As always, see anything you like, email me. All boots are listed in chronological order, and all are on Audio CD-R unless I say otherwise. All dates are written in the European style, as in day/month/year. Click on the text links below to scroll directly to the entry you're interested in.

Tour Summary and Menu

Studio, '72-'73 (Studio)

Marquee Club, 19/9/72 (London)

Live at the Marquee Club, 19/9/72 (London)

Live in Dublin, 28/9/72 (National Stadium, Dublin)

Kennington Oval, 30/9/72 (Kennington Oval, London)

Kennington Oval (complete), 30/9/72 (London)

The Real Aberdeen, 4/10/72 (Music Hall, Aberdeen)

Bradford '72, 11/10/72 (St. George's Hall, Bradford)

Bradford '72 (alternate), 11/10/72 (St. George's Hall)

Lewisham '72, 29/10/72 (Odeon Theatre, Lewisham)

Violent Dreams, 18/11/72 (Imperial College, London)

PGWeed 5, 18/11/72 (Imperial College, London)

BURP 25, 18/11/72 (Imperial College, London)

Philharmonic Hall, 17 (13!)/12/72 (FAKE--Leicester 25/2/73)

Philharmonic Hall '72, 13/12/72 (NYC, New York)

Heidelberg '73, 15/1/73 (Stadthalle, Heidelberg Germany)

Heidelberg '73 (HW06), 15/1/73 (Stadthalle)

Palasport Italy, 20/1/73 (Reggio Emilia)

Viva Italia! (PRRP020), 20 & 22/1/73 (Palasports, Italy)

PGWeed3, 22/1/73 (Palasport, Rome Italy)

Rainbow Theatre, 9/2/73 (London)

Rainbow Theatre (upgrade), 9/2/73 (London)

SR04, 9/2/73 (Rainbow Theatre)

Plymouth '73, 12/2/73 (Guildhall, Plymouth)

Glasgow '73, 16/2/73 (Green's Playhouse, Glasgow)

Green's Playhouse '73, 16/2/73 (Glasgow, Scotland)

Sheffield '73, 17/2/73 (City Hall, Sheffield)

Sheffield '73 (SR06), 17/2/73 (City Hall, Sheffield)

Caught by the Watcher, 21/2/73 (University Great Hall, York)

Some of You are Going to Die, 24 & 25/2/73

Test Pressing, 24-25/2/73 (Free Trade & De Montfort Halls)

Live at Leicester and Manchester (TM), 24-25/2/73

Genesis Quebec City, 3/3/73 (Grand Theatre, Quebec City)

Quebec '73, 3/3/73 (Grand Theatre, Quebec)

Paris Radio '73, 7/5/73 (Olympia Theatre, Paris)

Reading Festival '73, 26/8/73 (Reading)

Studio

'72-'73

01 Intro: Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (second part)(1:57)
02 Only Your Love (rehearsal)(4:10)
03 Only Your Love (finished version)(3:10)
04 Master of Time (3:07)
05 Happy the Man (clean mix)(3:07)
06 The Reaper (7:39)
07 For Present Friends (5:10)
08 A Child's Song (3:33)
09 After the Ordeal (4:29)
10 Silver Song (rehearsal)(4:00)
11 Silver Song (finished version)(4:16)
12 Outro: Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (second part)(1:43)

Type/Quality: Studio/Good-Very Good

Comments: This is a rather motley compilation of songs from the year range given above (I think). Actually it's basically just a bunch of Anthony Phillips solo songs with a few real Genesis numbers mixed in. The only actual Genesis tunes here are the bookend bits at the beginning and end, "Happy the Man" and "After the Ordeal." If you stretch it, you might include "Silver Song," as it was originally written when Ant was a member of Genesis. "Only Your Love" is at best a Rutherford/Phillips composition, and it was not recorded until late 1973 (the same goes for "Silver Song," even though it was written around '69). For other versions of "Silver Song" with "Only Your Love," see Cryme on the Nursery Cryme page and this compilation disc. For other versions of just "Silver Song," see my Worcester '83 show on the Mama page and this compilation. Keep in mind that this Phil-vocal version of "Silver Song" has apparently finally been released officially as a bonus track on the re-issue of Ant's Geese and the Ghost album.

I don't know when these Anthony Phillips songs were recorded, so I'm just going by the info I was given with the year range. "Master of Time" is also a bonus track on Ant's first album--this version is shorter and rougher. "Reaper" is a long guitar piece, as is "For Present Friends." It does not seem to have any real relation to the Genesis song "For Absent Friends" besides its title. In fact, I have learned that this song is better known by the title "Field of Eternity," which is the name under which it appeared on Ant's first Private Parts and Pieces collection. There is supposedly a bit from "Pacidy" in it, about two minutes in. I don't know whether "For Present Friends" was a working title or whether it was named that by bootleggers to confuse people into thinking it was actually a Genesis song.

"A Child's Song" has words, sung by Ant. "After the Ordeal" is a very finished version of the song. The "Silver Song" rehearsal track I don't believe I have anywhere else--the vocals are rougher on it than on the finished version. The "Moonlit Knight" tracks are from the haunting ending instrumental section of that song. For more of this type of material see my Selling England by the Session show. For a compiled list of all my studio outtakes, demos, etc., please see the top of my Compilations/Misc. page. The quality throughout is not fantastic for studio stuff, but it could be a lot worse. There are major hiccups in the finale to "Only Your Love (rehearsal);" I have this track in better condition on Cryme. There is also a major hiccup in "After the Ordeal"--the recording stops aburptly, there is a considerable pause, and then it starts up again at a spot a little before where it cut off. Again, this is not really a Genesis album; it's much more an Anthony Phillips thing.

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1 Watcher of the Skies (7:00)
2 Can-Utility and the Coastliners (5:55)
3 The Musical Box (10:09)
4 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (7:19)
5 The Knife (8:48)

Type/Quality: Audience/Fair-Poor

Comments: (I have an alternate version of this show below.) This one circulates a lot, but it is labelled incorrectly as "Music Hall, Aberdeen." Not Aberdeen, but the Marquee Club in London. In fact the earliest existing boot from the Foxtrot tour. Sound level is low and muffled, but not so bad as some recordings from the previous tour. It should be noted that all of the bits in between the songs (such as the interminable tuning of instruments and Pete's stories) have been removed, and that the songs cut abruptly into one another, sometimes at the expense of the first one or two seconds of the next song, and always preceded by a strange sort of zooming "pong" sound. Also, the first two tracks have been tracked incorrectly; the last few seconds of "Watcher" are at the beginning of "Can-Utility." Unless you want to skip to the second track though, you'll never notice it--and even when you do, it's only a minor annoyance.

All right, here is my horror story for this one, one of the reasons why I don't like to put labels on CDs. Played this one in my car's CD player, liked it, got home, parked, stopped the CD, hit the eject button. It didn't come out. I hit it again. Didn't come out. I tried turning on the car, turning off the car, turning the stereo off and on, jamming things into the slot of the CD player. Eventually I pried out the CD with the stalk from a pair of sunglasses (!), but in the process of rescuing it, I irreparably scratched the surface. The victimized track was "The Musical Box;" a huge portion of the middle was all messed up. Fortunately I was eventually able to get a replacement for this track and reburn the complete show; the new "Box" is slightly louder and better quality than the rest of the disc. Let this be a lesson to you all; be careful putting bootlegs into strange CD players, especially if they (the CDs, that is) have labels on them.

1 Watcher of the Skies (7:04)
2 Can-Utility and the Coastliners (5:34)
3 The Musical Box (9:37)
4 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (7:07)
5 The Knife (8:45)

Type/Quality: Audience/Fair

Comments: This is another version of the Marquee Club show. This one was misdated as November 10, 1972. There was a Marquee Club gig on November 11, 1972, but this disc isn't even that--it's just another version of the 19/9/72 gig. Actually it sounds almost exactly the same as my other version, above, zooming "pong" and all. The tracking of the first two songs is more correct here, and there might be a little bit more power to the sound--I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt by punching the quality rating up to a "fair." Anyways, it's nice to have a full version of this all from the same source. This has been transferred directly from a vinyl boot, so there are some small pops and such that are not on my other version. This one may also be a bit faster speedwise, if the track times are any indication--I didn't notice that it sounded too fast, but...

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Live in Dublin

28/9/72

1 Watcher of the Skies (9:03)
2 Can-Utility and the Coastliners (6:30)
3 Get 'em Out by Friday (8:26)
4 The Musical Box (11:50)
5 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (7:15)

Type/Quality: Audience/Fair-Poor

Comments: Played at the National Stadium in Dublin. This is an interesting show because it marks the first time Pete ever wore a costume on stage--it was the red dress and fox mask. You can't hear the costume, but it is there. Also rare is the actual story for "Watcher of the Skies," a song Pete almost never told a story for. Most of the stories here are rather short. Unfortunately this recording has a lot of noise on it. It's blanketed with little pops, static, and clicks. The applause from the audience is much louder than the music--fortunately the audience does not clap during the songs, only between them. "Hogweed" has a somewhat extended intro, during which Pete says that it stars Vincent Price and that it comes to you courtesy of the Hogweed Youth Movement. It was Pete's usual custom around this time to introduce the song right before they started playing it by yelling its title rather loudly--in this case he really screams it, so much so that it sounds like the taper recoiled in horror (though that's probably just the automatic volume control). At around 2 minutes remaining the recording begins to sound rather sickly--it then begins to sound VERY sickly, then cuts out altogether and the "Mighty Hogweed is avenged" section of the song is missing. But it comes back in for the end.

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Kennington Oval

30/9/72

1 The Knife (9:49)
2 The Fountain of Salmacis (8:22)
3 Get 'em Out by Friday (9:01)
4 Watcher of the Skies (7:54)
5 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (7:53)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Fair

Comments: A fairly early Foxtrot show here, played at the Kennington Oval in London (I have a more complete version, with intros and an extra song, below). The ordering here is very strange--I used to think this was because it had been mixed up after the fact, but I'm now quite sure this was the actual order of the set. One of my reasons for thinking this is that this was a special gig; the official site labels it as the "Melody maker Poll Awards Concert, supporting Emerson, Lake and Palmer with Wishbone Ash and Focus." So Genesis were playing with other bands and, as they did during the Reading Festival of this year, played a special reordered set. In fact this set is very unique. (BTW, Genesis were voted "brightest hope, number 6" in the poll.) The speed may be just a tad slow, and all of the intros have been utterly removed, except one thing Peter says before "Friday" (he claims that the song is a "Foxtrot"--ha ha). The songs have no real cuts or errors, and the sound quality could be worse. As I say, the ordering is strange, but the songs are all here (except "Musical Box;" see next entry).

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Kennington Oval (complete)

30/9/72

01 The Knife (10:43)
02 Intro: Salmacis (1:04)
03 The Fountain of Salmacis (8:55)
04 Intro: Friday (1:03)
05 Get 'em Out by Friday (9:01)
06 Intro: Watcher (0:47)
07 Watcher of the Skies (8:37)
08 Intro: Box (1:27)
09 The Musical Box (11:36)
10 Intro: Hogweed (0:27)
11 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (7:52)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Fair

Comments: At the Kennington Oval Cricket Stadium in London, the bootleg of this performance comes in various versions. This version is different from all the other ones, because I made it myself out of two other versions (you'll notice I got quite a bit track-happy on it as well--not sure why, as I'm usually against breaking things up into so many tracks). My first version, above, was good but was missing all of the intros--and, as I realized upon receiving my second version, it was also missing an entire song: "The Musical Box." Other traders have multiple versions of the show with or without "Box," some misdated. The second version that I got had all of the song intros and in between stuff, which had been edited out of my first version. However, the audio quality of the second one, which had been transferred from an old tape, was considerably worse. I noticed a possible slowness on my first version, but the second one is definitely and perceptibly slower, and also has other major speed problems throughout. Pitch drops, speed shifting, wavery sound, call it what you like. It was also duller and lower in volume. Finally, though the first version had the full song, the second version's "Friday" was cut a good minute before it ended.

Knowing then that I couldn't live with the second version as it was, or the first version which was missing bits, I set about to create a hybrid version which took the songs from the first version and mixed them with the intros and "Box" from the second version. The result is this bootleg. It's very surprising how adding the stories back in will change one's perception of a show. I had always thought this a raucous performance with lots of energy and, I presumed, a willing audience. But the in between stuff seems to show that the audience was surprisingly limp and unenthusiastic, and that Pete had difficulty in doing anything with them. I think this was because this concert (as I have said in the previous entry) was a Melody Maker Poll Awards concert, and was not necessarily full of big Genesis fans. The odd circumstances of the gig do result in a unique reordering of the standard set, and Pete does tell an interesting array of rare and curious stories. He calls "The Knife," that night's choice for set opener (possibly one of only two times it ever enjoyed that position in the set), a "Latin American dance number." I think there was some concern by the band or the management involved about the ability of people to dance to their songs, since Pete later claims that "Get 'em Out by Friday" is a foxtrot.

Pete tells the semi-standard "the Gods were bored" story before "Salmacis," but his story for "Friday" involves a pigeon flying in circles inside an empty tube station--though he ends the story by saying that the song is about "two old ladies from Islington." I've never heard this story before. Especially rare is the story Pete tells for "Watcher of the Skies," which was almost always the opening number and thus very rarely got any kind of introduction. The "Watcher" is described as "The great god Coca-Cola." The story for "Box" is the somewhat rarer version which involves Henry's father having his dead relatives in glass cases in his house. It also continues on to the part of the story where Henry is destroyed by the nurse. The story for "Hogweed" is Pete's standard spiel about the House of Hammer, the Hogweed Youth Movement, Vincent Price and Christopher Lee. Before "Hogweed" Pete admits to the audience that there's a problem with the power (as usual), which results in a lot of tuning from the band members. There is generally a lot of tuning going on between all the numbers here, perhaps more than usual. It's nice to have these stories, because they add so much more flavor to the performance and Pete does tell them well. He is unfortunately and ignominiously forced to make a lame announcement to the audience, though, right before the intro for "Box"--lending an ironic and unwelcome air of reality to the show. Some guy's brother was supposed to meet him at the side of the stage to get his tickets. Pete remarks rather bitterly, "It's nice to see someone's enjoying us, anyway." It's almost as bad as Pete having to read off a license plate number for a car in the parking lot with its lights on.

The sound is really not that bad for a Foxtrot boot. The intros and "Box" are unfortunately a tad duller than the rest of the music, but "Box" is fortunately one of the songs from the second version of this show which is not too badly affected by the speed variations. The first version's quality is better, as I said before. The bass is very heavy on both versions (both versions come from the same source recording), and there are some rumblings and possibly bumps on there. At times it sounds as though there is a wind blowing into the microphone. Both versions are missing the very end of the intro for "Hogweed" and the very beginning seconds of "Hogweed"--the part where Pete probably screamed the song's title. Better than most audience shows from this tour, and the rare set makes it a valuable part of my collection. Some added trivia: this gig came not very long at all before Genesis would start their Charisma bands tour with Lindisfarne, et al, and be forced to shorten their set to four numbers. Not long after this started, on 7 October, the album Foxtrot was actually released.

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The Real Aberdeen

4/10/72

1 Intro/One-Handed Drum Solo (3:20)
2 Watcher of the Skies (9:05)
3 Get 'em Out by Friday (8:54)
4 Intro: Box (0:47)
5 The Musical Box (10:16)
6 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (9:49)

Type/Quality: Audience/Fair-Good

Comments: At the Music Hall in Aberdeen, this is a curious show in a couple of ways. First of all, it's the REAL recording from a date often attributed to the earlier Marquee Club gig of 19 September. Secondly, it has the ignominious distinction of actually beginning with the trusty "One-Handed Drum Solo" by Phil Collins. It's a fairly short solo for its kind, with lots of helpful descriptions from Pete (pretty much the same things he said in the more famous Watford Town Hall gig of the previous tour). The technical problem, whatever it was, is remedied and they move into the regular set. This is a very short set, but I believe it is complete.

This recording features lots of reverb and is muddy, making the intros difficult to understand, but it could be worse. It also has a sort of background roar, similar to the "ocean" you hear when putting a seashell up to your ear. On these older audience recordings though the audience is never very intrusive, which is a plus. Also there don't seem to be any cuts or errors in this show, just the overall muddiness.

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Bradford '72

11/10/72

1 Watcher of the Skies (8:07)
2 Get 'em Out by Friday (9:44)
3 The Musical Box (12:28)
4 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (8:59)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Fair

Comments: (I have an alternate version of this recording--see next entry.) At St. George's Hall in Bradford. The Foxtrot tour is not one known for its good quality boots, and while this particular recording might be considered sub-par were it from the '80s, in this context it's actually one of the better ones. This show is complete, has no errors (other than an overall lack of incredibly good sound), and Peter's vocals are fairly clear and discernible. True, it's a short set, but this is the kind of set they were playing at this point in their history.

The entire recording has a very impressive level of hiss, which is hard to ignore unless you have a very good imagination or listen to it in a very rapidly-moving vehicle (which I recommend--as long as you obey all traffic laws). As an added treat, it features a fairly unique and very rare version of the intro story for "Musical Box," which totally ignores the Henry/croquet plot and instead deals with one Uncle Bill who gets more than he bargained for after leafing through a "dirty" magazine (a very similar and possibly even better version is told at the gig at Imperial College, two entries down). Also before "Hogweed" Pete provides his usual stuff about the song being brought to you by the house of Hammer (a famous British horror movie production company), Vincent Price and the Hogweed Youth Movement. This is a good show.

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Bradford '72 (alternate)

11/10/72

1 Watcher of the Skies (8:56)
2 Get 'em Out by Friday (9:35)
3 The Musical Box (12:39)
4 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (9:28)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Fair

Comments: At St. George's Hall in Bradford. This version of the recording comes from a trader who acquired his copy from a Japanese source that was supposedly first generation. It seems clear that both of my versions at least come from the same master audience recording. This one is different from my previous version, first and foremost in that it does not have any of the very loud hiss of the previous version. It's possible this is a sign of its being low generation, but the more likely reason is that it has been digitally dehissed--the volume here is lower than in the other and Peter's intros are harder to hear. I also detected some scratchiness on the high end. However it is undeniably nice to have a clear-sounding recording, and this version does in fact have a little more to it than the other: at the very beginning of track one you can hear Phil ask the audience, "Is everybody happy?" In the first version the track starts after he has said this. There is also a bit more cheering to be heard at the end of the disc. I can't decide which version I like better, which is why I have given them identical quality ratings.

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Lewisham '72

29/10/72

1 Watcher of the Skies (9:01)
2 Twilight Alehouse (9:25)
3 Get 'em Out by Friday (9:18)
4 The Musical Box (11:44)
5 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (incomplete)(6:21)

Type/Quality: Audience/Fair

Comments: At the Odeon Theatre in Lewisham, this is not a particularly memorable bootleg. It features a look into one of the relatively earlier sets of this tour, and a rare appearance of "Twilight Alehouse," which was not a regular number anymore (and in fact appears in only one other bootleg from this tour--see Hogweed 6, below). It is probably the last of Genesis' Charisma tour with other bands of the label, which lasted for most of October of this year and forced the band to keep its set down to a short length.

There's a lot of talking in the opening of this recording, mainly coming from one annoying woman. However once the music begins (after Pete has come on and introduced the first number), chatter becomes totally inaudible. The sound remains quite muddy, and is probably too fast. There is a high-pitched hiss running in the background. All of Pete's intros are very hard to decipher. He makes use of the "Phil's triangle" gimmick before "Alehouse," and talks about the two old ladies before "Friday." He also tells the "dirty" story before "Musical Box," which I describe better in the next and previous entries--in them I suggest that this is a very rare version of the story, but as I have now found it in three different gigs from this tour, it may be time for me to stop saying that. There is a cut between the story and the actual song, but nothing seems to be missing of either--the volume seems to come in louder when the recording cuts back in, but the recording quickly reveals that nothing has improved.

The story for "Hogweed" is the standard one, where Pete mentions the House of Hammer and the Hogweed Youth Movement. He does not, as was normally his wont, scream the title of the song before it begins. The song is cut before it is done--it stops not long before the "Mighty Hogweed is avenged" section. Anyone wanting fairly good examples of gigs from this period in the tour will be happier with the shows above and below this one--Lewisham is for completists only!

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Violent Dreams

18/11/72

1 Watcher of the Skies (11:42)
2 The Musical Box (11:35)
3 Get 'em Out by Friday (8:57)
4 Supper's Ready (24:27)
5 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (9:19)
6 The Knife (8:53)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good

Comments: (I have multiple remasters of this material below.) At the Imperial College in London, this one has the earliest existing live recording of "Supper's Ready." (For your information, the first time the song was played live was 10 November at Brunel University in Uxbridge.) There's some trouble at the beginning of this one it seems, as there's a lot of messing around/crowd noise before Pete finally does a short intro for "Watcher" and they go to it. The sound quality is surprisingly good for an audience boot from this period, although the vocals are rather distant. Pete tells a very interesting and very "dirty" story as an intro to "Musical Box." At the time of getting this show I had never heard it before, but I have since heard it on a couple of chronologically earlier gigs, above. Instead of playing croquet as a child, the full grown Henry accidentally becomes the father of a bunch of kittens, all of which have his face. There are some unwanted bumps or hits or something during the flute solo section of "Box," and some feedback as well. Interestingly, there is a very short intro story for "Supper," different from the usual one where Michael goes to the park--it seems to just involve someone yelling the phrase "supper's ready" for some reason. There is a chunk missing from near the end of the song, starting around "And it's Hello babe!..." and coming back in around "...shedding ever-changing colours..." The song also has a different ending to later versions--instead of sort of petering out it comes to a nice loud satisfying ending. Before the encore there's lots of cheering and the tape seems to stop and start a lot as the taper tries to remove the wait period. Then Pete comes on and toys with the audience, asking for requests, and of course everyone yells "Knife!" and of course they play it. This is a great show.

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PGWeed 5

18/11/72

01 Introduction (0:44)
02 Watcher of the Skies (8:15)
03 Intro: Box (2:38)
04 The Musical Box (10:42)
05 Intro: Friday (1:05)
06 Get 'em Out by Friday (9:10)
07 Intro: Supper (1:03)
08 Supper's Ready (22:17)
09 Intro: Hogweed (1:07)
10 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (9:27)
11 The Knife (8:59)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good

Comments: (I also have the BURP version of this gig--see next entry.) At the Imperial College in London, this is the PGWeed version of the famous (at least I call it famous) Violent Dreams. One of my favorite Foxtrot gigs, I felt it necessary to get a hold of this version, which I was sure would be an upgrade. Well, I suppose I'm still calling it an upgrade, but it is only a marginal improvement. The sound here is probably crisper than its predecessor, and some of the rough edits of the original recording have been smoothed over (some of the beginning cheers and some of the crowd noise between the last number and the encore have been totally removed), but the clarity of the original has been slightly marred by a touch of digital distortion running through the whole thing--introduced, no doubt, in the "remastering" process. In some ways I like the sound of Violent Dreams better, as it seems to be less tampered with. However this is a clean version, and to anyone who has not had the liberty to compare both it will probably be an outstanding example of an early bootleg. This PGWeed version is said to come from low-gen tapes--it is not merely a remaster of Violent Dreams. Clearly both came from the same original source however, since the same strange bumps appear during "Musical Box," and the same cut is present near the end of "Supper's Ready." If you haven't heard this show before, it is certainly worth a listen.

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BURP 25

18/11/72

1 Watcher of the Skies (11:36)
2 The Musical Box (11:47)
3 Get 'em Out by Friday (10:14)
4 Supper's Ready (23:25)
5 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (9:27)
6 The Knife (8:59)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good

Comments: At the Imperial College in London, this is yet another remaster of the famous show. Clearly since I rated it exactly the same as the PG Weed version, I guess I didn't see a major improvement (it seems to have used the PG Weed version as a direct source--the intro tracks have been subsumed under the song tracks so that the tracking isn't identical). I don't know, these remasters of shows from the early Genesis period always sound too "doctored" to me--Pete's voice sounds funky during "Watcher" in particular--too high or something. Still, it's hard to ruin this show. The story for "Box" is just great, and this is the cool early version of "Supper" with the rousing conclusion on the end. Of course there are still the problems of the show itself and the recording: strange thumpings possibly coming from the stage during an early instrumental portion of "Musical Box," a cut in the opening of the "As Sure As Eggs is Eggs" section of "Supper," and a particularly long and interesting narrative story for "Hogweed" as Peter desperately plays for time.

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Philharmonic Hall (FAKE)

17 (13!)/12/72 (25/2/73)

1 Supper's Ready (24:58)
2 Get 'em Out by Friday (9:35)
3 The Musical Box (10:00)

Type/Quality: Soundboard/Fair-Good

Comments: There are several misconceptions surrounding this show, supposedly from one of Genesis' first concerts in the US at the Philharmonic Hall in New York (I now have the real thing--see next entry). I had steered clear from this show for a long time because I had often come across it on the Movement, where Simon labels it as a fake show coming from one of the gigs from which the Live album was taken. However I had read comments on other sites which either did not mention or contradicted this claim. Seeing as how I had almost every other Foxtrot boot there was, and how such an important gig as the Philharmonic one was not to be missed if it was real, I decided to grab a copy of this one.

It turns out that I should have trusted Simon. After careful comparisons between my copy of the test pressing record and this disc, I have decided quite firmly that this is merely a reproduction of several songs from that record. Oddly, this makes Simon's claim of its being from 24 February and Free Trade Hall in Manchester incorrect, as all my information tells me that the majority of the test pressing and the subsequent Live album (excepting only "Hogweed") comes from the De Montfort Hall show in Leicester on 25 February. Still, he was pretty much right. These tracks sound quite a bit different than their counterparts on other versions, for several reasons: all of the in between stuff has been cut out; the beginning two words of "Supper" and the last few notes of "Box" are clipped off; the sound quality is muddy and noisy; and the speed is too slow, making Pete into a froggy vocalist (this is ignoring the additional fact that the songs are in totally the wrong order). Basically this is a terrible version of a great show. I carefully listened to the vocals at the end of "Supper" and near the end of "Friday" and I can state unequivocally that they are identical to those on the Live album. I advise all collectors to stay away from this show.

As a final note to add to the confusion, it has now been shown that the Philharmonic gig should not be dated at 17 December. Many sites and references used to concur on this date, but I heard information from a reliable source which led me to question this date. So I swung by the Genesis Museum, which boasts a nice scan of the original program for the famous gig--the program clearly states the date as 13 December, not 17. Even more recently I happened to hear a radio interview where they were discussing this gig, and the DJ went and checked his concert calendar on air and found that the date was 13 December. And you'll find that Simon now lists the Philharmonic gig on the 13th.

As a final, final, final note, I now understand why someone would want to try to pass off this crappy material as the Philharmonic show (other than the fact that it is a famous gig): a hidden and complete recording is supposed to exist of this gig. For now, it remains hidden, and since I just don't have the clout to get hidden shows, unless somebody is good enough to leak this recording, we will have to content ourselves with dreaming about it and cursing the trickery of people who would release shows like this trying to dupe people into thinking they have something much more valuable than they have.

On the good side, as mentioned earlier, I now have a nice quality audience recording from the actual landmark gig, below.

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Philharmonic Hall '72

13/12/72

1 Watcher of the Skies (8:47)
2 The Musical Box (11:39)
3 Get 'em Out by Friday (8:43)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good

Comments: At the Philharmonic in New York City, this recording is the real McCoy: three complete songs from the band's famous first concert in the United States. Shockingly the quality is actually not bad, though Peter's vocals sound far away compared to the rest of the band. What songs are here are complete.

There is a bit of chatter as "Watcher" begins, mainly the taper yelling at people to sit down; after that it dies down. After the first number Peter says that he's heard they judge bands in America by the number of encores they play. "This is our first encore," he jokes, telling a very short story for "Musical Box." Before "Friday" he mentions that it is a social comment number, because they had noticed that the bands doing social comment were "making more money" than them. He goes so far as to describe the part of the song where the real estate developer wants to shrink people to fit more of them in the same area (something I don't recall his having said at any other gig).

It's very exciting to have this disc, partial as it is; the fake version I have has always made me yearn to own the real thing. Hopefully the "soundboard" recording of this gig will see the light of day and I can add another entry for this date.

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Heidelberg '73

15/1/73

1 Watcher of the Skies (11:22)
2 Twilight Alehouse (7:37)
3 One-Handed Drum Solo (1:13)
4 Get 'em Out by Friday (10:40)
5 The Musical Box (11:04)
6 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (7:58)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Fair

Comments: Played at the Stadthalle, Heidelberg Germany, this recording has been remastered by the Hogweeds Group as HW 06--see next entry. This version is not that bad. The band is introduced by some German guy. The drum solo track is actually a very, very short solo, because whatever problem they were having got cleared up. Phil only gets to play for about 30 seconds, if that. Another interesting feature of this show was the appearance of "Twilight Alehouse," which had basically been dropped out of the set by this tour and appeared only very rarely. This is actually (as far as I know) the last live recording of the song. I believe there is a small hiccup during the intro for "Box"--the Hogweeds version doesn't have that.

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01 Intro (2:16)
02 Watcher of the Skies (8:13)
03 Intro: Alehouse (1:31)
04 Twilight Alehouse (8:15)
05 One-Handed Drum Solo (1:08)
06 Get 'em Out by Friday (9:12)
07 Intro: Box (1:27)
08 The Musical Box (11:03)
09 Intro: Hogweed (0:41)
10 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (8:29)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good

Comments: At the Stadthalle, Heidelberg Germany. I was surprised when comparing my non-remastered disc to this one, because to my ears they sounded nearly identical. My ears must not be that good, because this is supposed to come from a very good second generation source. Also various cleaning up has been done. The sound is rather good, except for the vocals, which sound very far away. There's a reverb going on as well, which makes it difficult to tell what Pete is saying on the intros. The drums and lead guitar are very strong and crisp, however. It's very strange that "Supper" is missing from this set; I used to think they didn't play it because they were touring with other Charisma label bands at this point and had to keep their set short, but according to the official site the Charisma band gigs were from 3-29 October 1972, and were long over by this point. Also every other Foxtrot boot from after October has "Supper" but this one. I don't know why...

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Palasport Italy

20/1/73

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (10:26)
1-2 The Musical Box (11:36)
1-3 The Fountain of Salmacis (9:47)
1-4 Get 'em Out by Friday (9:00)

2-1 Supper's Ready (27:13)
2-2 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (8:49)
2-3 The Knife (9:30)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good

Comments: (See my upgrade, next entry.) Played at the Palasport in Reggio Emilia, Italy, this is a very full and surprisingly good quality show from the Foxtrot tour--one of the best I have from this tour, in fact, I think. It is also available in a one disc bootleg, entitled Refugee (this is because before "Hogweed" there was a problem which was covered up by the technician putting on a tape of a song called "Refugee" by Van Der Graaf Generator). Featured here is a very rare playing of "Salmacis" from this tour--a song that was a regular of the previous tour but had basically been taken out of the set by this time. Also an early version of "Supper" that has a different intro than the traditional Old Michael/Jerusalem Boogie story. Here, Pete just says the inspiration for the song came from hearing someone shout "Supper's Ready" at an odd time of day (this is a slightly more elaborate version of the intro provided for the song on Violent Dreams). The song itself sounds a tad different in several places than it eventually would sound--I don't think they had quite ironed out how to play it live yet. Also at this point in its evolution the song was played with a louder, more finite ending than it would later have.

As I say, this recording really sounds quite good. Its volume level is rather low, especially during the stories, but if you crank your stereo you can hear it fine. The only problem (and it is a small one) is that the taper seems to have been a little under the weather, and cannot seem to help coughing and clearing his throat every once in a while throughout the show; it's possible that he or someone near him also translates what Pete is saying into Italian. Some way into a very quiet bit of the "Old King Cole" section of "Musical Box" an over-excited fan utters a painful howl that I initially mistook for a baby crying (which would have been quite an odd thing at a Genesis concert). It's hard to tell whether he was registering his esteem for the music or just throwing up. Before "Hogweed" Tony seems to have technical problems (as hinted earlier), but they clear up.

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Viva Italia! (PRRP020)

20 & 22/1/73

20/1/73
1-1 Watcher of the Skies (8:30)
1-2 Intro: Box (1:59)
1-3 The Musical Box (11:32)
1-4 The Fountain of Salmacis (8:43)
1-5 Intro: Friday (1:04)
1-6 Get 'em Out by Friday (9:01)

2-1 Intro: Supper (1:31)
2-2 Supper's Ready (23:48)
2-3 Intro: Hogweed (1:56)
2-4 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (8:42)
2-5 The Knife (9:34)

22/1/73
3-1 Watcher of the Skies (7:58)
3-2 Intro: Box (0:42)
3-3 The Musical Box (11:21)
3-4 The Fountain of Salmacis (8:09)
3-5 Intro: Supper (1:50)
3-6 Supper's Ready (23:54)
3-7 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (8:27)
3-8 The Knife (9:14)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good

Comments: This nice PRRP remaster combines two of the best gigs of the Foxtrot tour into one 3-disc set. Of course both take place in Italy, the Gabriel-era Genesis stronghold. The first gig, played at the Palasport in Reggio Emilia, is on the first two discs; the second gig, at another Palasport in Rome, is on the third disc. Both of these came from (probably) first-generation CD versions which were then pretty considerably cleaned up. The second gig in particular I think is quite an improvement over my other version (next entry).

The first show is definitely one of my favorite old-school Genesis gigs, and this version really has no problems. You can still hear the taper cough a bit, as described in the previous entry, but I barely noticed it on this listen--though I did notice the terrible howl from the unnamed audience member during "Box." Tony, again as mentioned above, has problems before "Hogweed" resulting in a short humorous sketch.

The second show was a little more problematic, I think, with more noises and artifacts which had to be removed or smoothed over (see my older version, next entry, for all the noises on the original!). The PRRP people did a nice job cleaning it up and the result is very enjoyable to hear. "Watcher" fades in, and a very few notes are missing. The guitar seems very up-front in the mix. The beginning of Peter's story for "Box" is cut. Peter makes a big deal about Phil's "ding-a-ling" before "Supper"--he mentioned this at the Reggio Emilia gig, but he milks it more this time. My version still has pops on "The Knife." I don't know whether this is common or not, but they are not intrusive or many in number.

I'd definitely put this well-done remaster among my top Genesis bootlegs--and I did! A must-have.

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PGWeed 3

22/1/73

1 Watcher of the Skies (8:07)
2 The Musical Box (11:25)
3 The Fountain of Salmacis (8:38)
4 Supper's Ready (25:18)
5 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (8:16)
6 The Knife (9:30)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good

Comments: (See the improved PRRP upgrade for this gig, previous entry.) Played at the Palasport in Rome, Italy, this show is very similar to its predecessor and just about as good, even in quality. Many old versions of this bootleg date it at 19 January, but it turns out that (according to all sources I visited just now) the originally-scheduled Rome gig for 19 Januaray was postponed to this date. There was also a gig in Rome the day before (21/1), but the general consensus seems to be that this is the 22/1 show. Anyway, let's get away from that and talk about the show itself. It has a hiss of varying strength, some breaks, some microphone bumps, some clicks, some scratches, and the taper does lots of shushing to his fellow audience members--in the process making more noise on the recording than they are! Pete's vocals are also kind of low, but for all that this show still gets a "Good" from me, because damn it, it sounds good. It's much less muddy than other Foxtrot gigs, and this particular version was distributed by PGWeeds, a group dedicated to releasing recordings featuring Peter Gabriel (its track times match the boot for this gig on Simon's list which he calls "Charisma Festival"). I have a remastered version of the first PGWeed release in my solo section.

The story for "Box" is only partially present here, but is clearly the old croquet story. Most of the intros are short, with some Italian--Pete didn't know much of the language and didn't want to bore the audience telling them stories they probably wouldn't understand anyway. This show has the early version of "Supper's Ready" with a different, more satisfying conclusion; before that number begins Pete gets the audience to cheer Phil for his use of the triangle (or "ding-a-ling"), just as he used to do before they played "Twilight Alehouse" at earlier gigs. It also has the earlier, much simpler story for "Supper." Definitely one of the highlights of this tour, bootleg-wise.

An interesting variation of this show is seen on Halley's list, where a boot for this date is listed which also has a one-handed drum solo and "Twilight Alehouse" at the end of the set. I think it's very unlikely that these numbers were played that night, especially at the end of the set, but Halley makes no mention of them being from a different date.

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Rainbow Theatre

9/2/73

1 Watcher of the Skies (9:06)
2 Intro: Box/Friday (3:18)
3 Get 'em Out by Friday (9:44)
4 Intro: Supper (2:36)
5 Supper's Ready (24:23)
6 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (8:43)
7 Intro: Knife (0:40)
8 The Knife (1:48)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Fair

Comments: (I have several other versions of this show below.) This is a fairly typical show from the Foxtrot tour. There's some hiss, as this was transferred from tape, and the volume is low. The vocals are distinct, however, not muddy. Track two includes the intro for "The Musical Box," but the song is cut and it proceeds right into the intro for the next number. Pete says "Welcome to the World of Genesis," and claims that the instruments will be playing the parts of the musicians (for instance, the part of Tony Banks is played by Michael Mellotron and Steve Hackett is played by "Mr. Gary Gibson himself"). Interestingly, fans in the audience scream "Harold [the Barrel]!!" a lot, especially before "Supper's Ready." Phil responds to these cries: "Harold's a very (old?) one, I'm afraid. Two minutes of silence for Harold." Phil's comment hints that the song was not part of the set anymore at this point. Pete totally messes up his whistling of the "Jerusalem Boogie;" he makes two attempts at it, and then gives up entirely. Perhaps it was mess-ups like this that prompted them to introduce Phil's drum beat in the back of the boogie--it is not present here. There is a chunk missing from the beginning of "Supper," one or two lines from the first verse. There are some clicks near the end of the "Lover's Leap" section, and for some reason the keyboard build-up in "Apocalypse in 9/8" was originally repeated on this disc (not by the band; it's an error in the recording). I have since repaired this error, and in the process removed some small, split second pauses from between the tracks and upped the volume level a tad. When it comes time for the encore number, the audience members seem to be fighting with each other for which will be played; some are still shouting "Harold!" while others, more sensibly, scream "Knife!" This "Knife" unfortunately ends very abruptly right in the middle of Pete saying "Trafalgar." I now have a slightly more complete and probably speed-corrected version of this show--as well as the Squonk's Revival version (see next two entries).

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Rainbow Theatre (upgrade)

9/2/73

1 Watcher of the Skies (8:43)
2 The Musical Box (12:09)
3 Get 'em Out by Friday (10:12)
4 Supper's Ready (25:10)
5 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (8:42)
6 The Knife (incomplete)(2:29)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Fair

Comments: At the Rainbow Theatre in London, this is my own composite version of two bootlegs; it includes bits of the previous version of this show, above, and bits from another version I received much later. I learned once again with this other version the hard lesson that there is no such thing as a perfect bootleg. I had hoped upon receiving Rainbow version 2 that it would be the full show, with "Musical Box" (which my previous version was missing), and that it would sound better. Well, it did have "Box," but it didn't sound particularly better and it had bits missing that version 1 did not have missing. I was forced therefore to create a version with bits from both. Now usually in these kinds of situations I like to use as much from the same source as I can, to make the show sound consistent. After much comparing of the two versions, I decided to go with version two as my main source, because I noticed pretty early on that my first version had a speed problem. I can't imagine why I didn't notice it before I got the second version, because it is perceptibly slow. Version 2 appears to be at the correct speed, so wherever possible I have used it.

Here's a run-down on version 2's characteristics and which tracks come from which show. Version 2's sound is dull and has a high-pitched hiss running through it. It also (very unfortunately) originally had huge pauses in between the tracks. There is a cut in "Box"--Pete sings "and the clock--tick-tock--" and then the song cuts to the heavy guitar which comes directly after he sings "the wall!"--but as this was the only version of the song I had, I just have to live with that cut. The end of "Friday" and the subsequent story for "Supper" are totally missing for some reason, even though both versions clearly come from the same audience source and version 1 has these things. There was also a break and a possible hiccup at the end of "Hogweed," and the entire incomplete version of "The Knife" was lower in quality and depth than the rest of the show.

So, what I've done is taken "Watcher," "Box," most of "Friday," and all of "Supper" (sans intro) from version 2, where the speed was correct and there was a minimum of problems, and it may just have sounded slightly better than version 1 quality-wise. The end of "Friday," the intro story for "Supper," and the last two numbers ("Hogweed" and the partial "Knife," which is just as partial on both versions but sounded better on version 1--same for "Hogweed") are all from version 1. I think I can say in all honesty that you won't notice the splice when the intro for "Supper" shifts into the actual song, and apart from noticing the speed difference you probably won't notice the shift back to version 1 for "Hogweed" and "Knife." However the splice where the end of "Friday" (and I mean the very end, just after Pete sings the last word, "Heaven!") cuts in is rather obvious, because the speed difference between the two shows causes a shift in pitch which is hard not to notice. I did the best I could--I didn't want to use the whole of "Friday" from version 1 because of the speed problem, but I had to use some of it because version 2's "Friday" was cut. Needless to say, the giant pauses of version 2 have been seamlessly removed. Also in comparing my track lists for the two versions you'll notice that I've chosen to not track the intro stories separately from the songs--it seems I like it better that way.

All in all, with this new hybrid sourced version, this show has become a more adequate and enjoyable Foxtrot gig. It's complete except for the one cut in "Box" (which is small) and the partial "Knife" (which is unfortunate), and Pete does some nice, humorous intros. I'm proud of the work I did on it. See the next entry for an alternate version of this recording, which is still not ideal.

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Squonk's Revival 04

9/2/73

1 Introduction (0:50)
2 Watcher of the Skies (7:59)
3 Band Intro (1:50)
4 The Musical Box (9:55)
5 Intro: Friday (1:07)
6 Get 'em Out by Friday (8:51)
7 Supper's Ready (22:25)
8 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (8:05)
9 The Knife (incomplete)(3:09)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Fair

Comments: At the Rainbow Theatre in London. This is a remaster of the old Rainbow material, but it is by no means a perfect or "ultimate" version. Unfortunately, the Squonk's Revival people seem to have been working with a source recording which was not the best available. For instance, Peter's story for "Supper's Ready" and Phil's comment about "Harold the Barrel" before it are entirely missing. After "Hogweed," the recording fades out. Then on the last track it fades back in so that we hear the very ending of "Hogweed" over again, and then the calls for an encore, and then the typically incomplete "Knife" (which admittedly has a few more seconds on here than on my other versions). For some reason, this last track seems to come from a higher generation source, and sounds worse than the rest of the recording. I believe this was also true for my original "version 2" of the Rainbow gig, which I ended up replacing from my version 1 which had a better sounding "Knife." This recording still has the cut in "Box" around the "tick tock" part and the cut in "Supper" right at the beginning that all other versions seem to have.

My "upgrade" version, above, has some major hiss running through it that this recording does not--in fact, this one has no perceptible hiss at all, which is fairly impressive. However, some might prefer the more "untreated" sound which can make smaller details clearer. One trader at least has told me he prefers my "upgrade" version to this one. Mine is much louder and sounds less dull than this one. It is also more complete! The problem with mine, of course, is that it is patched together from various sources, only one of which was speed-correct (the SR version does have the advantage of not being too slow).

I considered melding this SR remaster with my upgrade, plugging in the "Supper" intro and replacing the bad "Knife" on this version--I came very close to doing it, but decided that I would just end up with another patched-up show. I wish someone like Hogweed would come along and get a good consistent and complete source recording for this date. For now, I will just have to keep multiple versions around.

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Plymouth '73

12/2/73

1 Watcher of the Skies (7:45)
2 Get 'em Out by Friday (8:54)
3 Supper's Ready (23:30)
4 The Musical Box (10:03)
5 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (7:59)

Type/Quality: Audience/Fair-Good

Comments: At the Guildhall in Plymouth. This is a fairly ok recording which has been slaughtered by some very crude editing (possibly in an attempt to cram it onto an LP, possibly not). The show starts a bit into "Watcher," and all of the intros have been removed. It's quite possible that the set is not in the correct order; indeed, "Box" was usually earlier in the performance. Also I'm quite sure the "Supper" is too slow, though none of the other tracks seem to be affected. There is a cut and break near the beginning of the bridge section in "Friday." There is a rather large cut gouged out of the beginning of the "Apocalypse" section of "Supper." That song cuts off a bit before its actual end, going right into "Box," which is missing its beginning notes and starts at the first line of lyric. There is one loud, short buzz near the beginning of "Hogweed." The sound is muffled, but not horrible. What is here sounds pretty good, but I wish it hadn't been messed with so much.

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Glasgow '73

16/2/73

1 Watcher of the Skies (8:21)
2 One-Handed Drum Solo/The Musical Box (16:23)
3 Get 'em Out by Friday/The Return of the Giant Hogweed (18:00)
4 Supper's Ready (part 1)(14:39)
5 Supper's Ready (part 2)(incomplete)(3:42)

Type/Quality: Audience/Fair

Comments: (See better version of this show below.) At Green's Playhouse in Glasgow. This one is very muffled and far away. It has also, as you can see, been tracked very oddly. Pete tells a short, short intro for "Box," then it becomes clear that something has gone wrong as he introduces a comedy skit involving Tony Banks and a roadie. Phil pulls out his drum solo. There's an intro for "Friday," but after it there is a cut and the first couple of lines of the song are missing. There is also a small break and cut in the bridge of the song (very similar to the cut in the previous entry's "Friday"--suspiciously similar, but I still don't really think they're the same recording, and Simon clearly doesn't think so). There is also a very small cut at the end of "Hogweed." Finally, and most unfortunately, the tape seems to have run out before the end of "Supper"--the song enters the "Apocalypse" section but then abruptly stops. I have a version below with more of "Supper" and a bit more of some other parts of the show.

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Green's Playhouse '73

16/2/73

1 Introduction (1:44)
2 Watcher of the Skies (8:57)
3 Intro: Box/One-Handed Drum Solo (5:02)
4 The Musical Box (11:36)
5 Intro: Friday (1:19)
6 Get 'em Out by Friday (8:50)
7 Intro: Supper (3:03)
8 Supper's Ready (incomplete)(20:58)
9 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (8:28)

Type/Quality: Audience/Fair-Good

Comments: At Green's Playhouse in Glasgow, Scotland. This is an upgrade to the above version of this show. The first version had quite a few cuts. This show has many of the same cuts, but not as long. It also has a different ordering, with "Hogweed" coming after "Supper." Simon has two versions of this show, both with "Hogweed" before "Supper." However I still believe that the order I have on this version is the correct order, if only because every other Foxtrot gig had "Hogweed" as the last number (ignoring of course the sometime encore of "Knife"). This was the order in which the tape I transferred this from had it (the tape also started with a lot of audience cheering at the beginning, so I've kept it on here as a separate track before "Watcher"). My original version was tracked very oddly in the first place, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was out of order. The cuts in this version are as follows: the entire intro for "Friday" seems intact, but the first couple of lines of the song are missing. My first version had a cut in the middle of "Friday," but this one doesn't. The first version also had most of the story for "Supper" cut out--this version has the whole story. The first version cut off in the middle of the "Apocalypse" section of "Supper"--this version does not cut off until the end of the "Apocalypse" section; it's only really missing the final "As Sure as Eggs is Eggs" section of the song. I believe this may be the most complete version of "Supper" available for this gig--though it is remotely possible that the whole song exists somewhere. Both of my versions are missing the first few notes of "Hogweed," and both have a tiny, tiny cut near the end of "Hogweed"--it may even be just a big microphone bump.

As for sound quality--this one is still not very good, but I judge it to be slightly better than the first one. Its volume level is lower than the first, but to fix that all you have to do is increase the volume on your stereo. One of the reasons I think this one sounds better is because in the first version I could barely make out anything of the intros between songs, but in this one I was more successful. Depending on what kind of stereo you have and how much control you have over bass and treble and such, you may be able to fiddle with this and hear quite a bit of what Pete is saying. The sound could be worse, and the only thing it really suffers from is an overall muddiness which I believe is mainly caused by reverb. There is surprisingly little hiss and none of the pitch drops or speed shifting which can easily occur on older tapes like the one this came from. The intros are pretty good, much like those for the next gig and those found on the Leicester/Manchester gigs. The intro for "Box" is of course augmented by Tony's comedy sketch and by Pete's detailed play-by-play description of Phil's "One-Handed Drum Solo." He seems to tell a pretty good story for that, including Phil's training under a Russian spastic and the limbs that Phil grew on different days of his training. When they finally are ready to play "Box," Pete says that it was a number "written especially for us by Donny Osmond." The intro for "Friday" seems to include a description of the actual subject matter of the song and the story of John Pebble, but Pete also throws in the supposed underlying metaphor, which is "the passionate story of a female butterfly and a male Alsatian dog." He seems to have used this story during this month of the tour.

The full intro for "Supper," which I had not heard on the previous version (and probably hadn't even realized was missing from it), is pretty standard and the wording for it is quite similar to that used in gigs later in this month. Pete as usual for this tour seems to have trouble with his whistling and has to start twice. He manages to get out the closing notes of the "Jerusalem Boogie," to fan applause. There is no intro for "Hogweed"--it has probably been cut from the recording. I'm really quite certain of the ordering on this disc, since the end of "Friday" seems to go smoothly into the beginning of "Supper," and the cut in "Supper" goes all the way into the beginning notes of "Hogweed." It all fits. You'll notice that the title I've supplied for this boot mentions the venue instead of just saying "Glasgow '73." I did this not only to differentiate this show from the previous one, but also to differentiate it from the other bootleg that exists of a Genesis gig in Glasgow in 1973. This other gig was during the SEBTP tour and was played at the Apollo Theatre, not Green's Playhouse. To remove confusion I've avoided having too many shows named "Glasgow '73."

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Sheffield '73

17/2/73

1 Watcher of the Skies (8:19)
2 The Musical Box (including power failure and restart)(15:18)
3 Get 'em Out by Friday (10:42)
4 Supper's Ready (23:53)
5 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (9:13)
6 The Knife (9:39)

Type/Quality: Audience/Poor-Fair

Comments: (I have the SR remaster of this recording, which is much better than this one, below.) At the City Hall in Sheffield, this show came not long before the famous KBFH gigs which would provide so much controversy and mythology for Genesis fans everywhere by being bootlegged on the famous double-LP on the Dutch Philips label. Thusly, this show is rather similar in structure and in the intros which Pete puts before the songs (he even uses the same, very rare story about a dog and a butterfly before "Friday"). This show is, however, much lower in quality. It is very, very muddy, muffled and hissy. Because of this and probably some reverb, Pete's intros are nearly indecipherable (unless you have a good idea of what he's going to say in the first place). It does have the unique occurence of "Musical Box" having to be restarted due to a power failure. The band gets a little way in and then the song just stops. Pete makes quips about a comical sketch, probably involving a roadie. They almost go into a one-handed drum solo, but then the problem is corrected and the song starts again from the beginning.

In fact, even with the sub-par sound, this is a fairly interesting show, and I might have been able to live with it ok if not for the fact that it turned out to be littered with cuts. Starting towards the second half of "Friday," where the recording stops and starts before Pete sings the line about the announcement from genetic control. Then comes "Supper," with the normal Old Michael story (where Pete once again messes up his whistling--he got much better at it during the SEBTP tour, thank God) but with a lot of cuts. I will detail them: there's a small one in the beginning of "Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man" section, a big one in the middle of "Ikhnaton and Itsacon," and a third one in the "Aching Men's Feet" section, near its beginning. The track may also end before the song is quite over.

Then comes "Hogweed," where about halfway through the song the recording fades out. It comes in and out several times after that before steadying again and finishing out. "Knife" miraculously has no cuts. So this is not exactly a totally unlistenable show, and it has at least one unique occurence which makes it worth it; but not what you'd call a "good" bootleg by any means.

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Sheffield '73 (SR06)

17/2/73

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (8:19)
1-2 Intro: Box (1:21)
1-3 The Musical Box (false start)(3:03)
1-4 The Musical Box (11:07)
1-5 Intro: Friday (1:33)
1-6 Get 'em Out by Friday (9:35)
1-7 Intro: Supper (2:54)
1-8 Supper's Ready (Lover's Leap to Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man)(5:23)

2-1 Supper's Ready (Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man to As Sure as Eggs is Eggs)(17:51)
2-2 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (9:29)
2-3 The Knife (9:25)

Type/Quality: Audience/Fair-Good

Comments: At the City Hall in Sheffield, this is an interesting upgrade to the above show, which (in its original form, above) I complained about rather mercilessly. This particular version seems to be from Squonk's Revival (SR), and this is their sixth release. The muddiness that I disliked so much about the first version has been ameliorated somewhat here. Pete's voice is easier to make out, making the stories that much more enjoyable and understandable (nice to hear Pete's quip after the power failure that ruins their first take of "Musical Box": "That was a little shorter than the version on the album").

In the original version I had, "Friday" stopped and started--I did not notice that happening in this version. Strangely, my copy of this SR release, unlike others I've seen, has been split over two discs rather than keeping to one--also, it is split right in the middle of "Supper's Ready." In my other version, I had detailed several cuts in this song. I mentioned one small one occuring in the "Sanctuary Man" section; it was a very, very small cut, and the SR version does not have it. The SR version does not really have a cut as such in this section, but the first disc does cut off right in the middle of it (right before Pete is about to say "Look into my mouth"). The second disc comes back in at exactly the point where the first cut off, but is rather wavery--the sound takes some time to recover. In another odd difference, there is a large cut in the "Ikhnaton and Itsacon" section on my original version, but no cut on the SR version. Both versions have the same cut in the final section of the song, however, so that the lyrics go from "your loving arms" to "Like the river joins the ocean..." Also as in the original version, the SR version has a cut in the middle of "Hogweed" (and "Supper" goes immediately into "Hogweed").

Really though this is a very impressive upgrade. It has fewer cuts and better sound than my previous version. Some day I may make it better by putting the whole thing on one disc, but other than that, this show is a pleasant surprise, as I never would have thought a better show could be gotten out of this recording.

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Caught by the Watcher

21/2/73

1 Watcher of the Skies (incomplete)(6:19)

Type/Quality: Audience/Fair-Good

Comments: At the University Great Hall in York, this startlingly incomplete show ironically rounds out my collection of Foxtrot shows. I was uninterested in obtaining this show because of the fact that it only consists of part of one song ("Watcher" cuts off very abruptly just as Pete is starting to sing the last line: "This is your fa--"), but it is a curiosity and a humorous example of what can go wrong when you try to tape a show--and as I say, with it I now have every known recorded date from this tour (apart from the hidden shows, of course--there's at least one). The speed of the recording is a bit slow, the sound is a bit crackly and unstable, but it could be worse: what we have here is the beginnings of what would have been a fairly typical and probably not all that bad Foxtrot show. There are some microphone bumps to be heard, but not many, and mostly toward the beginning. As Simon describes this show, there is "what sounds like a struggle" as some individual attempts to capture the deviant wickedly trying to record music. Given this description, I was hoping to be entertained by the resounding thuds of a fist fight, or cries of "Hey, give that back!" or "Give me that tape recorder, you jerk!" just before the cut-off of the recording. But I was greatly disappointed. Aside from some unintelligible remark from an audience member well before the cut in the tape, I heard nothing that sounded like a struggle. This led me to suspect the ridiculous idea that someone has created a "fake" version of this show, by simply taking a "Watcher" from some other show and cutting it off at the right track time. But on consideration this is probably not the case, and Simon has simply heard something on this disc that I have not.

Notice how, even with a one-track disc of 6:19, I can take up a good solid paragraph blathering about it. That's skill for you.

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1 Supper's Ready (26:00)
2 Watcher of the Skies (8:24)
3 The Musical Box (10:45)
4 Get 'em Out by Friday (9:47)
5 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (8:35)
6 The Knife (9:35)

Type/Quality: Radio/Very Good-Good

Comments: As far as I can tell, this bootleg is as close as any bootleg will ever come to being the famed test pressing of the double LP version of Genesis Live (though see the next two entries, which are upgrades to this one). Certainly tracks 2-6 are the exact versions from the officially released live album, but with Pete's stories intact and with some pops and crackles and slightly muffled sound (almost definitely this was transferred from vinyl). And this version includes the coveted live "Supper's Ready." These tracks are in the order they would have been played, except "Supper," which should come right before "Hogweed." Some people label this boot as being entirely from De Montfort Hall in Leicester (25/2), but as in the official Live album, all of these songs are from Leicester except "Hogweed," which is from the 24/2 gig at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester.

Recent evidence I have heard leads me to believe this is in actuality a copy of the Dutch Philips label test pressing of Live. The test pressing is most likely just that; the Live album in a very early stage of development, pressed in anticipation of a radio airing which (probably) never took place. Of course, I don't know this for sure, it's just a theory I've heard from a reliable source. See my Mysteries page for a bit more info on this. It's worth noting that Pete tells a fairly rare and pretty funny story before "Get 'em Out by Friday," which was cruelly edited out of the official release (along with all of the other stories, though they are somewhat more present here).

Test Pressing Remaster

25/2/73

1 Watcher of the Skies (8:43)
2 The Musical Box (11:10)
3 Get 'em Out by Friday (10:06)
4 Intro: Supper (2:45)
5 Supper's Ready (24:15)
6 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (9:28) (24/2/73)
7 The Knife (9:51)

Type/Quality: Radio/Very Good

Comments: At the De Montfort Hall in Leicester, except track 6, which is from the Free Trade Hall in Manchester. This is another form of that Holy Grail of Genesis relics, the test pressing of the Live album (see next entry for the ideal version). This one puts the songs in the right order and sounds quite a bit better than the version above (though due to my less than perfect rating system, I could only put it up one small step in quality), with much less hiss and not as much noise. There are still quite a few pops to be heard, however, especially at the beginning of the recording and during quieter bits. There are split second pauses on my version, but you'll probably never know it since each track fades out at the end and fades in at the beginning.

It's worth it to hear this gig in this form, rather than the more polished official release version. You get more of Pete's wonderful intros and you also get the almighty "Supper's Ready." Interesting to note that even though more in between stuff is here, not all of the stories are in. For instance, the story for "Box" is notably absent, and there is clearly something missing before "Hogweed," as the track comes in with Pete talking about someone named Tim. Possibly this may be related to a technical problem the band were having--Pete had a habit of naming and describing the roadies who came on stage to fix such glitches. One wonders just how much had been done to this soundboard recording when it got to this test pressing stage--some mixing has been done, but are there studio overdubs? I don't have the patience to do a careful comparison between the final product (the Live album) and this version, but I am curious as to what the results of such a study would be.

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Live at Leicester and Manchester
(TM Productions GEN730225TM)

25/2/73

1 Watcher of the Skies (8:56)
2 The Musical Box (11:33)
3 Get 'em Out by Friday (11:42)
4 Supper's Ready (24:16)
5 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (9:05) (24/2/73)
6 The Knife (9:28)

Type/Quality: Soundboard/Very Good-Excellent

Comments: At the De Montfort Hall in Leicester except for track 5, taken from the Free Trade Hall show in Manchester. This is the TM remaster of the famous Dutch Test Pressing. It's time to take all your other versions, including the official Live album, and just throw them in the garbage! That's how good this version is. There are no more vinyl pops or scratches. Sound quality is close to official, since this is a pre-FM source, and this is as complete a recording as is available of this material (the story for "Box" is still missing). A triumph! The only possible criticism I might have is that the transitions between tracks seem a bit abrupt. (Please note that I wrote this review after having drank my second cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee of the day, so I may have been a bit more effusive than is absolutely necessary.)

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Genesis Quebec City

3/3/73

1 Get 'em Out by Friday (9:45)
2 The Musical Box (12:08)
3 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (8:35)
4 Supper's Ready (24:18)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Fair

Comments: (See next entry for an upgraded version of this.) Played at the Grand Theatre in Quebec City. I'd like to start out by saying that this is incomplete. That is, compared to other boots of this show, which seem to also have "Watcher of the Skies" and "The Knife"--the correct beginning and ending songs, respectively. Also this boot is not in the usual order--in other versions that I've seen, "Box" precedes "Friday." Pete speaks in French. I have been told that this version of the boot was transferred directly from a vinyl bootleg with the title I have given above. I assume the vinyl factor is the reason why the show is missing a couple of songs--the disc totals 54:46, which must be pretty near the limit for what an LP can hold (though I have to admit, being a CD/tape guy, I don't really know for sure). Its tracking edits sound very similar to those on my Marquee Club boot from this tour. Not all of the intros have been taken out, but definitely the beginning of "Supper"'s story is missing. "Friday" has a short intro, and "Box"'s story is told in a mix of English and French which Pete calls "Franglais." The "Supper" story comes in when Pete is talking about the surface of the park being filled with worms--he messes up the phrase "swarming worms." He also messes up his Jerusalem Boogie whistle.

Apart from the fact that this show is incomplete and out of order, it isn't so bad! The sound quality is fairly good. It has some hiss and some pops, but actually is low on the noise, especially for a vinyl transfer. It does have a hiccup which I have not bothered to repair: the end of "Box" is repeated at the beginning of the next track. There is one other annoying problem, which comes in at the end of the "Apocalypse" section of "Supper"--clicks. They repeat for a while over top of the music, but go away before the song ends. Not the best of boots; see the next entry for an improved version.

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Quebec '73

3/3/73

1 Watcher of the Skies (8:02)
2 The Musical Box (11:56)
3 Get 'em Out by Friday (9:41)
4 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (8:09)
5 The Knife (9:31)
6 Supper's Ready (25:35)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good

Comments: Played at the Grand Theatre in Quebec. I finally got my hands on this upgrade version, which I'd been looking for for some time, which has two more songs than the above entry and has less vinyl noise on it. There are pops, and there is some hiss, and the sound gets a bit rough during louder bits, but this is one of the better Foxtrot boots out there. There was originally a strange type of hiccup in "Hogweed" which resulted in a cut, but fortunately I was able to splice in a corrected section from the other version of this show, so that this is now a corrected version. There are some strange volume flutters in the opening organ intro for "Watcher." The volume jumps to a fuller volume, but flutters back and forth for a while before settling back down to a lower volume. This happens a few times. There are also general volume fluctuations throughout the show, but of a more normal type: smoother and probably due to the taper moving his microhpone (the flutters in "Watcher" actually sound like they might be a problem with Tony's keyboard--though if so, you'd think they'd have stopped the song).

Unlike the original version I had of this, this version seems to have all the intros intact. The full "Supper" story is here. Pete does kind of mess up the whistling, but not as much as he did on other performances. He doesn't bother whistling the whole phrase from the hymn that he usually did, though. Both versions of this show have an unfortunate but very small break at the end of the "Willow Farm" section. A great improvement on my original boot is the lack of clicks at the end of "Supper"--that song sounds fine. It may fade off just the slightest bit early; in that case it is just like its counterpart.

As a last note, I'd like to say that I still question the track ordering here. I believe that the correct placing of "Supper" in the set is before "Hogweed." This is the way the band generally played the set on this tour, and I think that it was rearranged somewhere along the line.

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Paris Radio '73

7/5/73

1 Watcher of the Skies (8:21)
2 The Musical Box (10:45)
3 Get 'em Out by Friday (9:21)
4 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (8:33)
5 The Knife (incomplete)(8:10)
6 Supper's Ready (partial)(2:06)

Type/Quality: Radio/Good-Fair

Comments: One of the rare radio shows from this tour, and coming near its end, at the Olympia Theatre in Paris. This is not a good radio show really. In fact, I'd venture to say that it's easily one of the worst radio shows I've ever heard--although even with that it's still better than most audience shows from this tour. There is incredible hiss on this recording, sometimes accompanied by a high-pitched, almost dog-whistle type of tone. It sounds as if the band were playing next to a minor waterfall. This is also supplemented by various static and fumbling noises (especially near the beginning of "The Knife"), which makes me believe that the show was recorded by someone who simply stuck a recorder next to their radio, and proceeded to adjust the microphone/recorder from time to time during the broadcast. This surmise has been confirmed by at least one other web site's comments. The recording also jitters near the end of "Watcher," coming off and on and off and on during the last sung line of the song.

As for the broadcast itself, it came over AM radio and features a French announcer. I could slap this French announcer. If I knew his address, and if he was still living, I would buy plane tickets, have a nice holiday in France, and before getting on the plane again to go home to America I would come to his house, knock on the door, and if he answered it, I would slap him in the face and then run away. He talks way too much. He talks over almost the entire organ solo beginning "Watcher." He talks over all of Pete's intros. All of them! You don't hear a single word of Pete's in between talks, except maybe the very end where he says something like "This is 'Get 'em Out by Friday.'" In fact, on my original version of this the announcer's jabber after "Friday" was actually repeated! In this version I have mercifully removed the duplication.

One interesting thing about this show is that "The Knife" is somewhat incomplete. It gets rather near the end, then slowly starts fading away, and actually crossfades into the beginning of "Supper's Ready." This is a very incomplete "Supper;" in fact it's only the first section of the song, and cuts off very abruptly after Pete sings "It's been a long, long time." There are several different versions of the Paris radio show, and not all of them have this strange chunk of "Supper." It's possible that it's from a different source/gig, although if so that gig must also have been radio or soundboard.

In conclusion, not a great show but an interesting one, and though not a good radio show, still a radio show. Worth a listen.

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Reading Festival '73

26/8/73

1 Watcher of the Skies (7:31)
2 Supper's Ready (22:34)
3 The Return of the Giant Hogweed (8:24)
4 The Musical Box (11:53)

Type/Quality: Audience/Fair

Comments: At the Reading Festival of 1973, this is considered the very last gig of the Foxtrot tour. In fact this is probably the last time the song "Hogweed" was ever played live. The sound leaves a bit to be desired. The recording starts a bit into the organ intro for "Watcher." It's fuzzy, and has a few pops and a few breaks--one after "Watcher." That particular break is a sign that the intro for "Supper" has been cut--all the other intros are here. There is a rather loud hum in the background of certain songs. At the beginning of "Supper," it sounds very much as though someone in the audience is kicking a can. There is a small cut in the "Ikhnaton and Itsacon" section of that song. The mix of this recording is interesting--some parts of the music can be heard very clearly, whereas others have been almost totally drowned out--somehow or other the drums seem to have been almost removed in places. "Supper" seems to fade out too early, but crowd noise covers it, almost like a studio fade-out had been cleverly hidden.

An interesting discovery I made while listening to this disc is that the songs are out of order. One familiar with the band's set would realize right off that it's very strange to have "Supper" as the second number and "Box" as the last one, and in fact if you listen to the beginning of "Box" you can tell that it should actually be the second number. Pete greets the audience and says that this is the last time the band will "muddle through" their old set. My feeling is that the only ordering problem is that "Box" should be moved up to track two and everything else moved down, leaving "Hogweed" as the last number (as it usually was).

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