (0:30)
05 Interlude 3: Exactly That Way( 0:42)
06 I Can't Dance (Liebrant mix) (6:01) 1992
07 That's All (live) (4:57) 1992
08 Interlude 4: Slippery Chord Changes (0:29)
09 Home by the Sea/Second Home by the Sea (live) (12:21) 1992
10 Interlude 5: Navvies (1:39)
11 Driving the Last Spike (live promo edit) (4:15) 1992
12 Interlude 6: Chiseled Hunks (0:49)
13 I Can't Dance (live) (4:43) 1992
14 Interlude 7: Tony is Upset (0:36)
15 Interlude 8: Fires Still Alight (0:48)
16 Land of Confusion (rehearsal) (5:01) 1992
17 Interlude 9: The Elephant (0:38)
18 No Son of Mine (rehearsal) (6:52) 1992
19 Interlude 10: Tony Plugs His Album (0:32)
Tony Banks
20 Still It Takes Me by Surprise (edit) (3:23) 1992
21 Epilogue: The Vultures Circle (0:36)

Type/Quality: Varies (see below)

Comments: This was a very interesting tape, in that in addition to the songs it included a series of what I ended up calling "Interludes," with interviews with the band members and snippets from songs and some talk from narrators about the progress of the album. Most of it is from one or two "behind the scenes" shows about the WCD album (one of which was called "No Admittance" and was aired on the show "In Concert"--I have it on VHS and DVD in my bootleg video section), but some is from an MTV interview, and "Interlude 10" is from Good Morning America. I won't go too much into the Interlude tracks; suffice it to say that they are amusing and interesting historical records. It's also worth noting that I have the full programs from which all of these interludes are taken from on DVD as volumes in my "TV Appearances" series. Track 2 is a b-side from the first single off the album, "No Son of Mine." Track 6 is what is usually called "the other mix" of "I Can't Dance," but it was made apparently by a Ben Liebrant (or possibly Liebrand). (It is not the 12" mix featured on Archive 2, which was AKA "the sex mix.") It was released on several singles, but this version is probably from the "Jesus He Knows Me" single which also had "Hearts on Fire" on it. Tracks 7 and 9 also appeared as the b-sides to various singles (there were tons of singles released for the WCD album). Track 7 was the b-side to "We Can't Dance," along with a live version of "In too Deep" that ended up on the The Way We Walk CD. Track 9 was the b-side to "Hold on My Heart," along with a live version of "Your Own Special Way" from the Australian portion of the tour (featuring a string section), which ended up on Archive 2. Track 11 was a one-track promo single given only to DJs; it features the ending portion of the song. Track 13 is from a VHS recording of the "Fox Summer Preview" show, which showed this number from their concert at the Foxborough stadium in Massachusetts (28/5/92). Track 16 is a b-side to another single version of "Jesus He Knows Me." Track 18 is from something called Rehearsal Rockline, according to the tape; probably a TV airing or radio broadcast of the band rehearsing in Texas Stadium before the start of the tour (6/5/92). I believe this is where track 16 may come from as well. Track 20 is the single edit of a Tony Banks song from his album Still; it is presumably included on here because his album was released (in the US) in conjunction with WCD.

The original tape for this volume had many more tracks. There was the same live version of "No Son of Mine" from the Billboard awards that was featured on volume 8. There were the b-sides "On the Shoreline" and "Hearts on Fire," which ended up on Archive 2. There was the sex mix of "I Can't Dance" and the live version of "Your Own Special Way," also both on Archive 2. There was also a live version of "In Too Deep" which, after lots of careful listens, I decided was identical to the one on The Way We Walk (as mentioned above). I dumped all of these tracks to avoid having doubles, and because they're mostly officially available. Some of the Interludes would make more sense with those songs in, as the Interludes are often segues or introductions to the next track--but what can you do. At least it fits on one CD now!

A lot of the tracks on here were not taken from the US singles, but actually from a limited edition thing called "The Invisible Series." In the US lots of these b-sides were all on the regular singles, but apparently in England some were missing and were instead released as limited edition "Invisible Series" single material. Strange, but according to the Paperlate people, true. This does not make any of the information that I wrote above untrue--it simply means the actual sources for these songs were slightly different.

Rarest Live, Volume 1

Side A
01 Going Out to Get You - 18/4/72, Palasport, Rome
02 Looking For Someone - 22/2/70, BBC Studios
03 Intro: Stagnation - 28/6/72, Watford Town Hall
04 Stagnation - 22/2/70, BBC Studios
05 Happy the Man - 28/6/72, Watford Town Hall
06 Intro: Twilight Alehouse - 28/6/72, Watford Town Hall
07 Twilight Alehouse - 25/9/72, BBC Studios (probably)
08 Seven Stones - 22/8/72, Teatro Alcione, Genoa
09 One-Handed Drum Solo - 28/6/72, Watford Town Hall
10 Harlequin - 4/3/72, Watford Tech (?)

Side B
1 Harold the Barrel - 1974 (?)
2 Bye Bye Johnny - 14/4/72, Palasport, Pavia
3 Can-Utility and the Coastliners - 20/8/72 (early show), Piper 2000 Club, Viareggio
4 Eleventh Earl of Mar - 24/6/77, Earls Court (?)
5 Intro: Inside and Out - 24/6/77, Earls Court
6 Inside and Out (Studio)
7 Lilywhite Lilith/The Waiting Room/Wot Gorilla? - 1/1/77, Rainbow Theatre, London
8 All in a Mouse's Night (incomplete) - 2/1/77, Rainbow Theatre, London

Type/Quality: Varies

Comments: Unlike the great majority of entries catalogued on my lists, this compilation and the next (both from the "Rarities" series) are only available on cassette tape. The reason for this is threefold: 1) I have all of these songs on CD already, just scattered across different shows (to get to those different shows, click on the dates above); 2) the tape versions have sound problems in some places; 3) I didn't feel like transferring to CD. Still, I have it, and I think it's an interesting collection, so I'm going to put it here.

This really is a pretty good smattering of the really rare live stuff. My tape has some songs with scratches on them: "Seven Stones," "Harlequin," "Harold," "Johnny," and off an on from then to the end of the tape. However, I have clean versions of all of these, so if I wanted I could make a nice CD set.

The BBC tracks (2 and 4) on side A are probably pulled directly from The Shepherd, as they have that fake applause at the end; they are both early versions with slightly different lyrics. "Alehouse" I think is also the BBC session version rather than the B-side, though I'm not positive. I'm also not entirely sure whether "Harlequin" is the actual live version from Watford Tech or the BBC session version--some time I will listen to it again and settle this question. There are some songs whose origin I was unsure of, as you can see--unfortunately I do not have access to dating info for this compilation, so I'm working mainly from memory and from my own notes and music.

On to side B. "Harold" is live, an audience recording, but it is not the one from 1972, because the band play the ending as it was played on the Selling England tour in 1974. However the song was played about a half dozen times in '74, so I'm not sure which one this is. "Bye Bye Johnny" must be from Pavia, however, and "Can-Utility" is definitely the version from 20/8. "Mar" I'm not so sure about; it's definitely a radio recording, but really it could be from '77 or '78. Phil can be heard counting in on the beginning. I guessed it was from the Earls Court radio show of '77 because the story for "Inside and Out" is definitely from there; however the compilation sort of contradicts itself by not providing us with a live version of "Inside and Out"--this one is just the studio version.

"Mouse's Night" is probably only on here due to a recording error--it was really supposed to be at the beginning of the second volume of live songs (see next entry). The song cuts off before it reaches the end.

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Rarest Live, Volume 2

Side A
1 All in a Mouse's Night - 2/1/77, Rainbow Theatre, London
2 Down and Out (rehearsal) - 26/3/78, Reunion Center, Dallas Texas
3 Down and Out (live) - 1978 (?)
4 Ballad of Big - 1978 (?)
5 The Story of Albert - 1980 (?)
6 Me and Virgil - 27/9/81, Velodromo Anoeta, San Sebastian Spain
7 No Reply At All - 23/8/82, Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, New York
8 Paperlate - 23/8/82, Forest Hills Tennis Stadium,

Side B
1 Mama - ??
2 Back in NYC - 1980 (?)
3 Horizons - 21/4/74, Montreal??
4 Supper's Ready - 20/10/73, Rainbow Theatre, London

Type/Quality: Varies

Comments: This second volume of rare live Genesis songs is slightly shorter than the first, but left me more confused as to correct dates. I'm even kind of guessing on the first song, though it makes sense to me that in the early '90s they (meaning the compilers of this tape) would not have much to choose from other than 2/1/77 for radio source versions of "Mouse's Night." The "Down and Out" rehearsal can pretty much only be one version, but the live audience recording is much harder to pin down, as the band played that song quite a few times in Europe in '78. Phil does tell a short story explaining the song, mentioning a man with a big cigar. Probably if I listened to a few of my versions I could match this one up. The same goes for "Ballad of Big," a rare number, but not so rare that I can tell what date it's from.

The Albert story is even less rare, as Phil told the story pretty much every night of the tour. I can tell this one comes from an audience recording, and my guess is that it's from their US leg, as Phil has a picture of a lady and a picture of a television set to show the audience. "Me and Virgil" is definitely the live version from Spain--they only played it live in Spain, and this is the only complete recording. "No Reply" and "Paperlate" are consecutive songs from the same gig, played with the Phenix Horns. According to my notes these come from 23/8, since that is the gig where Phil says they have "done this once before," as he says at the beginning of "No Reply" before introducing the Phenix Horns.

"Mama" sounds like an audience recording, but other than that I have no idea where it comes from--if it truly deserves the "rarest live" label, then I would assume it is from the WCD tour, but I don't know for sure. "NYC" is definitely from 1980, since Phil is on vocals. "Horizons" could be from almost any of the SEBTP gigs it was played on (there were a few), but based on the sound quality and the audience clapping afterwards, I took a stab at a date. The tape ends, as it must, with "Supper"--the typical live "Supper," from 20/10/73. At the very end of the tape we hear Phil's "a little less like a painter with a jacket on" line from the same date--cute.

All in all, these two volumes show a pretty good look at the rarest live performances from Genesis. Some that I think should also have been included: "The Light," "Like It or Not," maybe "More Fool Me," and perhaps a nice version of "White Mountain" from '76. Then one could make another volume devoted solely to medleys...but I could go on and on. It's not a bad collection, and some day I will sit down and have fun figuring out some more of these dates.

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Lamb Review/Strawberry Fields

1 DJ Review of 16/12/74 Lamb Show (3:12)
2 Strawberry Fields Forever (Peter Gabriel)(2:40)

Type/Quality: Radio-Vinyl/Very Good

Comments: This CD has some interesting, rather odd artifacts on it. The first is a radio DJ's review of the Genesis Lamb show of 16 December 1974 at the Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. What he describes sounds like a typical playing of the show--he doesn't go into specifics, but does mention Steve Hackett's hand injury and how it seemed to affect his style of play. He talks about the fact that Pete's costumes were actually downplayed on this tour, to help showcase the other members of the band and their particular talents (he vaguely describes the Rael outfit and Slipperman costume). He also mentions that the encores were "Box" and "Watcher" (there is a boot of this gig but it does not seem to feature either encore) and that the audience were very attentive and appreciative (which does not seem to fit with at least Phil's general impressions of audience reaction on that tour, and is rather impressive coming from a crowd who couldn't possibly have been that familiar with the album--seeing as how it had only been released about a month before). It's nice to hear someone being effusive about this tour. This was taped from the radio and the quality is very good.

The other track on the disc is a Beatles cover by Peter Gabriel, transferred from vinyl. The quality is very clear and good except for the inevitable vinyl pops in the background. The song is rather strange, as Pete seems to have been trying to sing like someone else instead of in his normal style, and it seems as though a verse has been knocked out of the song. His vocals are very much to the fore and the strings (provided by the London Symphony Orchestra) in the back don't really get a chance to do anything. This seems to have been his first real solo recording, which on one site I saw was supposed to have been recorded in November of 1975, but was probably released in 1976 for the soundtrack of a very strange movie called "All This and World War II," which featured various artists covering Beatles tunes to accompanying video footage of the war. Don't ask me. This soundtrack featured the slightly more famous Elton John cover of "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds," among many other things. On a search on the internet I came up with a nice scan of an original 8-track tape of this recording. Certainly a curious one-off thing, special for its being one of his very first solo endeavors, rare since the soundtrack does not seem commercially available, and interesting to know that Pete covered the Beatles before Phil did (though in all honesty I think Phil did a better job covering "Tomorrow Never Knows" than Pete did with this song). I also have this song available on a collection of Peter Gabriel studio demos in my Solo section.

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01 Mama (6:03)
02 Home by the Sea (4:45)
03 That's All (4:21)
04 Illegal Alien (4:33)
05 Paperlate (3:14)
06 No Reply At All (4:34)
07 Takin' It All Too Hard (3:56)
08 Man on the Corner (4:15)
09 Misunderstanding (live) (3:57)
10 Follow You, Follow Me (live) (4:39)
11 Abacab (live) (8:35)
12 Turn It on Again (live, oldies medley) (9:03)
13 Firth of Fifth (live) (9:22)

Type/Quality: CD/Excellent

Comments: This is NOT the more recently released best of collection of the same name (which spans far more years in the band's history). I believe that I found this CD in the summer of 1995, in a record store in Rhode Island. It's an import, possibly from Germany. I bought it mostly for the copy of "Paperlate," which at the time I only had on tape. I assumed this was a fairly common CD that was still officially available, until I tried to look it up on the web in order to catalogue it on this site. Turns out it's not to be found anymore! Though most of this stuff appears on other official albums that are still extant, some of it is interesting (most of the interesting tracks appear on the Rarities entries above). "Mama" is the single edit, missing some of the opening among other things. "Home by the Sea" is the version from the album, except that the end fades out. "That's All" is the album version. "Illegal Alien" is the single edit, missing a line from the bridge. The "Paperlate" here fades out slightly quicker than its counterpart on Three Sides Live (US) and Archive 2. Likewise for "No Reply At All." "Takin' It All Too Hard" is the album version. "Man on the Corner" fades out a full 10 seconds earlier than the album version. Tracks 9-11 are directly from Three Sides Live. Track 12 was performed at the Spectrum on Daryl's birthday (as Phil mentions in the band introductions on this track), and features bits from the following songs: "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love," "Satisfaction/The Last Time," "All Day and All of the Night," and "In the Midnight Hour." Phil's intro into this oldies section is really quite humorous; the idea that Philly could ever be their "home town," as Phil calls it, is in itself pretty funny. This track (as mentioned above) was also released as a b-side to "Illegal Alien." Track 13 is also a b-side on the 12" "That's All" single.

Comments: Since these are both official releases, I'm going to try not to explain too much about them. Archive 1 has an entire show of the Lamb from 24 January 1975 at the Shrine Auditorium in LA--the sticker on the cover of the shrinkwrap (which I maniacally kept) says the performance is from April 24, 1975, but this date is incorrect (the booklet that came inside the set has the right date). This is one of many inconsistencies in the Archive set, but more on that later. The other two discs in the four disc set are various previously unreleased live cuts from the Gabriel years (1967-1975), plus a bunch of demos and b-sides from their very earliest days--and a few tracks from the first album without the strings on, to give you an idea of what if might have sounded like without Johnathan King's meddling. Disc three is mainly a 1973 show from the Rainbow Theatre, with stuff from the SEBTP tour.

Some overdubs were done on both the Lamb show and the Rainbow show, to fix up some (perceived) glitches. Many of these dubs were on Pete's vocals, but some other work was also done--for instance, the FoF solo was redone by Steve Hackett. The original radio broadcast of the Rainbow show is thus still valuable, since it is the original show, without overdubs. The music site Wolfgang's Vault boasts a complete, undubbed soundboard recording of the Shrine '75 performance. This is a bit surprising, since the box set version has neither of the encores and its "It" is in fact an alternate studio take from the period, supposedly because the tape ran out somewhere before the end of the live show (the Wolfgang's Vault version is not the only one that gives the lie to this claim; see Twilight Alehouse and my third compilation's comments above).

As a promotion for the release of this first set, all of the original members of Genesis from that time period (except for drummers Chris Stewart and John Mayhew and guitarist Mick Barnard--did I miss anyone?) reunited in London's Heathrow airport and had some photos taken of them.

This is a really great collection of rare tracks with excellent audio quality that I highly recommend to any fan of Genesis. While the Shrine and Rainbow performances lose some vitality and believability with the addition of the overdubs, they still shine through as classic Genesis performances and it is fantastic to have them in official-release quality. Also I feel the real value of the first box set lies in the collected b-sides and demos, which give an interesting look into the band's formative period and a welcome glimpse into the vault of never-before-heard Genesis tunes (this is by no means all the non-album tracks they could have dug up; see my list here).

I also recommend Archive 2, which is composed of a lot of b-sides and unreleased live tracks from the Phil Collins years (1976-1992). I don't think Archive 2 is quite as interesting as the first box set, but this is probably mostly personal opinion--while I find the b-sides from the first set a very interesting style of music and a fascinating historical picture of the early band, I find the b-sides on the second set somewhat mediocre. After all, there was a reason these tracks never made it onto studio albums. (Moreover, a good deal of these b-sides--even a couple not included here--are now available in new mixes and better sound quality on the 1976-1982 reissue box set.) I wish the tracks were organized in a way that makes more sense--they're not in chronological order, or even grouped by album session, and b-sides are mixed on discs with live cuts. Also, the 12" remixes are really quite terrible. (Admittedly, I do tend to lean more towards Gabriel than Collins.) However, the live tracks on Archive 2 are excellent and mostly unavailable elsewhere, with highlights like "Duke's Travels," "Entangled," and "The Lady Lies" (but sadly no "Say It's Alright Joe," which I think was done particularly well live). Also I absolutely love "Mama (work in progress)," as a look at Genesis messing around in the studio, and a glimpse into how lyrics take shape ("ah, can't har, joo mama..."). Of course, the quality of a Genesis song has nothing to do with whether or not I want it (the test for that is: "did they record it?" If they did, then I want it), so I'd be very happy with the sets no matter what--but the quality is, in most cases, very good.

My main problem with the sets, in fact, is with the way they were packaged/put together. The beautiful full color booklets in each one, for instance, while very well-designed with lots of interesting photos and various bits of memorabilia, were cleverly bound with a glue that makes them fall apart if you look through them more than once. Also, the type inside, while being on the whole intelligently written essays by various critics, promoters, or roadies, was edited very badly and probably averages one typo per page. The back of Archive 1 does NOT include the track listing, which is very irritating, since every time you want to know what's on each disc (mostly disc three or four, since most fans who buy this box set will be familiar with the track ordering of the Lamb on disc one and two), you have to get out the book and flip to the last few pages--the only place anywhere on the packaging where the tracks are listed. In addition: the CDs are held in the box by inset jewel case cradles. This is all very well, until the day you open the box set and the first two discs (stuck on the inside front cover of the box) fall out into your lap, or onto the floor. I found that eventually even opening the box a crack would cause all of the CDs to jump out of their holders and slide around, generally creating situations in which they could easily get scratched or damaged. The product designers should have taken a page from the book of the designers of box sets like The Velvet Underground: Peel Slowly and See, or King Crimson's The Great Deceiver, which both include a separate standard jewel case for each disc in the set. The added advantage of this packaging method is that you can then, if you choose, store the discs in a normal CD shelving unit, instead of having to find room for the oversized box set in some cabinet or other. Another error (which I only noticed long after purchasing the set) is a mis-tracking; the songs "Fly on a Windshield" and "Broadway Melody of 1974" (whose tracking seems to be constantly confused by people everywhere) are both almost entirely grouped onto track 2; only the last half minute of "Broadway Melody" is what actually makes up track 3. This is similar but less disastrous than the mis-tracking debacle on the remastered version of Three Sides Live (the four sides live version), and rather disappointing; I myself on my home computer can do a better job of tracking a CD than was done on these two "official" releases.

There; had to get that off my chest. That having been said, I still think these are worth the buy, even for less rabid fans than I. When all is said and done it's the music that's the crucial part, and the music on here is pure Genesis. And Genesis is Genesis, as sure as eggs is eggs.

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Genesis: 1976-1982 (2007)

Contents: A Trick of the Tail (1976), Wind and Wuthering (1977), ...And Then There Were Three... (1978), Duke (1980), Abacab (1981), Extra Tracks (1976-1982), full-color book

Each album included on audio CD and DVD, with bonus DVD items: Promo videos, Reissue Interviews 2007, Live video clips, Tour Programmes

Comments: In 2007 (mid-May in the US, a few months earlier in the UK), Genesis management released the first in a planned three-installment series of box sets reissuing the studio back-catalogue of the band (official live albums and the band's first studio release, FGTR, were not included). The reissuing was done in conjunction with the band's reunion tour. Engineer Nick Davis went back to the original multi-track tapes (he found most of them!) and created new mixes of all the albums from 1970-1997. The first installment covered the years 1976-1982, and at the same time the box set was released, the five albums from that time span were also offered for individual sale, replacing existing CD releases. The box set offered an additional disc with non-album tracks and a full color book, in addition to the fancy box-shaped package shown above. In the United States the albums were provided in a 2-disc CD/DVD package: a new stereo mix on audio CD, and a DVD containing the album in 5.1 surround and bonus video clips (in Europe the album was in the Super Audio CD (SACD) format, a little-used format in the US--and of course the bonus video clips were in PAL format instead of NTSC).

Buying another copy of five Genesis albums I already had in multiple forms (some in as many as three different versions), in addition to b-sides that had already been released on the band's second Archive box set, was not the best Genesis-related purchase I could think of. I had long ago overplayed my studio albums to such an extent that I had all but stopped listening to them, and my Genesis listening consisted entirely of live recordings--a release from the live soundboard archives at The Farm was what I would have preferred.

Still, it was true that the studio catalogue was in need of sprucing up. The original CD releases (the format of most of my albums) were tepid at best from a production standpoint, and the remastered versions, released around 1994, had not delivered all they promised sound-wise, had had some notorious artwork reproduction problems and errors, and had provided no bonus material. And anyway, new Genesis releases, especially of this calibre, were few and far between. I heard very good things about the new mixes from European fans and those in the US who purchased their sets ahead of time from Canada. So naturally I found myself anxiously awaiting the US release date and pre-ordering the box set on Amazon.com.

When the box finally arrived, I was not disappointed, and in fact found myself very excited by all its contents. There's a lot to review, especially given my obsessively detailed style, so I have broken up my comments into sections, starting with the most important part.

The Music - The music is of course what it's really all about. Let me preface this section by mentioning that I do not have surround sound equipment in my home and so my review is based on the stereo mixes only. I'd long thought the Genesis albums of the 70s suffered from bad production. But I was very pleasantly surprised when I popped 1980's Duke into my car CD player and was blasted with the very powerful opening chords of "Behind the Lines." My previous version of the album was the original CD release. I did not do a direct comparison but I'm certain the new mix is greatly superior. I did have the opportunity to compare the new A Trick of the Tail with the original CD version and the new Wind and Wuthering with the 1994 remastered edition. The results were very satisfying: at the same volume level, the new versions have much more power and drama than the old, and some of the vocal effects on Phil are more accentuated. The drums throughout are very powerful, as they should be. It's great to hear the heavier songs on And Then There Were Three, like "Down and Out" and "Deep in the Motherlode," blare out with the driving energy they really deserve. The album that I felt had the least obvious improvement was Abacab, and that was only because I felt the album was already well-produced, having been the first to be recorded in the band's own studio. As the band members themselves admit, most of the new mixes from 1982 on were not as impressive, since recording techniques and technology at the time were pretty much up to scratch.

One minute detail that jumped out at me, which may or may not be considered a negative: there appears to be a vocal layer missing in one line of "A Trick of the Tail." I always liked the line at the end where Phil sings "Hello friend, welcome home." In the new version, it sounds almost like a different vocal take to me, or perhaps a different layer has been mixed up. The interviews in the box set stress that the new mixes are not supposed to sound altered from the originals, just an improved version of the original mix--I definitely felt this to be the case, except in this one tiny instance. It's possible an even more detailed listen will glean other changes of this kind.

To revisit my previous comment (approximately some fifteen years later), it is true that later listens to the remasters have revealed other aspects that bother me. Specifically the ending instrumental sequence of "Entangled," which I think has suffered in the remixing. To my ears, that passage has always been beautiful and particularly dreamy, and very melodic. But somehow I have found that the remix has left the main melody muddled amongst the layers of instrumentation, difficult to pick out and, frankly, ruined. I don't know that anyone else feels this way but it bothers me.

I was very happy to find that the bonus disc of audio tracks (called, rather obviously, Extra Tracks) included the two non-album tracks from the period which were omitted from previous box sets: "Match of the Day" and "Me and Virgil." Even some more die hard fans might not have missed these particular songs too much ("Match of the Day" really doesn't work for me, though I'm sure that like any Genesis song it has its rabid supporters), but I'm a completist, and plus I've always found something touching in "Me and Virgil," which others might find ludicrously sappy. One thing that has always annoyed me about these kind of compilation CDs is how chronological accuracy is sacrificed on the altar of musical pacing. Even the three tracks that compose 1977's Spot the Pigeon EP are scattered to the four winds, apparently in order to alternate hard songs with lighter songs. I for one think the songs would sound more genuine flowing in chronological order, showing the progression of the band's musical style steadily from the layered romanticism of the 70s to the stripped-down abstraction of the 80s, rather than having one's ears slapped with the jarring transition from "Naminanu" to "Inside and Out," for instance. On the other hand, being constrained to the 1976-1982 year range made the spectrum of styles narrower than on the Archive discs, and in some few places (particularly near the beginning) I found the ordering of tracks to work fairly well, and almost give you the illusion of listening to a carefully-assembled album.

All in all, the albums have been given a much-needed and very rewarding face lift, as have the b-sides; this in itself is definitely worth the purchase. Even if you have CD versions of the albums, and even if you don't have fancy audio equipment, if all you were getting in the box set were these new mixes, it would be worth the purchase. But that's not all you get!

The Book/The Packaging - The box set comes with a full-color book filled with reviews of each album in the set, written by Michael Watts. I don't know who he is, but his comments are fairly knowledgeable and give a good historical context for the albums and the developments going on in and out of the studio. I do disagree with some of his assessments. I find it hard to agree with his reading of the band's debut album as being "a long way from prog rock," considering that it was a concept album about the history of mankind. I also strongly disagree with the following assertion: "Statistics demonstrate the truth that, for all their early, experimental years...they never totally lost sight of the basic pop song." What statistics exactly is he referring to? Their lack of a hit single on their first eight studio releases? But generally Watts very snappily sums up the time period and the band's state of mind when writing the albums. I found it interesting that he portrays them as being "brave" to release the heavily-progressive Wind and Wuthering in 1977, when the punk movement was beginning to sweep through England. He sees the band as not just ignoring popular music movements but defying them, and changing more to meet their own musical growth than to keep up with the times. This may or may not be an accurate depiction, but it's an interesting way of looking at the band nonetheless. Near the end of the book he takes some time out to discuss the remastering process, and we learn that the multi-track recording for "Say It's Alright Joe" was the only one that was not found--Nick Davis had to "fake" the remix, as it were. A few rather critical words are spared for the non-album tracks, giving us a bit more input into their creation than we get on the video interviews.

The design of the book is slick. There are some cool album-art-related graphics and various photos of the band, including shots of live performances. Unlike the pretty but badly-constructed booklets that accompanied the Archive box sets, this one has a nice hardcover binding and a thick spine with heavy paper stock on the outside pages--hopefully it will hold together better than the other books. This leads us nicely into a discussion of the general packaging of the set, and one of my main pet peeves with the product. Because part of the reason the book is so thickly-bound is that its inside front and inside back covers have cutout sleeves to hold the Extra Tracks CD and DVD. The other albums' CDs and DVDs are nicely contained in full-size jewel cases, just as they would be packaged for individual sale, with nicely-printed artwork that is much more faithful to the original LP art than previous CD releases. This nicely avoids what I thought was a major problem with the construction of the Archive box sets, namely the fact that the discs were loosely set into cradles on the boxes and fell out very easily (clearly they must have read my review of the Archive sets before producing this one :). Supplying the albums in their own cases gives the owner the option to store them in a normal CD storage unit, or keep them nicely displayed in the pretty-looking box they came in. With the Extra Tracks discs, however, unless you go out and buy your own jewel case, you're stuck lugging around either the entire box or the fancy hardcover book if you ever want to take the discs anywhere. I find this to be a pretty inconvenient arrangement. Even if you do get your own jewel case to put the bonus discs in, you can't fit the case in one of the slots in the box without removing one of the other items. Other than that, the packaging is perfectly functional and very pretty, making good use of the original album art: I must confess to a tendency on my part to admire the box and its contents, both visually and tactilely (does that sound too creepy?).

DVD Bonus Items - Ahem. To return to the actual content of the set: the real wealth of the product in regard to bonus elements is not in the full color book, but in the DVDs. Apart from the live video footage scattered throughout the DVDs, which I will defer discussing until last, the bonus DVD items include promo videos, digital tour programmes, and 2007 interviews with the band members about the remixes and the albums. To anyone who already owns the 2005 Video Show DVD, the promo videos will be entirely redundant: even the audio mixes are (I think) identical, since the Video Show DVD has the audio in Surround sound. However, if you don't already have that release, it's nice to have these videos, grouped with the albums they promoted (even the Extra Tracks DVD includes a promo video, for "Paperlate"--though curiously, even though A Trick of the Tail has three promo videos, none were produced for the follow-up Wind and Wuthering). The tour programmes are just scans of the pages of the printed books, placed on the DVD so that you can "flip" through the pages. In most cases there's no way you can read the microscopic type at the shrunken size in which the pages are presented, but it's nice to see the pictures and the layout anyway, and to get the sensation of owning virtual memorabilia. Each album's DVD has one tour programme, except And Then There Were Three, which has three.

The interviews I found very rewarding. Each DVD has interview footage relating to the album it accompanies, allowing for assessments of the music that are more detailed than the running time of bio movies allows. Each band member was interviewed separately and it's interesting to hear their differing opinions on the albums and how their opinions have changed now that they are looking back years later. Tony was the most involved with the new mixes and always had the most invested in the band and its music (if you didn't realize that before watching the interviews, it will become clear once you have), so he often has the strongest recollections and best comments. But each of them has their own side and their own viewpoints to put forward. Appropriately, all of Tony's interviews were filmed in the studio, with Tony sitting in front of the mixing board. Phil, who had the least input in the mixes, is sitting comfortably at home (or in someone's home, at least). The comments do stray into more personal areas, and the Trick of the Tail interviews necessarily deal a lot with Phil becoming the lead singer, just as the And Then There Were Three interviews dwell heavily on Steve's departure. There are also a few comments about what songs from the albums worked well live, or how the albums were taken on the road (Phil still vividly remembers the infamous "booing" concert at Holland in 1981, for instance).

Surprisingly, there are often a few comments about the artwork chosen for the album, and close-up shots of the album artwork are interspersed with the straight interview footage. Not surprisingly, recollections can get somewhat hazy and a lot of the comments are along the lines of "I think such and such was happening when we made this album." Phil seems to (incorrectly) decide that the band visited Japan in 1977 (it was actually the following year). Mike comments about one song not having worked well live, when in fact the band never even performed it in front of an audience. However the real highlights of the interviews for me are in the band's memories of how particular songs were written. Tony for instance remembers an "Oh shit!" moment after composing the song "Afterglow," when he thought he'd accidentally ripped off "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"!! If you didn't know before, you learn who was the driving force behind various classic tunes. Everyone has a go at explaining the infamous "Who Dunnit?" There are very few comments about the b-sides on the Extra Tracks interviews, which instead focus on the new mixes, what was done to create them, and what the various band members thought about how they turned out (Phil provides only one sentence to these discussions). Though it may be a bit self-serving from one point of view, I found it gratifying to hear mainly positive comments from the guys about their past work, regardless of who was the main writer--it's nice to know they haven't become embarrassed about what they've done, and really feel the band did something special (unlike some other previous band members I could name).

Live Video Clips - The focal point of the box set for the die hard fans (read: traders), and the source of a lot of the negative criticism I had heard beforehand, was the live video extras. My reaction to them was mainly positive, probably because my expectations were not high. A Trick of the Tail's bonus DVD gives us the 1976 In Concert film, a much-bootlegged item originally shown in theaters in 1977. In fact, I had two VHS versions, two VCD versions, and one other DVD version of this clip before watching the "official" version. Nevertheless, this version is by far the best one for quality. In the opening shot I was able to discern the stage curtain behind the roadies, which had always appeared to be total blackness before. During "Fly on a Windshield" I could actually make out three skull heads projected on screens behind the band, where previously I had seen nothing. I also found myself noticing the many members of the film crew who wander into the shots, which I hadn't noticed before. There are probably bootleg versions of this footage out there that are at least as good quality as this one. Regardless, this is simply the best version I have seen of this valuable footage of Phil's first tour as frontman, and the stereo sound on it is pretty fantastic.

In contrast, the 1977 bonus "live" video is easily the worst footage on the set. First we get the band's appearance on the Michael Douglas show (on 29/3/77), which I had seen before but did not have in any form. This shows the band miming to the studio recordings of "Your Own Special Way" and "Afterglow." "Special Way" has had the bridge edited out. In between Phil introduces the band and says a few words to the host, and after the second song the band shake hands with Michael (actually this happens as the song is in the process of fading out, which doesn't help the illusion of its being a live performance!). The audio soundtrack of the songs has--I think--been replaced with the new mix, but the video quality is not good. The clip is labeled "bootleg" on the packaging, and with good reason: there is picture roll and lines and all the things you can expect of a bad bootleg.

An even worse example of video is the "Japanese" clip that follows this one. I had never seen or heard of this one before (in that sense making it a valuable clip), but I wasn't missing much: this blotchy, dark, but nevertheless pro-shot footage catches the band at the Rainbow Theatre in London on the very first night of 1977 and the first night of their tour (this date comes from The Movement), apparently pretending to perform live. The equipment looks set up for a real live show, but the soundtrack is heavily-edited studio versions (probably also replaced with the new mixes, since the audio sounds much better than the video looks). I wondered if the band had actually played the songs, with the studio audio dubbed over after the fact, but Mike actually pretends to sing a vocal layer from Phil on "Mar" which was never present in the live version, and there is a part in "Your Own Special Way" where Phil clearly thinks it is time to begin singing but has to wait for the soundtrack to catch up--he gives an amused sidelong glance to Mike when this happens. There is one part of the footage where some Japanese characters flash up on the screen, confirming the source as a Japanese television broadcast.

And Then There Were Three's bonus footage is the well-known (to most traders, anyway) Three Dates With Genesis documentary, which follows the band on three of their European gigs of 1978. The show is quite dated and deals more with the infrastructure of the live show than the actual music, but it's a fun watch, and this clip was in good quality. You might be fooled into thinking it's going to be awful at the beginning: the clip is prefaced with a warning about the low quality of the source tape (why wasn't this warning at the front of the 1977 footage?), and the documentary itself starts with some high-generation footage stolen from the Seconds Out promo, which looks awful. However the actual 1978 footage looks fine and is better than my best bootleg version--and my best version was from a pretty good source.

The Duke DVD gives us another much-bootlegged clip, the Old Grey Whistle Test footage from 7 May at the Lyceum. It looks suspiciously identical to my Epping Forest bootleg version. It is great quality and showcases some of the more powerful live numbers from the 1980 show. If you're looking for just straight, unadulterated live music, this footage and that from 1976 are the best video clips to be had in the set. I also find the 1978 documentary to be very entertaining, and we manage to learn something about the band at that transformational point in their career (ten years after their creation) almost in spite of the film's intentions. There is one particularly ironic scene where the interviewer asks Tony if he thinks he will still be playing live when he's 40, quite humorous when considered in the context of the box set's release.

Really I think that for each album/tour, considering the available footage that I know of for the specific period, the video clips chosen are good ones. They are perhaps not the rare, pristine archival footage that bootleg collectors could hope for, but for the fan without bootlegs they are real gems. The one place where I think the band's management really dropped the ball was on the Wind and Wuthering bonus clips, which do not document real live performances and are in terrible quality--perhaps there's some good reason why they could not get a hold of the Seconds Out promo footage, which I think would have been the best choice. It's too bad that no live clips were provided for Abacab, but on reflection the only 1981 live footage I know of that isn't the band miming to studio songs is the Three Sides Live movie, which was probably a bit long to put on the DVD.

To sum up, then, I think this box set is a priceless addition to the Genesis catalogue. New life has been breathed into the studio recordings that made the band what they are, and with the reviews in the book and the interviews on the DVDs, we get a better idea than perhaps ever before of what exactly that is. The live video gives an inkling of the powerful juggernaut the band could be out of the studio, and leaves us anticipating further accomplishments in that vein. I myself, in conclusion, am looking forward to writing an equally lengthy review for the next box set installment.

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