Genesis Live - Selling England by the Pound Tour

Selling England by the Pound (19/9/73-6/5/74)

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

Selling England by the Session, 1973 (Studio)

Lausanne, 29/9/73 (FAKE--Olympia Theatre, Paris 19/9/73)

Olympia Theatre '73, 19/9/73 (Olympia Theatre, Paris)

Apollo Theatre '73, 9/10/73 (Apollo Theatre, Glasgow)

Southampton '73, 11/10/73 (Gaumont Theatre, UK)

Brighton '73, 15/10/73 (The Dome, Brighton)

Live Supper, 20/10/73 (Rainbow Theatre, London)

The Great Lost Repeat, 20/10/73 (Rainbow Theatre)

Over, the Rainbow, 20/10/73 (Rainbow Theatre)

Rainbow Remaster, 20/10/73 (Rainbow Theatre)

Great Lost Live Album Recompiled, 20/10/73 (Rainbow)

Liverpool '73, 23/10/73 (Empire Theatre, Liverpool)

Live in Newcastle, 26/10/73 (City Hall, Newcastle)

Toronto '73 (HW01), 8/11/73 (Massey Hall, Toronto)

Montreal More Complete, 10/11/73 (University Sports Arena)

A Death in Anytown, 22/11/73 (Felt Forum, NYC)

BURP 6, 22/11/73 (Felt Forum, NYC)

Hogweed 13, 22/11/73 (Felt Forum, NYC)

Ypsilanti '73, 8/12/73 (Pease Auditorium, Ypsilanti, MI)

Fantasia, 17/12/73 (Roxy Theatre, LA)

Roxy '73 (matinee, first night), 17/12/73 (Roxy Theatre, LA)

Roxy '73 (matinee, second night), 18/12/73 (Roxy, LA)

Skywatchers, 19/12/73 (Roxy Theatre, LA)

Progweeds 09 (ProgW09), 19/12/73 (Roxy Theatre, LA)

Roxy 6 (SAB 13), 19/12/73 (Roxy Theatre, LA)

Bristol Melody of 1974 (PRRPGS010), 13/1/74 (UK)

Drury Lane, 20/1/74 (Drury Lane Theatre Royal, London)

BURP 26, 20/1/74 (Drury Lane Theatre Royal, London)

Belgium '74, 26/1/74 (Vorst Nationale, Brussels)

Selling Dusseldorf by the Pound, 30/1/74 (Philipshalle)

Offenbach '74, 31/1/74 (Stadthalle, Germany)

Turin '74, 3/2/74 (Palasport, Turin)

Britannia in Torino, 3/2/74 (Palasport, Turin Italy)

Another Reggio Emilia, 4/2/74 (Palasport, Reggio Emilia)

Rome '74, 5/2/74 (Palasport, Rome)

BURP 13, 6/2/74 (Teatro Mediterraneo, Naples)

Emperor & Empress, 3/3/74 (Tower Theater, Philadelphia)

Indiana '74, 7/3/74 (Sports Arena, Fort Wayne IN)

Coral Gables, 9/3/74 (Gusman Philharmonic, U of Miami)

Miami '74, 9/3/74 (Gusman Philharmonic, U of Miami)

Santa Monica '74 (second night), 22/3/74 (Civic Reunion)

Toledo, Ohio (HW04), 6/4/74 (U of Toledo, Ohio)

Dance Right on Through the Night, 16/4/74 (Detroit)

Jerusalem Boogie in Motor City (CF), 16/4/74 (Detroit)

One More Knight (PRRP004), 17/4/74 (McGraw Hall, IL)

Montreal '74 (first night), 20/4/74 (Univer. Sports Centre)

The First Night (PRRPGS006), 20/4/74 (Univ. Sports Cent.)

Live in Montreal, 21/4/74 (University Sports Centre)

FAde 004, 21/4/74 (University Sports Centre, Montreal)

A Classic Broadcast Revisited (PRRP SAE 04), 21/4/74

Boston '74, 24/4/74 (Music Hall, Mass.)

Hogweed 10, 24/4/74 (Music Hall, Boston Mass.)

A Voice in the Dream, 28/4/74 (Allen Theatre, Cleveland)

Moonlit Queen, 2/5/74 (early)(Massey Hall, Toronto Canada)

Voices in the Academy, 4/5/74 (Academy of Music, NY)

Academy of Music (HW07), 4/5/74 (NYC, NY)

Academy of Music '74 (last night), 6/5/74 (NYC, NY)

Selling England by the Session

1973

1-01 Studio Improvisation (5:55)
1-02 Studio Improvisation (0:18)
1-03 The Battle of Epping Forest - Instrumental Take 1 (2:35)
1-04 The Battle of Epping Forest - Instrumental Take 2 (2:50)
1-05 The Battle of Epping Forest - Session Take 1 (5:28)
1-06 The Battle of Epping Forest - Session Take 2 (6:14)
1-07 The Battle of Epping Forest - Session Take 3 (3:06)
1-08 The Cinema Show (0:30)
1-09 The Cinema Show - Session Take 1 (5:13)
1-10 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight - Session Take 1 (1:43)
1-11 The Battle of Epping Forest - Session Take 4 (4:12)
1-12 The Last Time (1:01)
1-13 You Really Got Me (0:44)
1-14 The Battle of Epping Forest - Instrumental Take 3 (0:51)
1-15 The Battle of Epping Forest - Instrumental Take 4 (1:47)
1-16 The Battle of Epping Forest - Session Take 5 (12:27)
1-17 I Know What I Like 1 (3:16)
1-18 I Know What I Like 2 (4:07)
1-19 The Cinema Show 1 (3:05)
1-20 Phil's Solo (7:55)

2-01 Firth of Fifth - Instrumental Take 1 (4:56)
2-02 Firth of Fifth - Instrumental Take 2 (5:05)
2-03 The Cinema Show 2 (0:56)
2-04 After the Ordeal - Instrumental Take 1 (4:30)
2-05 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight - Session Take 2 (7:32)
2-06 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight - Session Take 3 (4:20)
2-07 The Battle of Epping Forest - Instrumental Take 5 (7:11)
2-08 The Battle of Epping Forest - Session Take 6 (21:27)
2-09 The Cinema Show 3 (1:10)
2-10 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (1:37)
2-11 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (1:53)
2-12 More Fool Me - Studio Demo (3:09)
2-13 After the Ordeal - Different Mix 1 (2:11)
2-14 After the Ordeal - Different Mix 2 (2:09)
2-15 I Know What I Like - Alternate Version (4:01)

Type/Quality: Studio/Very Good-Good

Comments: A bootleg calculated to make you sick of "The Battle of Epping Forest." This seems to be early in the creative sessions for what would become SEBTP. Lots of the songs are in instrumental form only (in fact, a great majority, with some vocal gibberish added by Pete), and many have different arrangements. "After the Ordeal" has a more aggressive sound in one or two places that really does it good--this song should have been more guitar driven. Some interesting improv at the very beginning, that doesn't sound like any of the songs that would end up on the album--just the band jamming. You get to hear the band talk/argue about stuff, and Phil gets a big drum solo. Also some great sloppy jamming to "The Last Time" and "You Really Got Me," that just sounds like the band unwinding. But good golly, is there ever too much "Epping Forest!" It must have been the only song they really had developed (from what I understand the writing for this album was very stressful and difficult), so they messed with it endlessly. "Moonlit Knight" sounds very different and interesting, mostly a piano piece and much more touching and tragic than it ended up. As for quality, when the songs begin they often have the same sound that I described on the 1972 Marquee Club bootleg as a "zooming pong." It's probably the original tape getting up to speed. There's some hiss. Generally very good stuff, though.

Lausanne '73 (FAKE)

19/9/73

1 Watcher of the Skies (8:44)
2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (10:06)
3 The Cinema Show (13:09)
4 The Battle of Epping Forest (12:55)
5 The Musical Box (13:15)
6 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (7:06)
7 Firth of Fifth (10:29)

Type/Quality: Audience/Poor-Very Poor

Comments: I got this boot with the understanding that it would be from Lausanne, Switzerland on 29 September 1973--quite early in the SEBTP tour. However, its track listing does not match that of the Lausanne boot. I did some research and found that Halley of Halley's Genesis List has an identical boot to this one--Halley's was also labeled as Lausanne but it is not. Halley had no theories as to its actual date, but I believe it to be a version of the Olympia Theatre, Paris show of 19/9/73--the first show of the SEBTP tour (having since gotten that show, I can now confirm that theory). Its track ordering, which is rather an odd order for the SEBTP tour, is identical to the Olympia Theatre boot except the real Olympia has an incomplete "Supper" at the end (that was probably cut from this version so that it could fit on one CD). However, I should point out right now that this bootleg is virtually useless, as it is easily one of the worst sounding bootlegs I have ever heard--and believe me, that's saying something. What's wrong with it? Better to ask what isn't wrong. In addition to being an incomplete show and dated incorrectly, there is a horribly loud crackly noise that pervades the entire recording. It blankets the whole length of the first track at a very high volume, kind of dies down during the second one, but makes random loud outbursts throughout the rest of the disc. It is always present, just at varying volume levels. Even without the crackle, the sound quality is muddy, wavery, and the speed is too slow. The intros are severely shaved down for tracks 2 and 3, possibly because they were edited out or because Pete didn't have the full stories for some of the songs worked out yet. There seem to be technical problems before "Box" and IKWIL. Halley mentions that Pete uses French during the intros, but as you might have guessed it's pretty hard to tell.

Olympia Theatre '73

19/9/73

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (7:33)
1-2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (9:11)
1-3 The Cinema Show (11:27)
1-4 The Battle of Epping Forest (11:39)

2-1 The Musical Box (11:09)
2-2 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (5:53)
2-3 Firth of Fifth (8:29)
2-4 Supper's Ready (incomplete)(14:12)

Type/Quality: Audience/Poor-Fair

Comments: At Olympia Theatre in Paris, this is most probably the first gig of the SEBTP tour (though it has been given other dates; see above entry and also Simon's comments on The Movement). It features a slightly rearranged set from the normal one. This is an historical point in the band's career, which is probably the only reason one could have for wanting this recording. It is not very good. It is wavery, dull, and has an overall speed problem: it's too fast. For the whole gig it sounds as though Peter is on helium. It's really quite obvious, I'm surprised Simon doesn't mention it for his version (the track times are identical to mine--at least for the first disc...). This is quite ironic considering that the misdated version of this gig above was too slow. There are also various breaks and periodic, very sickly-sounding fluctuations in the sound.

This being early in the tour (very early), and since the band are in France and Pete doesn't know much French, Pete tells very simple and basic versions of the stories for the new songs, and he also messes up some lyrics (in "Moonlit Knight" and "Epping Forest"). Pete seems to give Mike a hard time at the beginning of "Box"--probably kidding him about his bass pedal solos again, though it's hard to tell due to the bad quality. IKWIL has a long opening section, wherein Pete does some talking--which actually seems to be an explanation of the song. He provides a very basic version of the "five rivers" story for FoF. Interesting to note that there is no piano intro. It seems to be the standard story for "Supper," with Michael and the birds, though I can't make out specifics. "Supper" is cut even earlier than it normally is--it only gets into the middle part of "Willow Farm" before shutting down.

Apollo Theatre '73

9/10/73

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (9:29)
1-2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (11:39)
1-3 The Cinema Show (11:55)
1-4 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (6:41)
1-5 Firth of Fifth (10:20)
1-6 The Musical Box (incomplete)(9:51)

2-1 More Fool Me (4:55)
2-2 The Battle of Epping Forest (13:07)
2-3 Intro: Supper (2:05)
2-4 Supper's Ready (24:43)
2-5 The Knife (9:45)

Type/Quality: Audience/Fair

Comments: At the Apollo in Glasgow Scotland, as the name implies. This is an early gig from this tour, which I transferred from a tape. It is different than other versions I have seen because it features much more of "Musical Box." Most versions have only a few minutes with "serious speed problems" before the song cuts out. This version does not seem to have any speed problems and gets all the way up to the part where Pete starts singing "Now, now, now, now, now!" before abruptly dying. This show also has the distinction of having "The Knife" as a rare encore. I've looked over people's boot pages and it seems that the only recorded gigs from this tour with this encore are this one, the Felt Forum gig on Thanksgiving of this year, and the Italian gigs in early February of '74. This is a great way of confirming the fact that this gig is in fact what it claims to be.

The quality of this boot leaves a bit to be desired, unfortunately. There are no cuts except for the missing end of "Box" (and also "Watcher" starts a bit into the opening organ intro), and the speed seems OK, and there's not much noise like microphone bumps or hits or blowing or excessive fan chattering. But the overall sound is definitely mushy and hissy, and most of the song intros are barely intelligible. Most of what I could understand sounded fairly typical for this tour. The "Moonlit Knight" story I found impossible to make out; "Cinema Show" told the normal tale of Romeo, his fungus, and Juliet, but there is a pause after the story and Pete makes some additional comment that I can't make out--possibly Steve was having problems getting his guitar ready for the opening. Pete talks over the opening lawnmower noise at the beginning of IKWIL (before the standard "It's one o'clock" stuff), as he often did at the beginning of this tour, but I can't tell what he's saying at all. The story for FoF is short, but again unintelligible to me. That song does not have the piano intro. "The Musical Box" I had a bit more luck with--it's clearly the normal story of croquet and decapitation. Pete and Phil seem to have something to say before "More Fool Me" begins, but I don't know what it is exactly. The story for "Supper" is the usual Old Michael story, much as it was told at the later gig of 20 October. Pete seems to tell the story pretty quickly here, as though he's trying to get it out of the way.

After "Supper" Pete toys with the audience as he would later do at the Felt Forum gig, asking them what song they'd like to hear. The cries are almost unanimous for "The Knife," and that's what they get. I've heard worse bootlegs--this one doesn't have many problems, just the overall lack of clarity.

Southampton '73

11/10/73

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (7:57)
1-2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (11:07)
1-3 The Cinema Show (11:52)
1-4 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (6:34)
1-5 Firth of Fifth (9:03)

2-1 Intro: Box (1:24)
2-2 The Musical Box (11:19)
2-3 More Fool Me (3:52)
2-4 The Battle of Epping Forest (12:35)
2-5 Intro: Supper (2:26)
2-6 Supper's Ready (24:41)

Type/Quality: Audience/Fair-Good

Comments: At the Gaumont Theatre in Southampton (scene of a much more famous Genesis recording in 1977), this is a rather forgettable audience recording. It's not terrible, but it's not particularly remarkable either. The organ intro to "Watcher" is almost entirely cut; the song comes in as the bass and drums enter the mix. Peter tells a very short intro for "Moonlit Knight," mentioning his "ridiculous outfit." The "Cinema" story is very hard to hear, but I gathered that it was the fairly normal one about Romeo and Juliet. Tony does not play the piano intro for FoF, and Pete messes up the first verse of lyrics. The sound is somewhat wavery and I'm almost sure it's too slow. There is a break in "Supper" in the instrumental section before the "666 is no longer alone" line--there does not appear to be a cut really, the recording just stops and then starts back up again after a pause.

Brighton '73

15/10/73

1 Watcher of the Skies (10:32)
2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (10:58)
3 The Cinema Show (11:31)
4 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (6:27)
5 Firth of Fifth (10:23)
6 The Musical Box (10:18)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good

Comments: At the Dome in Brighton, this fairly early Selling England show is not complete, but what is here has no cuts, and the quality is not bad at all. I did notice immediately that it has the sound of having been fooled with digitally: that kind of tinny distortion running through the whole soundtrack, especially audible during heavy cymbal hits and applause. There is also an occasional creaking noise as the taper fumbles with his microphone.

It sounded to me as if Peter gets into his first costume on stage after "Watcher." Either that or he just takes a long time describing his outfit: there is some technical problem which requires Peter to stall for a bit before the second song can begin (he makes several mentions of a special guest being on stage, no doubt a roadie desperately working to solve the problem). One more note: FoF is played without the piano intro.

Live Supper

20/10/73

1 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (6:31)
2 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (5:03)
3 Firth of Fifth (9:04)
4 More Fool Me (3:37)
5 The Battle of Epping Forest (12:18)
6 The Cinema Show (11:34)
7 Supper's Ready (26:17)

Type/Quality: Radio/Very Good

Comments: From the Rainbow Theatre in London. (See below entries for better versions of this material.) This show was recorded for the King Biscuit Flower Hour, so there are a few versions of it floating around. Quite a bit of this show was featured on the third disc of Archive 1. "Dancing," "I Know What I Like," "Firth of Fifth," "More Fool Me" and "Supper's Ready" were all on the box set. This recording features some additional in between stuff, and does not have the overdubs added for the production of the box set (I know for one thing that Steve Hackett re-did some bits of the "Firth of Fifth" guitar solo far after the fact). It also includes "Battle of Epping Forest" and "Cinema Show."

Worth getting even if you already have the box set, if you're a completist like me and you'd rather hear the most complete and accurate show possible. This is not the correct set order--"Cinema Show" should go right after "Moonlit Knight." And of course "Watcher" should open the set, and the band almost certainly played "Musical Box," though that track is never in any of the radio broadcasts from this date. This one has been rearranged to reflect the track order of the actual album SEBTP. Of course, the quality here is not as good as that on the box set. This CD was transferred from a tape and is probably a third or fourth generation copy. For all that, though, it's still quite good quality, clearly radio show material.

The Great Lost Repeat

20/10/73

1 Watcher of the Skies (7:45)
2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (6:21)
3 Intro: IKWIL (0:21)
4 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (4:59)
5 Intro: Firth (0:18)
6 Firth of Fifth (8:32)
7 Intro: Supper (0:23)
8 Supper's Ready (23:24)

Type/Quality: Radio/Very Good-Good (mostly Very Good)

Comments: (See later entries for better versions from this date.) This is another bootleg of the archive 1 show, played at the Rainbow Theatre. There are lots of boots of this show, a radio show, one of which is rather inexplicably called The Great Lost Live Album. In fact, few albums from this period are as un-lost as this one. This particular incarnation of the show is missing quite a few tracks, but does include "Watcher," which my Live Supper above does not have. There's a little bit of hiss on here, but mainly a very good sounding recording, nearly all of which can be had at even better quality by listening to disc 3 of the first Genesis box set. Still, this one is without those pesky overdubs...

Over, the Rainbow

20/10/73

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (7:45)
1-2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (6:16)
1-3 The Cinema Show (11:34)
1-4 I Know What I Like (5:18)
1-5 Firth of Fifth (9:04)
1-6 More Fool Me (3:37)

2-1 The Battle of Epping Forest (12:18)
2-2 Supper's Ready (26:17)

Type/Quality: Radio/Very Good-Good

Comments: (I have a remaster of this material, all except "Cinema," below. Following that entry is probably the best and most complete version available.) This is a combination of all the broadcast Rainbow Theatre tracks from this date. I simply took all of the songs from Live Supper and then tacked on "Watcher" from the previous entry. This is arranged in the order they would have played it, not the order it was most likely broadcast. For a while this show seemed to be the only around which compiled all the available Rainbow tracks. However it has now been eclipsed by better versions (see two entries down).

As a final note on this gig, I have long been puzzled by Phil's seemingly obscure comment before he sings "More Fool Me": "...a little less like a painter with a jacket on..." I am very grateful to fellow fan Graeme Walker of Toronto for explaining this to me, thusly: "Phil's stage outfit for the '74 tour consisted solely of a white pair of overalls--like the type favoured by house painters. To 'smarten himself up' while he sang lead, he would don a white sports jacket--hence the remark." So Phil was saying that he would look a little less like a painter with a jacket on over his overalls. You see, that explains it! If anybody was bothered...

Rainbow Remaster

20/10/73

1 Watcher of the Skies (8:08)
2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (6:22)
3 I Know What I Like (5:22)
4 Firth of Fifth (8:59)
5 More Fool Me (4:00)
6 The Battle of Epping Forest (12:08)
7 Intro: Supper (3:00)
8 Supper's Ready (23:45)

Type/Quality: Radio/Very Good

Comments: (See next entry for an even better version than this.) Another copy of the famous Rainbow recording, this version is a remaster by a trader I had the luck to become acquainted with. It definitely sounds cleaner than all of my previous versions of this material (with the exception of the box set version, of course). The only thing keeping it from being my best version of this show is that it is missing "Cinema Show." This is because, even though this material is often broadcast on the radio (there was a 2005 re-broadcast--see next entry), "Cinema" is often omitted, so copies of it are scarce and not good quality. Though the more recent re-broadcasts sound inherently better than this, they are missing not only "Cinema" but also "Epping Forest," so this at least has the advantage of being slightly more complete than just the re-broadcast.

Great Lost Live Album Recompiled

20/10/73

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (8:02)
1-2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (6:18)
1-3 The Cinema Show (11:30)
1-4 I Know What I Like (5:26)
1-5 Firth of Fifth (8:40)
1-6 More Fool Me (3:42)
1-7 The Battle of Epping Forest (12:14)

2-1 Intro: Supper (3:11)
2-2 Supper's Ready (23:10)

Type/Quality: Radio/Very Good-Excellent

Comments: At the Rainbow. This is in fact my fifth version of this material--sixth if you count the Archive box set. This one is nearly definitive--probably as definitive as we will ever get. All songs except "Cinema" and "Epping" come from the WXRT Chicago 2005 broadcast (in celebration of Peter's 55th birthday--they also broadcast the show in 2000 for his 50th). "Epping" comes from the bootleg titled Welcome to Epping Forest Remastered, and sounds quite nice even next to the 2005 material. "Cinema," always the odd man out, comes from Eeklair's version of The Great Lost Live Album, and is of noticeably lower quality. I was shocked to find, on comparing, that my version of "Cinema" from Live Supper, above, actually sounds slightly better. If I was feeling very conscientious I would swap my "Cinema" into this version--but I'm not.

Neither versions of "Cinema" hold a candle to the 2005 material--nor can my remaster of older radio recordings (previous entry) compete with the quality of the 2005 stuff. It really sounds very nice, almost good enough to rate an Excellent.

My only objection to the show is the (unfortunately unavoidable) "put-together" sound of it. There is no continuity to the performance, and every song is preceded and followed by a harsh edit. There is no intro for "Moonlit Knight," and the improvisation at the end of the song (as in all other versions of the Rainbow material) is cut. Obviously the transition to "Cinema" is quite jarring, given the lower-quality source. We only hear the very end of the intro for that song, and the story for FoF is also edited. Pete's chatter before IKWIL is present, as is his introduction of Phil before "More Fool Me." But after MFM the recording cuts off, hard. A few more crossfades might have been kinder on the ear.

If I step back and get realistic, though, it's easy to see that this is just trader-nerd nitpicking. This is a fantastic-sounding recording of a basically complete vintage Genesis show, and the 2005 material sounds even better than the famous Montreal radio show of 1974. Definitely among the best shows to have for this historic tour.

Liverpool '73

23/10/73

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (8:29)
1-2 Intro: Knight (0:56)
1-3 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (9:05)
1-4 Intro: Cinema (1:30)
1-5 The Cinema Show (bad start)(1:01)
1-6 The Cinema Show (11:50)
1-7 I Know What I Like (6:04)

2-1 Intro: Firth (1:03)
2-2 Firth of Fifth (8:28)
2-3 Intro: Box (4:57)
2-4 The Battle of Epping Forest (13:22)
2-5 Intro: Supper (2:41)
2-6 Supper's Ready (24:11)

Type/Quality: Audience/Fair-Good

Comments: At the Empire Theatre in Liverpool, England. The sound is tinny and far away and very low in volume--I found myself turning up my stereo higher than I've ever had it before in order to try and hear Pete on his intros, and then I got blown away when the audience cheered, because of course they were much closer to the recording microphone than Pete. Generally though during songs the audience is very quiet, and there are almost no cuts. There are some bumps from time to time. Unfortunately these discs have split second pauses on them--they are very very short however (1/30 of a second), and subtle. I could remove them if I went to the trouble, but they're not that bad (also I have about 16 other discs from the same trade with exactly the same problem, and I don't feel like fixing them all!).

Pete, as far as I can tell, tells fairly typical stories for "Moonlit Knight" and "Cinema" (and later the typical Old Michael intro for "Supper"). This show is interesting because it features some rather embarrassing screw-ups on the part of the band--mainly Steve. Either he has the wrong type of guitar, an out of tune guitar, or just hits the wrong notes during the intro to "Cinema." He tries going with it for a while, but it is so off that he just stops and Pete makes some quips at his expense (which are unfortunately impossible for me to make out). They then restart the song and he plays it correctly.

Pete tells one of the rarer stories for FoF about catching a river with blankets (similar to that in Hogweed 1, the first place I heard it on). The song is played without the piano intro, and there is a small cut near the very end of the guitar solo. Pete tells the fairly normal intro for "Box," but then something goes wrong. Pete keeps the audience busy by saying a lot of things, very little of which was I able to understand. Probably it involves a "humorous sketch," which was how Pete usually described a technical fuck-up. Phil messes around on his drums in the background, but never seems to really go into a full-fledged drum solo. In a very rare move, the band chooses to totally omit "Box" from the set, and instead move on to "Epping Forest." I have heard theories that the technical problem there was also due to Steve--you can hear Mike play his bass pedal where "Box" should be beginning, but Steve never comes in. It's possible that a lower generation copy of this show exists somewhere where the listener could have a better idea of what Pete is saying...for now, I have to settle for this curiously mysterious version.

Live in Newcastle

26/10/73

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (8:20)
1-2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (10:40)
1-3 The Cinema Show (12:57)
1-4 I Know What I Like (6:35)
1-5 Firth of Fifth (10:10)

2-1 The Musical Box (12:05)
2-2 More Fool Me (4:37)
2-3 The Battle of Epping Forest (12:52)
2-4 Supper's Ready (28:22)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Fair

Comments: At the City Hall in Newcastle. This one has clearly been transferred from a vinyl source: it has lots of pops on the soundtrack. The sound is low and muffled, but the show is surprisingly complete, with only a few of the stories clipped.

There is a cut after "Moonlit Knight" which causes the story for "Cinema" to start in just a bit. Peter's story for FoF is the one where people catch a river by laying blankets out. There is a cut after the story, but none of the song seems to be missing--they were playing it without the piano intro at this point in the tour. The story for "Box" starts in, right at little Henry's decapitation. At this point, a fan randomly yells what I think is: "Mickey Mouse!" To which Peter quickly retorts, "No, little Henry," much to the audience's delight.

There is some major feedback or some kind of hum as the "Lover's Leap" section of "Supper" is transitioning to the next section. I was sure there was going to be a cut in "Supper," but the whole song is on here--nice to have a show with no cut songs, even if the quality could be better.


	Toronto '73 (HW01) 8/11/73

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (8:20)
1-2 Intro: Knight (1:34)
1-3 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (8:53)
1-4 Intro: Cinema (1:14)
1-5 The Cinema Show (11:15)
1-6 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (5:35)
1-7 Intro: Firth (1:26)
1-8 Firth of Fifth (8:21)

2-1 Intro: Box (1:42)
2-2 The Musical Box (11:51)
2-3 More Fool Me (4:00)
2-4 Intro: Supper (2:27)
2-5 Supper's Ready (23:12)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good

Comments: At the Massey Hall in Toronto, this is the very first of the releases produced by Hogweeds. Ironically enough, I collected HWs 2-10 before coming back to this one. The reason I ignored it for so long was because it looked to me like just another, very typical show from this tour, but this is a really excellent quality audience recording from this tour, and there's always something interesting to hear in these old shows.

One interesting thing in this show is that it was lacking some of the usual special effects; as the band mention, the lighting rig and stage show are on a truck somewhere between Toronto and Quebec (the site of the previous night's gig). Still, Pete's costumes have arrived safe and sound, and the audience seem thrilled enough with the performance (as they should be). The audience, however, is one of the problems with this show. They tend to be hecklers--indeed, many of them have trademark calls which they yell at inappropriate times (and really, what the heck does "yeeshkull!" mean, anyway?). They also chatter when they should be quiet--in fact, the taper or someone near him yells, "Oh good, my favorite one!" when "Supper's Ready" is starting: prompting one to wonder, if he likes it so much, why doesn't he shut up and listen to it?

(By the way, in the intro story for "Supper," Phil and Pete fumble a bit before going through the Jerusalem Boogie whistle. Pete plays with Phil about getting the tempo of the drum beat right. Fellow fan Graeme Walker was actually at a gig in Toronto and kindly explained some unique and interesting circumstances to me, as follows: "There is a distinct series of 'clicking' sounds just before they break into the Jerusalem whistle if memory serves. This sound was created by a wind-up toy monkey which sported a cymbal in each hand. Phil was a little late in getting to the front of the stage with Peter (or the monkey was unco-operative), to hold the monkey up to the mike while it mechanically clapped the cymbals together." How cool is that?! I'm sure this happened at some gigs but actually what can be heard on this recording does not jibe with the toy monkey story--most likely Graeme was remembering one of the 2 May 1974 gigs at the same venue. See Moonlit Queen, below.)

The stories on this show are also a bit removed from the norm--after all, this gig came not even two months into the tour, and Pete had not developed all of his stories yet. He's still telling a bit of an intro for IKWIL, and the story for FoF is one I've never heard before, in which people catch an invisible river. There are some crunchy noises during the more typical story for "Supper" as the taper fumbles with his recorder. Unlike later Hogweed releases, which focus on completeness of songs rather than purity of source, this first release features cuts--a bit of the ending of the FoF solo is gone, there is a small cut in the story for "Box," and the very last few seconds of "Supper" are cut off. They have not been patched with splices from other gigs. Some purists might see this as the more preferable way of doing it, perhaps suggesting that having a bit from another gig in there would make it less accurate to the actual concert-going experience of that night.

My first version of this show had pops all over it, but I have since obtained a replacement copy that is totally clean. I think this is a very atmospheric recording and gives you a very realistic idea of what it was like to be in the audience.

Montreal More Complete

10/11/73

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (11:39)
1-2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (11:46)
1-3 Cinema Show (12:17)
1-4 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (8:18)
1-5 Firth of Fifth (8:33)

2-1 The Musical Box (15:13)
2-2 More Fool Me (incomplete) (1:26)
2-3 The Battle of Epping Forest (13:34)
2-4 Intro: Supper (3:28)
2-5 Horizons (2:19)
2-6 Supper's Ready (partial) (7:11)

Type/Quality: Audience/Fair-Good

Comments: At the University Sports Center in Montreal, this early SEBTP gig is not particularly good, but this version is at least "More Complete" than other versions. It has the complete song "Horizons," which other versions are lacking (I have no other versions from this date myself to compare against).

The speed is generally too slow but is also somewhat unstable. The overall sound quality is muddy: about all that can be said for it is that there is little to no audience chatter. After the story for "Cinema," there is a pause for some kind of technical issue, during which a lot of whistling can be heard. There is no piano intro for FoF, and there is a cut in the keyboard part of that song that comes before the guitar solo.

Peter tells the normal croquet story for "Musical Box" almost entirely in a long wail or moan, sounding like the ghost of Jacob Marley. "More Fool Me" cuts off well before the end of the song. Peter tells his story for "Supper," but then Steve plays "Horizons"--this is an unusual but not unique set ordering for this tour. "Supper," very unfortunately, fades out as the "Ikhnaton and Itsacon" section is beginning.

With its not-good sound quality and multiple cuts, this is not a particularly great recording--but as I said, it is the better version to be had from this date, with a somewhat rare set list at a fairly early point in the tour.

A Death in Anytown

22/11/73

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (8:09)
1-2 Intro: Firth (1:27)
1-3 Firth of Fifth (8:24)
1-4 Intro: Box (1:27)
1-5 The Musical Box (10:19)
1-6 Intro: Moonlit Knight (1:04)
1-7 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (8:31)
1-8 Intro: Cinema (1:27)
1-9 Cinema Show (11:01)

2-1 I Know What I Like (5:17)
2-2 Intro: Supper (3:04)
2-3 Supper's Ready (23:03)
2-4 Horizons (2:07)
2-5 Intro: Fool (0:16)
2-6 More Fool Me (3:26)
2-7 The Battle of Epping Forest (incomplete) (11:04)
2-8 Intro: Knife (0:31)
2-9 The Knife (8:54)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good

Comments: (This is not the definitive version of this gig; for the near-definitive version, see next entry, and for the definitive version, see the entry after that.) Played at the Felt Forum in NYC, on Thanksgiving Day (as Pete mentions to the crowd). This one is quite a good show from this tour. It's a little crackly, and there's a weird whining noise lying underneath a lot of it, but the sound is mostly quite clear and pretty darn good. In the intro for "More Fool Me," Phil quips: "Here's a song we wrote during the first half of the set." At the beginning when the band greet the audience, they are given the typical New York response of "How ya' doin'?" complete with accent. The crowd is quite responsive and Pete is able to engage them in some playful participation in his intro to "Firth of Fifth" (he prompts them to say "Fifth river!!" a lot). They get a little intrusive on "Horizons" and "More Fool Me," as either the taper or someone near him talks over those songs. Right after "More Fool Me" someone in the audience shouts very loudly and audibly: "I love you Phil Collins!" No wonder they didn't mind his coming on as lead singer...The ordering of songs is rather odd, and probably not realistic (a very good indicator of this is the fact that on "Horizons" the audience is shouting for "Supper's Ready"--even though on the CD that song has already been played!). The sound seems a tad off-key for some of the first disc. There are three possible explanations for this: 1) I'm imagining it; 2) the recording is messed up somehow; or 3) the band was having technical problems during the show which caused it. Disc two seems to sound fine to me, so I'm inclining towards option 1. In "Epping Forest," the line "to see what the trouble was" has been cut; it's a very smooth cut. Only the very end of this song is missing, say the last seven seconds or so. Before the encore Pete asks the audience "What would you like?" Everyone is screaming, "Knife!" So Pete says, "You've got it," and they jump into a vicious version of that song. Pete is left with so much energy and aggression at the end of the song that he just howls repeatedly into the microphone as the last beats pound it to a close. Very satisfying.

BURP 6

22/11/73

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (8:58)
1-2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (9:47)
1-3 The Cinema Show (12:35)
1-4 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (5:50)
1-5 Firth of Fifth (10:04)
1-6 The Musical Box (12:39)
1-7 Horizons (2:00)
1-8 More Fool Me (3:55)

2-1 The Battle of Epping Forest (incomplete) (11:27)
2-2 Intro: Supper (3:16)
2-3 Supper's Ready (24:01)
2-4 The Knife (9:35)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good

Comments: (I have the definitive Hogweed remaster of this gig--see next entry.) At the Felt Forum in NYC, on Thanksgiving Day, this remaster from Mark Bataitis is a big improvement upon the classic A Death in Anytown. The first thing one notices is that (miracle of miracles) the songs have actually been put in the correct order. Secondly, all of the strange and distracting background noise from the previous version is now basically gone. The off-key bits that I talk about on the previous entry I did not hear here, and the line of "Epping" ("to see what the trouble was") is present. Of course, the limitations of the original recording are still there--the sound is not absolutely perfect, and the very ending seconds of "Epping" are still cut. But the rest of the recording is there and this is probably one of the better shows from this tour, with a great audience atmosphere from the pumped (and possibly mostly stoned) New York crowd. It features a very full set and even has "The Knife," which believe it or not is not a common song on SEBTP boots. This one comes highly recommended (though not as highly as the Hogweed version!).


	Felt Forum '73 (HW13) 22/11/73

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (8:18)
1-2 Intro: Knight (1:36)
1-3 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (8:37)
1-4 Intro: Cinema (1:20)
1-5 The Cinema Show (11:05)
1-6 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (5:45)
1-7 Intro: Firth (1:15)
1-8 Firth of Fifth (8:32)

2-1 Intro: Box (1:32)
2-2 The Musical Box (10:55)
2-3 Horizons (1:57)
2-4 More Fool Me (3:47)
2-5 The Battle of Epping Forest (12:03)
2-6 Intro: Supper (3:06)
2-7 Supper's Ready (23:40)
2-8 The Knife (9:38)

Type/Quality: Audience/Very Good-Good

Comments: At the Felt Forum in NYC, on Thanksgiving Day. Once again, the Hogweed people have come along and created the definitive version of a great show. I encourage you to visit the Hogweed site and read the remasterer's notes to see everything that was done to make this show sound as complete and fantastic as it does now. A new, cleaner source was found and various patches were made to fill in tiny holes in the recording. The biggest and for me the only obvious patch is the ending of "Epping Forest," which was taken from the gig of the 17th. Interesting to note that the end of the FoF story seems to be cut, and this has not been patched. Anyway, this was a loving and painstaking remaster of a classic gig, and it makes for a great show.

Ypsilanti '73

8/12/73

01 Watcher of the Skies (8:10)
02 Intro: Knight (1:41)
03 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (8:39)
04 Intro: Cinema (1:49)
05 The Cinema Show (10:45)
06 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (6:04)
07 Intro: Firth (1:59)
08 Firth of Fifth (8:29)
09 Intro: Box (1:21)
10 The Musical Box (10:46)
11 Intro: Fool (0:38)
12 More Fool Me (3:24)
13 Supper's Ready (partial) (9:39)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good

Comments: At the Pease Auditorium in Ypsilanti, Michigan. This is a pretty good recording (matching one on Simon's site which is supposed to be 3rd generation) which is fairly complete, but fits on only one disc because less than half of "Supper" is present. The sound up to and including "Firth of Fifth" is maybe a little hissy, but not bad at all--quite nice, in fact. The very ending note of "Cinema" is clipped off. Peter is in fairly good storytelling mode and tells the Five Rivers story before FoF, which is played without the piano intro. There is some slight instability in the recording as the last verse of FoF begins, and the recording cuts off once the song has ended--the following story for "Box" is probably missing just a bit of its beginning.

I think at this point the tape was exchanged or something happened that makes the recording much slower--up until the end of FoF the speed seems correct, but everything from "Box" on sounds much too deliberate. The few lines about Old King Cole are cut from "Box." In the second half of "More Fool Me," the speed problem is joined by a loud and constant blowing wind noise, pushing the music to the background and remaining very distracting into "Supper."

As mentioned at the beginning, though the recording was fairly complete up to this point, "Supper" is badly cut. The song gets to the beginning of the "We will rock you" line and then snaps off. We are suddenly treated to a short chunk from "Get 'em Out by Friday," apparently from another bootleg recording which was being taped over to make this recording. There's actually about twenty seconds of this unidentifiable fragment before the CD abruptly ends.

Fantasia

17/12/73

1 Watcher of the Skies (7:54)
2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (8:53)
3 The Cinema Show (11:23)
4 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (5:26)
5 Firth of Fifth (7:03)
6 The Musical Box (10:28)
7 Supper's Ready (incomplete) (21:53)

Type/Quality: Audience/Fair

Comments: (I have an improved version of this recording below.) At the Roxy club in LA. As I say below in the entry for Skywatchers, Genesis played a total of six shows at the Roxy club from 17-19 December, playing two shows a day each day. There seems to be a lot of confusion around these shows, as some are believed to be soundboard and some radio and some audience, and some boots from 19 December are called "Fantasia" in addition to this bootleg, which is probably from 17 December but which is also called "Fantasia." I have seen two different boots on two different web pages, both of them called "Fantasia" and both of them with identical track times to mine, but each page has a different date for them (one 17 and one 19 December). Both of them are labeled as a soundboard recording (but I strongly disagree--see below). I believe the person who dates it as 17 (they mention that their copy had the wrong date on the back cover), partly because I have "Skywatchers," below, supposedly from the 19th (and also the Progweeds release after that which is definitely from the 19th and matches Skywatchers), and it's definitely a different show. One way to tell the three days of shows apart (I think) is that on the first day the set was as it is above; on the second day "More Fool Me" was played and on the third day "Horizons" was played (there are many other, smaller differences as well, of course). There is also the question of whether this is the early or late show from that day--I've seen it listed as the early show (except on Simon's list, where it's said to be the evening show...but I'm going with early).

Yet another problem is that almost everyone rates this recording as a soundboard--from what I can tell, it is certainly not a soundboard recording, unless the person at the soundboard was a total moron. Throughout this recording you can hear what sound to me exactly like microphone bumps. They occur multiple times and they do not sound like the kind of things you would hear on a soundboard recording, unless for some reason one of the band members was hitting their own mic (which seems highly unlikely, especially considering the sheer volume of bumps). There is also a cut in the middle of the "Firth of Fifth" solo, the kind of thing that would happen on an audience recording, not a soundboard. The sound is not soundboard quality--it's very wavery and dull. All of the intro stories have been edited out, and "Supper's Ready" gets to the line "like the river joins the ocean" and then fades out. At the beginning of "Cinema Show" Pete says "We'll start again." This suggests that the guitar intro had been messed up and they'd had to start over. However since the introduction is edited out it's hard to tell.

So I think there are two shows called "Fantasia" floating around, one with the correct date and one incorrect. The one without "Horizons" (mine) is from the 17th. There you have it, the Snaggletooth has spoken.

Roxy '73 (matinee, first night)

17/12/73

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (8:30)
1-2 Intro: Knight (2:25)
1-3 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (9:20)
1-4 Intro: Cinema (2:40)
1-5 The Cinema Show (11:52)
1-6 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (6:36)
1-7 Intro: Firth (3:50)
1-8 Firth of Fifth (8:40)

2-1 Intro: Box (2:17)
2-2 The Musical Box (10:58)
2-3 Intro: Supper (3:43)
2-4 Supper's Ready (24:22)
2-5 Interview (partial)(0:06)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good

Comments: At the Roxy club in LA. I believe this is the early show rather than the evening one. This is a major upgrade to my Fantasia version of this bootleg, as it has been stretched to two discs with the addition of all of the song intros and the full version of "Supper." I have also judged the sound quality to be one whole step better, which is probably a bit lenient, but there you are. The forests of mic bumps are still here, which is how you can tell they're the same shows. In the previous entry I also mentioned the idea that the first start of "Cinema Show" was botched--in this version you can hear the mess-up. The wrong guitar was chosen and Pete points the snafu out to the crowd. There is a rather long story for "Moonlit Knight" which is a bit different than usual and includes talk about the English Channel and the difference between a Frenchman and an Englishman. In another rare intro, Pete tells the Tube Train story before "Firth of Fifth." As soon as that song starts, it sounds as if we are in the midst of a different recording (and a better-sounding one). I'm fairly certain that this is true. I compared the first version of FoF on the previous entry to this one, and I believe they are different versions. The reason for this is simple--the recording of FoF that's actually from the 17th (the one of the previous entry, Fantasia) has a huge cut in the guitar solo portion. Whoever put this together probably used an FoF from another night (possibly another Roxy show from around the same time period--the piano intro is not played, and this didn't happen too often; the Roxy shows were one time when it did), to avoid having a cut song.

The sound gets low in the midst of "Box." The intro for "Supper" and the "How Dare I be so Beautiful?" section of that song both feature a lot of clumsy fumbling with the mic. Pete in his intro for "Supper" says something about it being the "Christmas last night of the tour," which is confusing and misleading, because it would seem to place the gig on the 19th, which I'm pretty darn certain is just not true. At the very last track of the second disc you can hear what sounds like two Genesis fans talking: one appears to be interviewing the other about his experiences watching Genesis live. It sounds just exactly as if someone were pulling this recording directly off of a tape onto CD, and suddenly realized they didn't want the interview track on the CD--the track cuts off very abruptly.

Roxy '73 (matinee, second night)

18/12/73

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (8:58)
1-2 Intro: Knight (1:02)
1-3 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (11:16)
1-4 The Cinema Show (11:08)
1-5 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (6:03)
1-6 Intro: Firth (3:25)
1-7 Firth of Fifth (7:17)

2-1 The Musical Box (12:01)
2-2 More Fool Me (3:30)
2-3 Intro: Supper (4:18)
2-4 Supper's Ready (incomplete)(21:09)

Type/Quality: Radio?/Good-Fair

Comments: At the Roxy club in LA. I'm told this is the matinee show. As with most Roxy club shows, I'm a bit confused as to the origins of this recording. I'm pretty sure it's the 18th gig, as it matches with one of Halley's shows dated 18 December. Some have claimed this is an audience source, which is where the confusion comes in, but the evidence points to its being a radio broadcast. You will hear Pete on this boot mentioning that they are going out over the radio (for the benefit of the radio audience, he describes what Phil is wearing--Phil says hello to his mum). As with the 17th show, which many stated was soundboard but which I decided must be audience, I believe this show to be a radio show even though some people call it audience. The audience is not really here much--you don't hear mic bumps or people talking--and the sound, aside from the dullness you'd expect from an old AM broadcast, and the incredible hiss which was probably added during a transfer, is quite detailed with regards to vocals and such. There are some odd cuts which one might suspect would only be in an audience recording, but it is remotely possible that these cuts were added somewhere along the line before this made it onto CD (Simon's site mentions the idea that this was recorded by holding a microphone up to the radio!).

Let's be a bit more detailed. There is a cut in the instrumental section of "Cinema Show" and not one, but two cuts in the FoF solo. The solo is slaughtered pretty severely. FoF has no piano intro, but Pete tells the tube train story as an intro. Strangely there is no story for "Box." Some versions of this show flop MFM and "Box," but it sounds as though they must have been played in this order as there is no audible cut between the two songs on here. In the intro for "Supper," Phil and Pete do most of the whistling for the Jerusalem Boogie, but then one or the other of them decides they were in too high a key and they start over again--the second time sounds better. Curiously, even though my original track times for disc 2 were identical to one of Halley's versions, there were two rather large and obvious hiccups on that disc. One was in the instrumental section before the closing "She's a lady" bit of "Box," and the other was during the "Apocalypse" keyboard solo in "Supper." I have repaired them both on my version, though unfortunately "Supper" is not complete. Like several of the other Roxy recordings, this version's "Supper" fades off before the end--in this case, just as the "Apocalypse" section is about to turn into the "As Sure as Eggs is Eggs" section.

This is a pretty good show--it could be a worse radio show (if it is radio), and it's nice to have all of the available Roxy recordings, as they are said to be pretty famous gigs from this tour.

Skywatchers

19/12/73

1 Watcher of the Skies (9:21)
2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (10:13)
3 The Cinema Show (10:42)
4 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (5:58)
5 Firth of Fifth (9:53)
6 The Musical Box (10:13)
7 Intro to Supper's Ready/Horizons (4:32)
8 Supper's Ready (incomplete) (18:31)

Type/Quality: Radio/Good-Very Good

Comments: (I have the Progweeds remaster of this gig below.) This is from the Roxy Theatre in LA. They did two shows a day there for three days, and from what I understand this was the second to last show. Originally people always marked this as the late show from the 19th, because Pete says, after the first or second song: "Second verse, same as the first." (Pete is also prompting the audience later, during his intro story for "Firth of Fifth," and when they don't answer at once he says something to the effect of: "I see some of you weren't here at the first show.") However a newly unearthed recording which is most definitely the last Roxy show has now been uncovered, pinning this one as the matinee of the day.

This copy was transferred from a tape, and is not the best version (see next entry for a much better version). The stories have some interesting variations on those of the more widely-heard 20/10 Rainbow show, and the sound is OK; a little wavery. "Supper's Ready" gets right up to the "666 is no longer alone" line and then, maddeningly, disappears.

I have called this a radio show, but soundboard may be a more accurate description, as I do not believe this was ever broadcast.

Progweeds 9 (ProgW09, Roxy)

19/12/73

1-01 Watcher of the Skies (9:01)
1-02 Intro: Moonlit Knight (0:58)
1-03 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (8:47)
1-04 Intro: Cinema (2:08)
1-05 The Cinema Show (11:10)
1-06 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (5:08)
1-07 Intro: Firth (1:11)
1-08 Firth of Fifth (8:50)
1-09 Intro: Box (1:22)
1-10 The Musical Box (10:42)

2-1 Intro: Supper (2:52)
2-2 Horizons (2:09)
2-3 Supper's Ready (incomplete) (19:21)

Type/Quality: Radio/Very Good

Comments: An upgrade to Skywatchers, this is the same Roxy Club show. The Roxy Club shows have a reputation for being very good performances from this tour, and finally with this show I realize why. My other Roxy shows leave a bit to be desired--Skywatchers, for instance, was transferred from a tape with some wavery speed problems, and of course hiss. This version however is much cleaner (though for some reason it has been stretched to a second disc--I'm not sure this was necessary, as all other versions of the show seem to keep it to one; if I trade this one, I'll probably treat it as one disc). Its volume level is lower, and it still retains a consistent but low buzz throughout the recording, but it still sounds very good and is a great performance. By this time in the tour Pete had all his stories developed, though perhaps he doesn't tell them with quite as much gusto (and silly voices) as he used by the end of the tour. During the "Box" story he mentions that little Henry is wearing "pantaloons," which is a nice little addition to the story that was dropped in later versions. This is the first of two shows played that day, and the fact that they played two shows a day probably explains the absence of FoF's piano intro and the entire song of "Epping Forest." Unfortunately, like other versions of this show, Supper is cut off right at the "666 is no longer alone" line--in this version there's not even a fade off, it just stops. It seems a bit of a shame that this remaster/upgrade did not choose to splice in the end of the song from some other show, maybe even one of the other Roxy shows that were taped. But you can't have everything.

This particular remaster comes from the organization "ProgWeeds," one of the many remastering groups making and circulating shows and making our lives happier. Unlike other groups you'll see represented here, like Hogweed and FAde and Coaster Factory, they don't focus on just Genesis and Genesis members.

Roxy 6 (SAB 13)

19/12/73

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (9:08)
1-2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (11:15)
1-3 The Cinema Show (11:23)
1-4 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (9:53)
1-5 Firth of Fifth (9:49)
1-6 The Musical Box (10:49)

2-1 More Fool Me (3:56)
2-2 Intro: Supper (3:54)
2-3 Supper's Ready (24:01)

Type/Quality: Soundboard/Very Good-Good

Comments: At the Roxy Club, this is the sixth and last performance at that venue and, as Peter clearly states, the last Genesis concert of 1973. Long hidden, this recording came to light in 2006 and was remastered by the people of SAB. The overall sound is quite nice, and probably at least matches that of my previous entry, though my ratings are slightly different. This recording starts into "Watcher" and for quite a while the sound is very choppy and unstable. By the time the guitar and drums come in after Tony's solo, the sound has pretty much stabilized. But then the band themselves have a power failure. Peter starts talking to the audience, but the band pick it back up and continue almost immediately--one of Genesis' shorter screw-ups.

Peter uses helium on his first intro--I'd read about this somewhere but now I finally got to hear it. For some reason Pete makes several references to the "Spiegel catalogue" throughout the night--something to do with the Christmas season, I gather. He tells the rare subway story before FoF (using helium once again for the middle-aged lady's voice), which as usual for this set of gigs does not have the piano intro.

There does seem to be one cut in the recording, which removes the end of the story for "Musical Box." Peter has only just gotten to Henry's death when it skips to the beginning of the song. The roadie "Timothy Stewart" appears before the story for "Supper" and is introduced by Peter.

Anyways, this is a classic, classic Genesis gig in full and in fairly good sound. A real gem.

Bristol Melody of 1974 (PRRPGS010)

13/1/74

1-01 Watcher of the Skies (8:31)
1-02 Intro: Knight (1:40)
1-03 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (8:55)
1-04 Intro: Cinema (2:03)
1-05 The Cinema Show (11:35)
1-06 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (5:48)
1-07 Intro: Firth (2:14)
1-08 Firth of Fifth (10:05)
1-09 Intro: Box (2:14)
1-10 The Musical Box (10:43)

2-1 Horizons (2:28)
2-2 More Fool Me (3:40)
2-3 The Battle of Epping Forest (12:24)
2-4 Intro: Supper (3:17)
2-5 Supper's Ready (23:39)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good

Comments: At the Hippodrome Theatre in Bristol. This long-unknown recording was released in March of 2007. A partial version of the recording had been available for a while but the rest of the recording suffered from a recurring feedback problem. Fortunately the good people of PRRP got a raw CD transfer from the taper and used modern technology to fix up the thing, and so we have this complete and very full set from early in 1974 (the first Genesis show of that year, in fact).

Pete was in fine form that night. His first intro to the crowd (after he greets them with "Hello Bristol!" nicely putting to rest any dating questions) says that when people get bored of watching Channel 1 and Channel 9, they watch the English Channel. He gamely mentions that Phil is wearing a "dazzling white" outfit before "Cinema." He tells a good Five Rivers story before "Firth of Fifth." The sources of the first four rivers? A tap left on under the mellotron, a spitting gnome, a urinating hedgehog, and a pile of weeping unused bass notes. Tim Stewart the ever-popular roadie makes a brief announced appearance before "Supper," but there are no real technical problems with the performance. The crowd were treated to a nice full set, with both "Horizons" and "More Fool Me," and even "Epping Forest." The full FoF piano intro is also present.

As for the recording, there do appear to be some residual sound issues even after PRRP's clean-up job. There is a light repeated "sh" noise in "Cinema" that gets a bit annoying in the "na na na na" section, but it disappears after that, making a brief reappearance in the beginning of IKWIL. This does come from a first generation source and there are no cuts that I can hear, so this is certainly a valuable show from this tour.

Drury Lane

20/1/74

1-01 Watcher of the Skies (8:50)
1-02 Intro: Moonlit Knight (1:55)
1-03 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (8:33)
1-04 Intro: Cinema (1:52)
1-05 The Cinema Show (11:22)
1-06 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (5:51)
1-07 Intro: Firth (2:56)
1-08 Firth of Fifth (9:50)
1-09 Intro: Harold (0:29)
1-10 Harold the Barrel (3:16)
1-11 Intro: Box (1:21)
1-12 The Musical Box (10:54)
1-13 Horizons (1:55)
1-14 Intro: Fool (0:36)
1-15 More Fool Me (3:22)

2-1 The Battle of Epping Forest (12:31)
2-2 Intro: Supper (1:53)
2-3 Supper's Ready (25:26)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good

Comments: This is a gem in my collection (but see next entry). Played at the Drury Lane Theatre in London, this is a very complete show from the SEBTP tour; if only it had "The Knife," it would have nearly every song they ever played on this tour. Not only does it have the valuable (valuable!) "Harold the Barrel," it also features the complete piano intro for "Firth of Fifth." The intro story for FoF is the Tube Train Story, also featured on the liner notes to the Live album; this was a rare story for Pete to tell. In his "Moonlit Knight" story, Pete mentions the Knights of the Green Shield; another thing he didn't usually do. Someone in the audience (probably the person recording this, as they are so audible) very prophetically shouts for "Harold the Barrel!" right before Pete introduces that song. One of the very rare times that this song was actually played after the audience asked for it. Part of the beginning of the stories for both "Box" and "Supper" are missing; in the intro for "Box," Peter engages in a short dialogue with one of the audience members. The sound quality is fairly clear, there's not intrusive crowd, and there's not too much noise in the way of crackles or pops. In the intro for "More Fool Me," Phil quips that they are "available for weddings." He seems to have had a different joke ready for every introduction for this song; the oddest by far must be his "a little less like a painter with a jacket on" remark during the Rainbow Theatre show of October '73 (for a simple explanation of this remark, consult my entry for Over the Rainbow).

BURP 26

20/1/74

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (10:31)
1-2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (10:29)
1-3 The Cinema Show (11:24)
1-4 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (8:51)
1-5 Firth of Fifth (10:22)
1-6 Harold the Barrel (4:46)
1-7 The Musical Box (11:06)

2-1 Horizons (2:31)
2-2 More Fool Me (3:54)
2-3 The Battle of Epping Forest (12:27)
2-4 Intro: Supper (1:57)
2-5 Supper's Ready (23:59)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good

Comments: At Drury Lane, this is a classic and very full set that has now been remastered by the people of BURP. I was interested to hear this as the Drury Lane show has always been one of my favorites from the SEBTP tour. It was not all I could have hoped for (of course, what I was hoping for was soundboard quality stuff, so I was probably hoping for too much), but I assume it sounds better than my previous version. This one is just as complete as the original, with all the music and only the beginnings of the stories for "Musical Box" and "Supper" missing. Perhaps worth it to note that this was one of the gigs when Peter was actually hoisted into the air on a harness during the big finale of "Supper."

Belgium '74

26/1/74

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (8:00)
1-2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (9:12)
1-3 The Cinema Show (12:17)
1-4 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (5:55)
1-5 Firth of Fifth (11:10)
1-6 The Musical Box (12:21)
1-7 More Fool Me (partial)/Harold the Barrel (3:42)

2-1 Supper's Ready (25:43)

Type/Quality: Fair-Good

Comments: At the Vorst Nationale in Brussels, Belgium, this is an interesting show in that it had a surprise inside. I had acquired this show for no better reason than it was OK quality and (according to Simon) had "More Fool Me." However, upon listening to it, I discovered that it actually has a very partial opening of MFM, followed by a complete version of the rare "Harold the Barrel." Unfortunately, this valuable rarity is much offset by the fact that the quality is actually not too great. One problem is that the sound suffers from the dreaded automatic volume control of old tape recorders: whenever the band hits a good strong part of a song, the volume drops to compensate, making for a fluttery listening experience. There do seem to be edits between the songs, though the stories do not seem to be cut.

The mix of the recording has ended up strange, making the flute solo in "Cinema Show" surprisingly audible (which is actually pretty cool, since normally the rest of the band drowned Pete out on this section). Phil's backing vocals, usually difficult to discern, are quite high and sometimes even seem to go over Pete. The sound, fairly muddy usually, gets very rough during the FoF solo, until it eventually fades out, then fades back in near the end of the solo. There is a cut, but it does not appear to be severe, and the sound improves to its previous muddiness once the recording comes back in. The ending of "Supper" is somewhat clipped, though the singing is at least finished by the time it cuts out.

As for the stories, they are audible and pretty good. There is a short "franglais" intro for "Knight," then a longer, better intro for "Cinema." For a nice change, the audience actually figures out that Pete wants them to say "fifth river" during the FoF intro, and they say it a few times--usually Pete seemed to have a lot of trouble getting audiences to figure this out.

All in all, this is not too bad a show--you can hear the stories, there are a minimum of cuts (except for the unfortunate loss of MFM--also note that "Epping Forest" is not here, though this may simply be because it was not played that night), and you get a rare song to go with it. The only problem is the overall quality, which I may have been a little too tough on when I rated it anyway. BTW, as a final note, I believe Tony messes up his piano intro for FoF this time.

Selling Dusseldorf by the Pound

30/1/74

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (8:26)
1-2 Intro: Moonlit Knight (1:49)
1-3 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (8:55)
1-4 Intro: Cinema (1:45)
1-5 The Cinema Show (11:55)
1-6 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (5:55)
1-7 Intro: Firth (1:45)
1-8 Firth of Fifth (9:46)

2-1 Intro: Box (1:31)
2-2 The Musical Box (10:13)
2-3 More Fool Me (3:44)
2-4 The Battle of Epping Forest (12:55)
2-5 Intro: Supper (2:35)
2-6 Supper's Ready (23:02)
2-7 Harold the Barrel (3:25)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good

Comments: At the Philipshalle in Dusseldorf, Germany. Actually of quite good quality, with some problems. The main problem is a certain wobbliness, especially in the keyboards and longer notes of the guitar--it's always possible that this is caused by electrical problems during the actual performance, but it's more likely due to the age/quality of the recording. This problem is not quite as bad as it sounds, and I found the CDs quite enjoyable. There is some slight, high-pitched hiss, and the occasional fumbling with the microphone. There is also, unfortunately, a cut near the end of "Musical Box" which edits out what I consider one of the best bits of the song (the part including the "I've been waiting here for so long/And all this time has passed me by" lines), coming back in for the "Now, now, now" refrain. This is a very full show from the tour, missing "Horizons," a song which was not often played anyway, and replacing the normal encore of "The Knife" with the extremely rare "Harold the Barrel." This is the only show I have where "Harold" appears as an encore--on the other shows (above and below this entry) it is played either before or after "Musical Box." Set-wise, "The Knife" is probably a more appropriate ending number, but "Harold" is always a welcome part of any set in my book.

Offenbach '74

31/1/74

1-01 Watcher of the Skies (7:57)
1-02 Intro: Moonlit Knight (1:48)
1-03 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (8:32)
1-04 Intro: Cinema (1:46)
1-05 The Cinema Show (11:01)
1-06 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (5:34)
1-07 Intro: Firth (1:18)
1-08 Firth of Fifth (9:47)
1-09 Intro: Harold (0:35)
1-10 Harold the Barrel (3:14)
1-11 Intro: Box (1:23)
1-12 The Musical Box (10:31)
1-13 Intro: Fool (0:26)
1-14 More Fool Me (3:07)

2-1 Intro: Supper (2:58)
2-2 Supper's Ready (23:53)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good

Comments: Recorded at the Stadthalle in Offenbach Germany. I originally titled this entry Harold in Offenbach, that being the only common name at the time for recordings from this date. Years later I traded for a second-generation version, only to find that its track times exactly matched mine! Simon's Harold in Offenbach is a different version, so I have changed the title. My new copy of this second-gen version is divided over the discs a little differently (and unevenly), but does not have the few loud scratchy noises I heard on my original version, so it is still an upgrade, even though the track times and overall sound quality are identical.

This is not a bad recording at all. There are two short cuts in "Watcher," both near the end and within a minute of each other. Various edits are made between numbers--the intros for the next songs all seem intact, so I can only suppose the taper was trying to save tape space or check how much he had left. The beginning few lines of "Supper" are not there (it starts at "As the sound of motorcars..."). Features the rare "Harold the Barrel" and also happens to have the much less rare full piano intro of "Firth of Fifth." This is a quite full set for this tour, though it is missing "Epping Forest." Probably that song was not played that night.

Turin '74

3/2/74

1-01 Watcher of the Skies (7:52)
1-02 Intro: Knight (1:57)
1-03 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (9:01)
1-04 Intro: Cinema (1:44)
1-05 The Cinema Show (10:59)
1-06 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (6:02)
1-07 Intro: Firth (1:36)
1-08 Firth of Fifth (9:45)
1-09 Intro: Box (2:12)
1-10 The Musical Box (10:11)

2-1 More Fool Me (4:11)
2-2 The Battle of Epping Forest (12:09)
2-3 Intro: Supper (3:28)
2-4 Supper's Ready (25:04)
2-5 The Knife (9:00)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Fair

Comments: (See my upgrade version of this gig, next entry.) Recorded at the Palasport in Turin, Italy, this one features a playing of "The Knife." Some of the opening keyboard for "Watcher" has been cut, there is a small cut near the end of the "Cinema" instrumental passage, a small cut in the FoF solo, and the end of "Box" fades off. Also the quality leaves a bit to be desired. The stories are somewhat hard to hear: Peter uses some of his Italian and the audience has a bit of a tendency to cough and chat in between songs (though this is not really a problem during the songs). It is also hard to hear Peter's vocals during "The Knife;" he may have gotten over-excited and forgotten to sing into the microphone...

Britannia in Torino

3/2/74

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (9:01)
1-2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (10:19)
1-3 Intro: Cinema (1:24)
1-4 The Cinema Show (10:43)
1-5 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (5:44)
1-6 Intro: Firth (1:31)
1-7 Firth of Fifth (9:52)
1-8 Intro: Box (1:50)
1-9 The Musical Box (10:26)

2-1 More Fool Me (3:48)
2-2 The Battle of Epping Forest (12:16)
2-3 Intro: Supper (2:53)
2-4 Supper's Ready (22:33)
2-5 Intro: Knife (0:36)
2-6 The Knife (8:58)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good

Comments: Recorded at the Palasport in Turin, Italy. This version of the recording comes from an alternate audience source than the previous entry, so it sounds better and is more complete. Unfortunately it seems to have worse audience chatter, an annoying trade-off. There is lots of talking, which is not limited to between the songs, to the extent that I found myself more than once yelling at the culprits to shut up while listening to the show (for some reason it didn't work). The sound is clear but oddly tinny, and the audience chatter (most of which seems to come from the taper) has the unusual effect of sounding like it is coming from the venue's PA system--perhaps this one was touched up digitally and some reverb was added.

As I say, this is a very complete recording, though it sounds as though a few between-song bits have been patched from a different source (possibly the other Turin audience recording, above!). Part of the second half of Peter's Five Rivers story before FoF, a bit after "Epping," and the calls for the encore after "Supper" all sound patched-in. None of the actual music is cut or altered, however. The piano intro is played for FoF, and the audience are treated to the rare "Knife" encore. As mentioned in the previous entry, there seems to be some microphone trouble in the first couple of minutes of "Knife," and Peter is very hard to hear.

Most people seem to rate this upgrade highly, and it is definitely better than my other version. I found the chatter distracting but there is not a better version to be had for this particular Italian gig.

Another Reggio Emilia

4/2/74

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (10:29)
1-2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (10:31)
1-3 The Cinema Show (11:45)
1-4 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (6:02)
1-5 Firth of Fifth (12:07)
1-6 The Musical Box (12:52)

2-1 Harold the Barrel (3:27)
2-2 More Fool Me (3:14)
2-3 Intro: Supper (2:48)
2-4 Supper's Ready (25:16)
2-5 The Knife (10:06)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good

Comments: Recorded at the Palasport in Reggio Emilia, Italy. A rare playing of "Harold the Barrel" here--the Italian audiences got all the good numbers. Conspicuously missing from this set is "Epping Forest," but whether it is missing from the recording or whether they actually didn't play it that night I don't know for sure (though quite a few recordings from this tour do not have the song). On my original copy of this, there was a hiccup in "Harold": "Last seen in a mouse brown o--mouse brown overcoat..." However I have fixed this error and cleared up a few pauses and upped the volume. Much of the in between stories are attempted in a very rudimentary Italian, with a lot of gesturing and sound effects to fill in the blanks. Pete tells the Five Rivers story before "Firth," which once again features the keyboard intro (when I started collecting these boots, I thought the keyboard intro was a rare thing, but apparently not, as I have plenty of SEBTP shows with the whole thing on them). There's quite a few pops/crackles on this one, but they're pretty low and didn't interfere with my enjoyment of the music. It sounds a little slow, but I've been known to imagine speed problems in the past...The end of the show features some raucous chanting by the crowd, but as it is raucous and as they are Italian, I have no idea what the heck they're yelling about.

Rome '74

5/2/74

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (10:37)
1-2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (8:54)
1-3 The Knife (9:25)
1-4 The Cinema Show (11:54)
1-5 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (7:06)
1-6 Firth of Fifth (10:14)

2-1 The Musical Box (13:29)
2-2 More Fool Me (4:14)
2-3 The Battle of Epping Forest (15:08)
2-4 Supper's Ready (24:59)

Type/Quality: Audience/Fair-Good

Comments: Recorded at the Palasport in Rome, Italy. Like many of the Italian shows from this tour--in fact, all of them--this features a rare playing of "The Knife." I assume that in Rome, as in the other Italian shows, that song was played as an encore, but on this recording it has been stuck near the beginning of the show. This is almost definitely an incorrect ordering, but since my current track list matches Simon's, I've decided not to fiddle with it. It doesn't seem to be really worth the trouble, because the quality of this show is not particularly good.

There may be a bit of a cut off the opening of "Watcher," since that song fades in. There are some crackles on the soundtrack at the beginning. There is a small cut during one of the instrumental sections of "Moonlit Knight." The story for "Cinema" seems to have been deleted. Unfortunately, adding to the sound quality problems on this recording, there is some audience chatter which occurs during the songs. Someone, possibly the person recording the show, has an annoying habit of random whistling. He does it after "Cinema." The story for FoF is almost entirely cut: only the beginning and end of the story remain. There is also a small cut in "Box," taking out one of the "Play me my song" sections. The taper whistles some more after "More Fool Me," but then I think someone tells him to stop (thank God). There is a small cut in "Epping." The taper doesn't seem to have cared much about Peter's stories, because there are a couple of cuts in the story for "Supper" as well.

All in all, this is a pretty bad recording. The only things that make it remotely worthwhile are the fact that it is played in Rome and that it has "The Knife" on it.

BURP 13

6/2/74

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (8:48)
1-2 Intro: Knight/Drum Solo (3:51)
1-3 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (9:30)
1-4 The Cinema Show (13:11)
1-5 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (6:25)
1-6 Firth of Fifth (12:18)
1-7 The Musical Box (12:39)

2-1 More Fool Me (5:07)
2-2 The Battle of Epping Forest (14:58)
2-3 Supper's Ready (25:13)
2-4 The Knife (13:16)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good

Comments: Recorded at the good old Teatro Mediterraneo in Naples, Italy, this is a BURP remaster of a pretty OK audience recording. It's not as clean as some other audience shows from this tour, but it does feature a rare "Knife" encore, and it does have a drum solo early in the show due to a mellotron failure (as Pete explains to the Italian audience).

There is some random chatter among the audience members near the recording device, but it's not too bad. There are a few short cuts scattered through the show, however. One comes during the ending instrumental section of "Cinema Show." Part of Tony's piano intro for FoF is clipped off, though we get to hear the complete Italian version of Pete's five rivers story (Pete tells as many stories as he can in Italian--he resorts to quite a bit of English in the FoF intro, and barely tells a story at all for "Supper"). Something weird happens to the recording during the guitar part of "Box" that comes right before the closing section; there's a bit of a break and then it suddenly gets really hissy, with the hiss eventually fading back to acceptable levels. There is a cut before the hiss, but not much of one. After "Epping" there are some speed jumps that are probably due to the recorder being turned off and on. It's possible that during this we miss some of Pete's story for "Supper." All it seems to consist of is some whistling, including the Jerusalem Boogie bit, which in this case Pete calls the "Genesis Boogie."

Probably the most sizeable cut occurs during "Supper's Ready," and comes right after the "We will rock you...little snake" part: a fairly good chunk of the opening of the "Ikhnaton and Itsacon" section is lopped out. "Supper" then continues to the end; there is a long delay before the band play the encore, during which it sounds like the house's canned music comes on, as though the management thought the show was over. Certainly it was fairly rare that Genesis played an encore on this tour--it was mainly a special treat for their Italian audiences, who you can hear still shouting for more as the second disc fades out.

Emperor & Empress

3/3/74

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (10:27)
1-2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (8:42)
1-3 Intro: Cinema (2:19)
1-4 The Cinema Show (11:04)
1-5 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (9:21)
1-6 Firth of Fifth (10:23)

2-1 The Musical Box (13:53)
2-2 More Fool Me (3:14)
2-3 The Battle of Epping Forest (13:04)
2-4 Supper's Ready (24:01)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good

Comments: At the Tower Theater in Philadelphia, PA. This is a fairly good Highland boot; one of the better, or at least more famous, shows of the tour. The overall sound is almost really good, but it gives the impression of being a tad brittle. Pete tells the normal stories, though the one for "Moonlit Knight" seems a bit shorter than usual--possibly Pete thought Philadelphians weren't too interested in Britannia. Also instead of the normal story for FoF Pete tells the much rarer tube train story, a la Live. (The full piano intro is present.) Pete forgets the words to a verse near the end of "Epping"--he ends up repeating lyrics from a previous verse. The tracking between "Box" and "More Fool Me" is off--the beginning few seconds of MFM are on the end of "Box."

On the first three tracks of the second disc, I noticed what sounded like the ghost of another recording. I experienced this once before on The Hallam Tapes. On louder parts of the songs, you barely notice it, but on the quieter "More Fool Me" it can be a bit distracting--and weird. At the beginning of the second disc, the taper can be heard talking with another audience member about the great sound he gets from his tape recorder. However he could have done a slightly better job in the recording process, as there are several cuts scattered through the show. The first occurs during the instrumental ending section of "Cinema Show"--it's not that big of a cut. There is a small cut in the instrumental section of "Musical Box" that comes before the closing section. Most of the intro for "Supper" is gone--it comes in at Pete and Phil whistling the Jerusalem Boogie. During the actual song, there is a small cut just before the beginning of the "Ikhnaton and Itsacon" section.

BTW, in case you're wondering, I don't get the title.

Indiana '74

7/3/74

1-01 Watcher of the Skies (9:20)
1-02 Intro: Knight (1:26)
1-03 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (9:38)
1-04 Intro: Cinema (2:03)
1-05 The Cinema Show (12:08)
1-06 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (6:25)
1-07 Intro: Firth (1:35)
1-08 Firth of Fifth (9:34)
1-09 Intro: Box (1:48)
1-10 The Musical Box (11:14)

2-1 Supper's Ready (incomplete)(22:23)

Type/Quality: Audience/Fair-Good

Comments: At the Sports Arena in Fort Wayne, Indiana. This version does not exactly match the track time or track distribution of Simon's version, but it is missing the same songs and enough of the track times are the same that I'm quite confident of the date.

This is really not a great recording. There is a high-pitched hiss running through it, and the sound is muffled and fuzzy, especially on Peter's stories, making them quite hard to make out. There is a short sound dropout in the first Tiresias section of "Cinema," possibly the taper hiding their recorder suddenly. In a very strange error, part of the story for "Box" is stuck in the end of "Cinema Show"! The full story is also present in the right place, before the song. I don't know if this is a common error or not.

There is probably a small cut in the beginning of the story for FoF. The piano intro is not played. The band must have played some combination of "More Fool Me," "Horizons," or "Epping Forest," but none of those songs is present on this recording, nor is there a story for "Supper." Also, "Supper" fades out as Peter is singing "Now I'm back again," before the last section of the song really begins.

I avoided collecting this recording for a long time, and the reasons are obvious: it's not that good! But now I have filled in the blank in my collection, and I have it. If you would like to fill in your blank also, I will trade it.

Coral Gables

9/3/74

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (7:43)
1-2 Intro: Knight (1:17)
1-3 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (8:22)
1-4 Intro: Cinema (1:55)
1-5 The Cinema Show (10:20)
1-6 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (5:33)
1-7 Intro: Firth (2:11)
1-8 Firth of Fifth (9:20)

2-1 Intro: Box (2:00)
2-2 The Musical Box (10:10)
2-3 Intro: Fool (0:50)
2-4 More Fool Me (3:13)
2-5 The Battle of Epping Forest (12:08)
2-6 Intro: Supper (2:43)
2-7 Supper's Ready (24:08)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good

Comments: (See my upggrade to this recording, next entry.) A good, solid SEBTP show, played at the Gusman Philharmonic in Miami. The quality is pretty nice and all the standard songs are here except "Horizons" and maybe "The Knife," and they're in the real order. The stories are slightly different than usual, and Pete tells them well. The story for "Box" has Peter referring to the Dead Parrot Sketch from Monty Python, and milking his own joke that Henry had to "flap his wings like HELL to get to HEAVEN!" The intro for "More Fool Me" is actually a false start of the song; it stops due to a technical problem, and while it is being fixed Phil introduces Michael the roadie, who gets a good round of applause.

Almost all of the intros are missing some off the beginning and fade in. "Cinema Show"'s intro involves a "subtle piece of symbolism" that is hard to carry around for long periods. "Cinema" had a small moment of silence inserted into it near the end (which I have since removed, though there is maybe a second of music missing that I cannot replace), and instead of coming to its full end it fades out. The "Firth of Fifth" story seems to begin with the band having "shat" collectively on a pigeon. There's a tiny bit missing from the instrumental section of FoF before Steve's solo, and originally a large chunk of his solo was repeated. The full piano intro is here. There were also other repeating/hiccup problems, in "Supper" and in "Box," which I have fixed. In "Supper," part of the "Ikhnaton and Itsacon" section is missing (it goes from the first "bang, bang, bang!" to "...my prayer capsule!"). After the song ends, you can hear two whole minutes of clapping as the audience attempts to get the band to come back on stage. I don't know if they succeeded or not...

Miami '74

9/3/74

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (8:39)
1-2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (9:57)
1-3 The Cinema Show (12:49)
1-4 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (5:42)
1-5 Firth of Fifth (11:42)

2-1 The Musical Box (12:41)
2-2 More Fool Me (4:34)
2-3 The Battle of Epping Forest (12:10)
2-4 Supper's Ready (30:05)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good

Comments: At the Gusman Philharmonic in Miami. My previous version of this recording I had named, for lack of a better title, Coral Gables, the common name for the bootleg of this date. It did not in fact match the track times of Simon's Coral Gables and is probably just a higher-generation version of this entry. The source recordings for both are definitely the same, as the cuts are in the same places and the same guy yells "Sit down!" at the beginning of the show. And in fact, the audio quality is really not very different between the two.

This version, however, matches the track times of a second-generation version listed on Simon's site. It at least includes more audience noise on the beginning and end of the show than the previous entry, and did not have the hiccups or repetitions of my other version (it also has the full ending of "Cinema," which was slightly cut in the other version). It is, therefore, definitely an upgrade, though I have left the quality ratings for both versions identical.

As with my other version, there are tape edits between songs, but the overall sound is really quite nice and almost all songs are complete. The beginning of the story for "Cinema" is somewhat clipped. Peter begins the FoF intro with the memorable pronouncement that the band collectively "shat" on a pigeon. Again as in the other version, there is a cut in the FoF instrumental passage before the guitar solo. The beginning of the story for "Box" is clipped. After "Box" ends, the recording cuts right to "More Fool Me," which has to be stopped and then restarted due to a technical problem. The beginning of the "Supper" story is clipped, and there is a cut in the song right after the first "Bang, bang, bang!" line in the Ikhnaton section.

There is a lot of audience noise after "Supper." While in the entry for my previous version I pondered over whether the audience were able to make the band come back on for an encore, it is very clear in this version that they were not--we can hear the house's canned exit music playing and fans discussing the gig before the recording finally cuts off.

Santa Monica '74 (second night)

22/3/74

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (9:05)
1-2 Intro: Knight (1:32)
1-3 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (8:41)
1-4 The Cinema Show (12:41)
1-5 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (6:02)
1-6 Firth of Fifth (incomplete)(9:13)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good

Comments: At the Reunion Civic Center in Santa Monica California, this incomplete recording is from the second of two consecutive gigs at that venue (as Peter makes clear by numerous references to the audience about the band having been there the day before). This CD matches the track times of the entry on Simon's site which comes from the master tape. "Watch it, we've got a recorder down there," says the taper to another audience member as the show begins. The sound is very clear though there is a light scratchy noise in the background.

There is a small cut in the intro to "Watcher." The taper makes a lot of comments during this song (and a few in later songs) along the lines of "Whoa," and "Did you see that?" It also seems that the taper's buddy is simultaneously filming parts of the show, as he feeds instructions to start shooting and sometimes says "Cut," and says "I wish I'd gotten some of that" after "Watcher"--since he clearly got it on audio, he must be wishing they had filmed some of it.

There is in fact some audience-shot video available from Santa Monica, with synched audio, which I have on DVD. Strangely the video is dated as being from the first Santa Monica gig, not this one--it's possible the same guys taped both gigs, though this seems somewhat unlikely since the taper's reactions suggest he is seeing the show for the first time at this gig.

Anyway, back to the audio recording. The end of the FoF story is clipped and the recording cuts into the opening piano bit, sounding quite unstable at first. Just as the song is coming out of the guitar solo and the last verse is about to begin, the disc abruptly ends. It's very unfortunate that we don't get any more of the show, as the quality is quite nice.


	Toledo, Ohio (HW04) 6/4/74

1-1 Audience Ambience (0:39)
1-2 Watcher of the Skies (8:14)
1-3 Britannia story (2:10)
1-4 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (8:48)
1-5 Romeo and Juliet story (1:52)
1-6 The Cinema Show (11:10)
1-7 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (6:09)
1-8 Five Rivers story (1:50)
1-9 Firth of Fifth (9:46)

2-1 Henry story (2:08)
2-2 The Musical Box (12:14)
2-3 Horizons (2:09)
2-4 The Battle of Epping Forest (12:42)
2-5 Old Michael story (3:45)
2-6 Supper's Ready (23:26)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good

Comments: This is the fourth release by the Hogweeds project, recorded at the Student Union Auditorium, University of Toledo, Ohio. Hogweeds (in case you have no idea what I'm talking about) is a Genesis bootleg remaster project. I was a little disappointed in this show at first, because of the real audience nature of the recording; in fact, the taper is very audible through the first track and at various points throughout the recording (you'd think he'd try to be quiet during his own recording!), providing his own commentary on the band and the show to some friend he brought along who had never seen the band before. There were apparently also numerous microphone bumps, tappings, and blowings, also provided by the taper, which have been painstakingly removed using digital technology. Still, while the "audience" can get rather intrusive and irritating, he also provides quaint remarks, like his critique of a previous gig: "They had the whole place torn to shreds, man;" or his comment: "Ohh. This is their single! I Know What I Like in Your Wardrobe!" or, right before the long instrumental section of "Cinema Show:" "This is my favorite part coming up." He talks much less after the first number, and thereafter usually reserves his comments until the ends of the songs. This is a nice complete show from SEBTP, featuring some nice stories (especially for "Dancing With the Moonlit Knight") and (drum roll...) the entire piano intro to "Firth of Fifth."

Aside from the annoying taper (who as I mentioned before basically goes away after "Watcher" and is almost non-existent on the second disc), this is actually quite a good audience recording, and a lot of work has gone into eliminating most of the hiss and bumps--although in the process a bit of that "digital" type of distortion has been added. There were small sections of the concert missing (not more than a couple of minutes' worth, if that) which have been filled in with matching bits from the 16 April show in Detroit. There is monstrous applause after "The Musical Box;" apparently this noise has less to do with the appreciation of the audience for that particular song, and more to do with the fact that the rest of the band had left the stage in order to let Steve do his "Horizons" number. The audience thought the concert was over! I think Phil has to come back on stage to quiet them down so Steve can do his thing. Interestingly, before "Supper's Ready," Phil and Pete whistle the "Jerusalem Boogie" twice in a row; apparently Phil thought they could do it better than they did the first time.

Dance Right on Through the Night

16/4/74

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (13:07)
1-2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (8:30)
1-3 Intro: Cinema (2:20)
1-4 The Cinema Show (11:30)
1-5 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (6:10)

2-1 Firth of Fifth (14:11)
2-2 The Musical Box (10:25)
2-3 Horizons (2:08)
2-4 Intro: Supper (4:04)
2-5 Supper's Ready (24:10)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good

Comments: At the Ford Auditorium in Detroit. This is (I think) a particularly good SEBTP performance, even though it involves some rather lengthy technical problems. (I have a remastered version of this show below.) The quality is really quite good for an audience performance, so good that I'm tempted to rate it Very Good, and sometimes I even wonder if I'm listening to an audience show and not a radio show. Pete also tells his stories quite well. "Moonlit Knight's" intro features the good full story with Britannia grabbing a supermarket cart marked "Chariot of the Gods" and picking up products such as "Buddha Biscuits" and "Jesus Jumpers." The "Cinema" intro is told in fine style and features Romeo's fungal growth and Juliet, singing sweetly to herself ("Blooh, blooh blooh," she sings). The "Firth of Fifth" features the story about jumping on top of people to extract their water, and has the full piano intro. After "Watcher" there are technical problems, prompting Pete to relay the whole situation to the audience as a comical sketch entitled "What's happened to my fucking lead?" Mike was having trouble with his gear. It goes on for so long that they almost pull out the old drum solo, but then they get back into things. Small comedy sketches appear in between other songs, but it doesn't affect the gig too much after the first occurrence. In the intro for "Box," Pete hears some taunt from an audience member which prompts him to retort: "My mother does not eat shit." This actually served as the inspiration for the title of an alternate bootleg of this performance. "Box" is missing the second chorus of "Play me my song, here it comes again." At the end of each disc there are several seconds (nearly 10 I think) of silence, for no good reason.

The most interesting thing about this performance takes place during the intro to "Supper" where Pete and Phil actually sing the Jerusalem Boogie instead of whistling it as usual. They do a fine job, and it's a treat to hear it done in this way as I don't think it appears like this on any other show. I've heard some rumors and info claiming that some of the songs on this recording are from a different gig, but as far as I can tell all the songs on this boot come from the same performance--the quality/sound of the recording does not change markedly throughout.


	Jerusalem Boogie in Motor City (CF) 16/4/74

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (8:59)
1-2 Intro: Knight (1:34)
1-3 Dramatic Sketch (2:27)
1-4 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (8:29)
1-5 Intro: Cinema (2:19)
1-6 The Cinema Show (11:26)
1-7 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (5:49)

2-1 Intro: Firth (2:08)
2-2 Firth of Fifth (9:55)
2-3 Intro: Box (2:02)
2-4 The Musical Box (10:22)
2-5 Horizons (2:07)
2-6 Intro: Supper (2:49)
2-7 Jerusalem Boogie (1:14)
2-8 Supper's Ready (23:49)

Type/Quality: Audience/Very Good-Good

Comments: The Coaster Factory remaster of this rather famous gig played at the Ford Auditorium in Detroit. The hiss of the original has been removed and the recording sounds a tad cleaner--I particularly noticed the bass, which sounded nice and strong. As a trade-off there is a slight digital distortion which is rather noticeable during the quieter bits. This was a surprisingly good audience recording which has not suffered much with age. In fact this is a most enjoyable gig, with some very humorous technical problems, some memorable interactions with intoxicated audience members, some great stories, and some fantastic performances. There remains a small cut in the middle of "Musical Box," but other than that it seems a very complete gig. It's quite possible that some audience noise and some additional pauses due to technical problems were removed by the taper--for instance, Peter apologizes for technical problems right before beginning the story to "Supper," even though it doesn't seem like there are any just then. I think the remaster has made it easier to tell not only what Pete says, but what some people in the audience say, which is nice. Pete does some nice flute playing. This is definitely one of the better gigs from this tour, made all the more special by the very rare singing of the "Jerusalem Boogie" by Phil and Pete before "Supper."

One More Knight (PRRP 004)

17/4/74

01 Watcher of the Skies (6:35)
02 Intro: Knight (1:46)
03 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (8:47)
04 Intro: Cinema (1:53)
05 The Cinema Show (10:56)
06 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (5:24)
07 Horizons (1:52)
08 More Fool Me (3:27)
09 The Battle of Epping Forest (12:25)
10 Intro: Firth (1:57)
11 Firth of Fifth (incomplete)(6:03)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good

Comments: At McGraw Hall in Evanston, Illinois, this is a surprisingly good quality remastered audience recording with a somewhat unusual set list which is tragically incomplete. The first bit of damage comes right at the beginning of the show, with "Watcher" coming in after Tony's solo introduction. After the song, Peter greets the audience, and one particularly friendly audience member shouts "How's everything going?" to which Peter replies, "All right!" He then proceeds to talk about Britannia, who floats on the waters between England and France. "'Where has it gone?' she asks. And continues to ask, because the mellotron isn't even tuned up." However, the mellotron is soon fixed and the show goes on.

The sound is very nice and Pete tells the usual stories, which he had gotten to a pretty good level by this point in the tour (there's a nice version of the "five rivers" story before FoF). The sound does at times get a bit broken up ("Horizons" is one example), but generally it is among the better audience recordings from this period--no doubt some of this is due to the good folks at PRRP. Unfortunately, no amount of remastering will put back music that isn't there, and in this case there seems to be quite a bit missing. In addition to the cut intro to "Watcher," FoF fades out in the middle of the guitar solo (FYI, the song is played without the piano intro), and there is no "Musical Box" and (most obviously) no "Supper's Ready." If the audience were very lucky that night, they may have also gotten "Harold the Barrel" or "The Knife" (probably not both)--but if so, neither are here for us to listen to.

Nonetheless, the audience does appear to have been treated to an unusually full set, including "Horizons," "More Fool Me," and "Epping Forest"--three tracks which were only very rarely heard on the same night together (two other memorable occasions on which this happened: 22/11/73 at the Felt Forum and 20/1/74 at Drury Lane). Another thing that's odd about this show is the ordering of the songs, and I have a strong suspicion that this was not the band's ordering. The SEBTP set list did fluctuate, but its basic ordering was very solid, and it was not like this. Here is what was probably the correct order of songs: Watcher/DWTMK/Cinema/IKWIL/FoF/Musical Box/Horizons/MFM/Epping Forest/Supper.

Notice that, sans "Horizons," this ordering is identical to that of the next entry, and is also identical to the correctly ordered BURP remaster of the Felt Forum show. Probably what happened was whoever originally put this recording together wanted a smoother flow of music, so they put the two cut songs on either end of the recording, leaving the whole middle filled with complete songs. The person recording the show for some reason had to turn off their recorder in the middle of FoF, then kept it off for all of "Musical Box," and got it back up and running for a few songs, but didn't get "Supper's Ready."

To make the order correct here, all one would have to do would be to put FoF after IKWIL. But there's no need to be so picky, and maybe the flow of music really is better this way. If only this show were complete it would probably be among my favorite Selling England shows, because of the quality and the set list.

Montreal '74 (first night)

20/4/74

1-1 Audience intro (0:23)
1-2 Watcher of the Skies (8:24)
1-3 Intro: Knight (1:34)
1-4 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (8:39)
1-5 Intro: Cinema (1:30)
1-6 The Cinema Show (10:47)
1-7 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (6:30)
1-8 Intro: Firth (1:22)
1-9 Firth of Fifth (9:54)

2-1 Intro: Box (2:01)
2-2 The Musical Box (10:55)
2-3 More Fool Me (4:09)
2-4 The Battle of Epping Forest (12:39)
2-5 Intro: Supper (3:10)
2-6 Supper's Ready (22:26)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good

Comments: (See the PRRP upgrade, next entry.) At the University Sports Center in Montreal. One of the most famous bootleg recordings from this tour has to be the radio broadcast of the band's second gig at Montreal, on the 21st (see the multiple entries after the next one). This, the first night in Montreal, is probably often overlooked for that reason. However, this is a fairly nice audience recording of the band in fine form, and they do play a very slightly different set this night than the one played the following night (here, "More Fool Me" is played where the next night "Horizons" would be played). As in the second night's show, Pete tells fairly fluent French intros for all the songs, which must have been nice for the audience (though I remain confused, since I only know English). Phil specifically does not use French to introduce his little number, "More Fool Me." The person recording the show finds Peter quite humorous and often giggles at his intros.

There is a cut near the beginning of the "Cinema Show" instrumental section. I'm pretty sure that in the intro for "Supper," when Pete and Phil have to whistle, they use a toy monkey with clapping cymbals to keep time--another fan had told me about this nice touch, and I deduce from the crowd reaction and the sound that the monkey is in use here. A bit of the end of "Supper"'s intro is not there (the taper probably decided it was a good time to change tapes), and the intro crossfades into the opening of the song. In "Supper," the end of the "Sanctuary Man" section is cut, and there is a hiccup towards the end of the "Willow Farm" section, during the "soil" bit. Other than that, though, this is a nice show, and a nice companion to its more famous brother (entries after next). I have a DVD of amateur video that is probably from this gig.

The First Night (PRRPGS006)

20/4/74

1-01 Watcher of the Skies (9:00)
1-02 Intro: Knight (1:27)
1-03 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (9:03)
1-04 Intro: Cinema (1:38)
1-05 The Cinema Show (11:22)
1-06 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (6:35)
1-07 Intro: Firth (1:26)
1-08 Firth of Fifth (10:17)
1-09 Intro: Box (1:47)
1-10 The Musical Box (11:25)

2-1 More Fool Me (4:08)
2-2 The Battle of Epping Forest (13:04)
2-3 Intro: Supper (3:11)
2-4 Supper's Ready (24:22)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good

Comments: At the University Sports Center in Montreal. This remaster from PRRP improves on my previous version (above entry). The cuts and hiccups mentioned in my comments above I did not notice in this version--though the transition between the story and the beginning of "Supper" seems a bit abrupt, both the full story and the beginning of the song are intact. The only thing I noticed is what sounded like a speed jump at the ending bit of the "Ikhnaton and Itsacon" section of "Supper."

Of course, the reason this show is called "First Night" is that it is always eclipsed by the second Montreal gig (following entries), which is easily among the best recordings from this tour, being a complete radio show. However, if you're looking for good audience ambience and energy, this recording definitely has it: including the moment in "Cinema" where a female fan remarks "This is nicer than Pink Floyd!" A mechanical monkey is used to keep time during the Jerusalem Boogie whistling: this is Genesis at their prog prime. I have a DVD of amateur video that is probably from this gig.


	Live in Montreal 21/4/74

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (8:28)
1-2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (10:28)
1-3 The Cinema Show (13:18)
1-4 I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe) (6:19)
1-5 Firth of Fifth (11:34)
1-6 The Musical Box (12:45)
1-7 Horizons (2:09)

2-1 The Battle of Epping Forest (12:55)
2-2 Supper's Ready (23:51)
2-3 Stagnation (8:48) (10/5/71)
2-4 Get 'em Out by Friday (9:15) (25/9/72)
2-5 Twilight Alehouse (8:29) (25/9/72)

Type/Quality: Radio/Very Good-Good

Comments: (You don't want this show; see following two entries for improved versions.) One of several forms of a much-circulated recording of a radio show. Some sites label this show as being from 20 April--this is because Genesis was in Montreal for two nights, the 20th and the 21st. But David Dunnington puts it on the 21st, and I trust him implicitly. Also I think the FAde 4 really puts any doubt about this to rest, as their radio interviews from earlier in the day make it clear that Genesis had just played Montreal the day before (and again, see my previous entry, which is the audience recording from the first night--the set list is not the same!). From the University Sports Center in Montreal, Canada.

At least, all but the last three tracks, which come from totally different sources. They are in fact all BBC sessions recordings from the dates labeled above. "Stagnation" is from May 10, 1971 Sounds Of The 70s Sessions in London, England, and the last two tracks are from Sep 25, 1972 Top Gear/John Peel Sessions in London, England. This version of "Stagnation" is the same one as the version on disc 3 of Archive #1. All BBC sessions recordings were made in London. I already have tracks 2-4 and 2-5 on The Shepherd (and on my two other BBC boots, and in better quality than these are). As in the other versions of these tracks, I suspect there is a speed problem here; both songs, especially "Alehouse," seem slow.

The sound quality from the Montreal show is good, though not quite what you'd expect from a radio show. There are some minor pops and crackles due to LP transfer. The volume level lowers between songs and fades back up a little after Pete starts singing again. This does not happen on the second disc at all and mainly only in the beginning of the first disc. The track with the most problems is "Moonlit Knight;" it seems to have a weird speed change in one small section, and some static punches in the beginning as though someone is messing with the microphone recording the show to up the volume on it. "Horizons" is very low and the beginning is particularly hard to make out. There is a line cut from the "Reverend" section of "Epping Forest:" "...to see what the trouble was." In a freakish coincidence, the Felt Forum show from earlier in the tour has exactly the same line cut from "Epping;" I've checked and they are by no means the same version of the song. Weird, eh? There is also a small cut in Tony's piano intro for FoF.

Pete tells all of his in-between stories in French. I can't tell how good the stories are or how good his French is, because I don't know a lick of French. However his French seems to have improved dramatically since the NC tour. He also provides plenty of good sound effects. If you come back to this boot after having learned quite well the stories Pete told in English (and I have), you'll probably be able to follow all of it quite well--and hearing it in French is a nice change!


	FAde 004 (Montreal '74) 21/4/74

0-01 Radio Interview w/Peter Gabriel (part 1) (10:05)
0-02 Twilight Alehouse (b-side) (7:34)
0-03 Radio Interview w/Peter Gabriel (part 2) (14:40)
Opening Act: Peter Hammill
0-04 Introduction (by Peter Gabriel) (1:22)
0-05 Solitude (4:40)
0-06 Time for a Change (3:42)
0-07 The Birds (3:37)
0-08 Out of My Book (4:56)
0-09 Slender Threads (6:38)
0-10 German Overalls (7:24)

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (8:48)
1-2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (10:42)
1-3 The Cinema Show (13:17)
1-4 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (6:47)
1-5 Firth of Fifth (11:42)
1-6 The Musical Box (13:03)
1-7 Horizons (2:15)

2-1 The Battle of Epping Forest (13:14)
2-2 Supper's Ready (27:59)
2-3 Radio Broadcast Announcements (0:54)

Type/Quality: Radio/Very Good

Comments: (The PRRP remaster of the Genesis portion of this show is described in the next entry.) At the University Sports Center in Montreal, Canada, this is a FAde release of a show that has been widely bootlegged under various names--radio shows usually are. FAde has the unfortunate habit of releasing remasters of shows that I made artwork for, making my artwork obsolete (and the PRRP version has now made this release fairly obsolete!). But what can you do? They've really unearthed a gem here, because in addition to having the full Genesis show FAde has also given us (on a third disc, numbered "0") the radio interviews with Peter Gabriel which were held earlier that day at the station studio (we are even treated to the radio station's somewhat psychedelic station id), and also the entire opening act of the concert (Peter Hammill from Van der Graaf Generator, who I am utterly unfamiliar with and had never heard a bit of music by until listening to this 0 disc). To my knowledge this material has never been available in earlier releases. The interviews are interesting, though rather embarrassing, as most of the people asking Pete questions are call-ins who just don't ask very good questions. A lot of focus by the DJ is put onto Pete's costumes--not on the music. While it is interesting to learn just who makes Pete's masks and how long it takes him to make himself up before the show, a bit more focus on the music might have been better. However it is interesting to hear in action the very thing that Genesis always bemoans about this time period: that once the costumes got them attention, all that was talked about was the costumes, not the music. One caller, instead of asking real questions, basically uses his time on the air to vent his own views on the contemporary music scene--and then, when he actually does ask a question, Pete spends a good 30 seconds trying to get a word in edgewise! Meanwhile the DJ is busy making subtle snoring noises in the background.

In the middle of the interview the DJ puts on the single b-side version of "Twilight Alehouse" (after the song is mentioned by a French-speaking fan who wants to know whether it will finally be released on the next album) which at that time had only recently been released. It also seems that he spun the Live album (which was also a fairly recent release, and had indeed not even been released in Montreal yet) just as Pete was leaving, but the disc does not include that portion of the radio show. Pete does a pretty lucid interview and also departs on some surreal flights of fancy (such as commenting that the best audience is one that the band can eat after the show), utterly bewildering Canadian callers (and presumably, listeners), who speak mostly French. There are one or two questions that need to be translated for Peter. A lot of fun is poked at Phil, even to the extent of Pete suggesting that he has developed a skin rash due to multiple sexual exploits. It's nice to have interview material like this from the Pete era of Genesis, as it's almost more interesting to hear what they were thinking at the time they were writing the music, than to hear what they think many years after the fact (as per Genesis: A History and the Songbook DVD). For more interviews of this ilk see my Interviews entry on the Compilations page, or check out my compiled list of shows with interview bonus tracks at the top of that page. Also Pete says one interesting thing about the band's set list for this tour during the interview: he seems to say that when they hit Montreal last year (which was still during the SEBTP tour, in November of 1973), they were not playing "Battle of Epping Forest." Strangely enough the bootleg of the '73 performance in Montreal has them playing that very song. However "Epping" was not played every night, possibly because it was difficult to sing (it had lots of words!).

Hammill comes on, introduced by Peter, and does a set of rather dreary acoustic songs which weren't exactly what I expected but which nevertheless definitely mark him as a product of the mid '70s. This portion of the show, as well as the radio interview of before, is rather hissy. However, once Genesis comes on, the hiss goes away and the quality is pretty great. I think it's a bit odd that the intro stories have been tracked with their corresponding songs, instead of being tracked separately or kept on the end of the preceding tracks (the PRRP version changes this). It's cool to hear the stories told in Pete's French, even if you can barely understand him. At the end of the last disc, for your listening pleasure, are a bunch of various radio announcements which were originally scattered through the show--including one at the end where the DJ tries to look up on stage to see if the band are going to come back for an encore (they did not--in fact, one of the questions from the interviews earlier in the day had been in reference to their lack of encores, giving lie to the generally accepted idea that the band usually played "The Knife" on this tour--they did, but only rarely).

One of the problems of the original Montreal boot was that, for one, "Horizons" was very low and the beginning was almost totally drowned out. Here that problem is somewhat improved. There were also problems on my original version of Montreal when it came to some of the song openings on the first few numbers--and there were some speed problems in "Moonlit Knight." All these problems are gone in this version. A stellar upgrade, and an excellent show from this tour. I have some amateur 8mm footage which is probably from the day before this gig, but uses audio from this broadcast, on DVD.

A Classic Broadcast Revisited (PRRP SAE 04)

21/4/74

1-01 Watcher of the Skies (8:54)
1-02 Intro: Knight (1:45)
1-03 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (8:51)
1-04 Intro: Cinema (1:59)
1-05 The Cinema Show (11:18)
1-06 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (6:29)
1-07 Intro: Firth (1:25)
1-08 Firth of Fifth (10:01)
1-09 Intro: Box (1:52)
1-10 The Musical Box (11:03)
1-11 Horizons (2:13)

2-1 The Battle of Epping Forest (12:47)
2-2 Intro: Supper (3:02)
2-3 Supper's Ready (24:37)
2-4 CHOM-FM Radio Intro/Station ID/Sign-off (0:48)

Type/Quality: Radio/Very Good-Excellent

Comments: At the University Sports Centre in Montreal, this is the PRRP remaster of the famous radio broadcast. It was done by some of the same people who worked on the FAde version of several years before. Here are some of the ways in which, according to the release notes, this version is better than the FAde one: more advanced noise reduction, speed correction, elimination of some announcer talking over broadcast, adjustment of dynamics, retracking to separate stories from songs, attenuation of tonality excess, smoothing of crackle in "Musical Box."

I don't have an ear for technical adjustments, but I did listen to both the FAde and this version one after the other and definitely agree that the overall sound quality was improved in this version. However I was a little disappointed in the more specific and noticeable repairs made, in "Musical Box" and "Horizons." If you sit down and read through my very long comments section for the FAde release, you'll see that I didn't even mention a crackle in "Musical Box," and indeed it is not particularly noticeable on the FAde version unless you listen with headphones. The PRRP version may perhaps lend more strength to the music during the crackly sections (the crackles occur during the louder bits of the song from about halfway in to about three quarters in), but I felt the fix altered the sound in such a way that it called attention to the issue more than the FAde version did.

"Horizons" has always been a problematic part of the broadcast, and I was interested to hear the improvements made in this version. The song remains hard to make out in the beginning--probably an unavoidable problem with the master recording. It is overall more detailed than the FAde version, but the price we pay for this is being able to hear some low talking in the second half of the song (perhaps interference from another station) which was utterly inaudible in the FAde version. Strangely, the FAde version had audible talking early in the song which has been all but eliminated in this version.

Something FAde has which this version lacks is the interview with Peter from earlier in the day and the opening act (though both versions feature the various radio announcements at the end of disc two). Admittedly these are not the main reasons for wanting the show but it makes me feel as if this version is incomplete.

Okay, so I'm being overly picky. Remasters of famous gigs like this one always make me get the magnifying glass out, because what I'm expecting is perfection. I will say that this is without doubt the best version of this classic broadcast that I have heard. But you don't really have the whole experience unless you also get FAde 4 disc 0.

I have one additional comment to make that I did not point out in any of my other descriptions of this show. In the intro for "Supper," when Phil and Pete whistle the "Jerusalem Boogie," I'm pretty sure they are using a monkey toy with little banging cymbals to keep time. I have been told by fans that this was done and it definitely sounds like it if you listen to the intro. The monkey toy is also used in Moonlit Queen, and I mention it in my comments for Toronto '73 (though it was probably not used at that gig).

Boston '74

24/4/74

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (7:56)
1-2 Intro: Knight (4:44)
1-3 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (8:28)
1-4 Intro: Cinema (2:02)
1-5 The Cinema Show (10:48)
1-6 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (7:21)
1-7 Intro: Firth (1:30)
1-8 Firth of Fifth (9:25)

2-1 Intro: Box (1:26)
2-2 The Musical Box (10:40)
2-3 Intro: Fool (0:28)
2-4 More Fool Me (3:15)
2-5 Intro: Supper (3:19)
2-6 The Musical Box (10:09)*

Type/Quality: Audience/Good

Comments: (I have the great Hogweed remaster of this material--see next entry.) Played at the Music Hall in Boston, this is a somewhat incomplete SEBTP show. It's missing "Epping Forest" and "Supper," but its sound quality is pretty good and the stories are fairly humorous. Pete gets through the whole intro for "Moonlit Knight" before the audience is treated to a comedy skit entitled "What's happened to my fucking microphone?" starring Nick the roadie (Pete introduces him: "His name is Nick--his real name is also Nick"). Pete's story was very low (but audible) because of mic trouble, trouble which recurs before the next two numbers. In fact the opening to IKWIL has two false starts and some very short musical improvisation before they can finally get into it. Pete apologizes profusely for the "fuck-ups" and quips, "We're going professional next week." The story for "Firth of Fifth" is the version about jumping up and down on people to extract the water from their bodies and drink it (actually this isn't a particularly rare version of the story--it all depends which shows you have...). "Firth of Fifth" features a flawless performance of the entire piano intro. In the "Cinema Show" intro, Juliet is up on her balcony "singing sweetly." This apparently entails her yelling in a Monty-Python-lady voice, "Come up and get it!!" One of the funniest versions of that story. In the story for "Box," Henry appears naked during the famous croquet match (in the usual telling of the story, we assume that he is fully clothed--later in this tour, I think especially at the American gigs, Pete added nudity and streaking to the story). This has a very good version of "More Fool Me;" Phil was feeling very comfortable and sings it loosely, with a few variations from the norm. In fact, all of the songs on here are fine quality, and do not seem at all affected by the microphone trouble; I can hear Pete with no problem. You get the whole story for "Supper," but there is no "Supper." The last track on this set, with the * next to it up there, is actually a much older track, probably from a Marquee Club performance of 19/9/72. It is not usually on this boot, but was a gracious replacement for my damaged track from my old Marquee Club show of September 1972, sent by a generous and kind trader (thanks Kevin). It doesn't really belong on this show, however, and usually when I copy this boot I do not include that track. Some versions of this boot tack on a live "Supper" from a different date, just to have one on there. This is rather pointless now, however, as the Hogweed people have done a fantastic job (once again) and released a nice remastered version of this show, complete with "Supper" and a contemporary interview with the band members (see next entry).


	Boston '74 (HW10) 24/4/74

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (7:55)
1-2 Intro: Knight (4:42)
1-3 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (8:25)
1-4 Intro: Cinema (1:58)
1-5 The Cinema Show (10:42)
1-6 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (7:40)
1-7 Intro: Firth (1:16)
1-8 Firth of Fifth (9:31)

2-1 Intro: Box (1:29)
2-2 The Musical Box (10:33)
2-3 More Fool Me (3:47)
2-4 Intro: Supper (3:12)
2-5 Supper's Ready (23:10)
WBCN Boston radio show, 24/4/74:
2-6 More Fool Me (incomplete)(0:50)
2-7 Interview (5:44)

Type/Quality: Audience/Very Good-Good

Comments: Played at the Music Hall in Boston. Finally the people at Hogweeds have been able to unearth "Supper" from this performance, which until this came out I did not think existed in recorded form. You also get some bonuses at the end, including an interview given the very afternoon before the show with Phil and Mike, recorded at Boston's WBCN radio station. The sound quality of this recording is really quite good, so I've been very generous with its rating. There's one moment in the beginning of "Supper" where the taper is stricken with an annoying cough, which he seems to project directly into the microphone, but besides that there's very little to complain about. Another excellent Hogweed remaster. The Hogweeds member who provided some of the notes for this show believes that "Epping" was probably also played this night because of the comment made by the band members that the actual show was 2 hours long, and this recording weighs in at a half hour less--probably safe to theorize, but I still believe that there were several gigs on this tour where the band simply did not play that song.

The added recording of "More Fool Me" appears to be the very end of a live-in-the-radio-station's-studio recording of the song played by Mike and Phil. It's too bad that the full song isn't there, because it sounds like a wonderful version of the song. The radio portion is of course in very good quality.

A Voice in the Dream

28/4/74

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (9:53)
1-2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (10:47)
1-3 The Cinema Show (10:49)
1-4 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (7:52)
1-5 Firth of Fifth (10:02)

2-1 The Musical Box (13:18)
2-2 The Battle of Epping Forest (12:29)
2-3 Horizons (2:04)
2-4 Supper's Ready (23:29)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good

Comments: Genesis at the Allen Theatre in Cleveland, Ohio (the first of two nights in a row at that venue). This show is from near the end of the SEBTP tour, which would end on 6 May '74 at the Academy of Music in New York. The 4 May show, documented by two entries below (Voices in the Academy and the astoundingly superior Hogweed 7), was just a few gigs away. Listening to the intros and the performance you can really tell how close they were to these Academy gigs, because the shows are very similar. The band is very familiar with the material and Pete has really polished and honed his stories into wonderful dark comic sketches. The sound quality is definitely a bit rough, but it's audible and quite listenable. There is a miniscule cut in FoF, during the solo. Strangely enough, the story for "Supper" has been removed. There is a small break in "Supper" at the end of the "Willow Farm" section, and unfortunately the song cuts off abruptly a few seconds before its actual end. By the time it ends, Pete has finished all of his singing. Actually, this is a very complete show, with not many cuts, and with a somewhat rare performance of "Horizons."

Moonlit Queen

2/5/74

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (10:00)
1-2 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (10:50)
1-3 The Cinema Show (10:49)
1-4 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (9:00)
1-5 Firth of Fifth (6:39)

2-1 The Musical Box (17:26)
2-2 Supper's Ready (23:49)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good

Comments: Played at the Massey Hall in Toronto, this is one of two gigs played on this date. It was originally believed that audience recordings for both gigs were available, but according to comments on the Movement they are actually identical recordings! This version, which could be the early or the late show, is presented by Highland. This is a memorable recording from this tour, being fairly good quality and coming as it does at the end of the tour when the band was at the very height of the "High Genesis" grandeur. As I mention in my reviews for the surrounding entries, this was the time when the Genesis stories, costumes and instrumentation were well developed and in full power, and this is just the kind of gig that The Musical Box would many years later use as a basis for their incredibly accurate reproductions. However, since this day had two gigs, the band seem to have intentionally shortened their set (compare the set of the previous entry, which is two songs longer), and in addition there are some gaping cuts in the show.

The first cut comes towards the end of "Watcher," just before the last verse. It's fairly small. (There is also a section near the beginning of the song where the volume takes a hit--it takes a few seconds to go back up to normal again.) In Pete's story for "Moonlit Knight," he specifies that Britannia's balloon is "airplane-shaped." The stories, such as that for "Cinema," are low in volume, but if you turn up the volume you will be well rewarded. Pete tells his "Cinema" story very slickly, and has Juliet singing "Come up and get it!" He tells the story for FoF involving the band jumping on a dead body to get the water out of it--this version, like other gigs around this time, begins with a lovely green field and a stump. FoF is the main victim of the cuts in the show. Before the guitar solo but after the bridge has begun, there is a cut. Then in the middle of the guitar solo the song cuts off and the whole rest of it is not there. The audio cuts directly to the beginning of Pete's intro for "Musical Box," and then the first disc ends. The second disc starts again from the beginning of the "Box" story.

In the intro for "Supper," when Phil is supposed to come up and whistle with Pete, Pete introduces him and says that Phil also has a "little friend." According to eyewitness accounts from gigs in Toronto, Phil's friend is most likely a tiny mechanical monkey toy--the kind that beats cymbals together. Phil used it to keep time for the whistling. The audience is very responsive to this and to all of the other stories and tricks--they really seem to be having a great time being there, but they also don't intrude on the recording.

My first version of this show had a skipping error near the end of "Supper," but I have since obtained a clean replacement copy with no problems.


	Voices in the Academy 4/5/74

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (8:15)
1-2 Intro: Moonlit Knight/One-Handed Drum Solo (4:12)
1-3 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (10:45)
1-4 The Cinema Show (9:07)
1-5 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (8:41)
1-6 Firth of Fifth (10:02)

2-1 Intro: Box/Improv (4:38)
2-2 The Musical Box (14:15)
2-3 Supper's Ready (22:43)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good

Comments: (See my Hogweed remaster of this gig directly below.) At the Academy of Music in New York, this was the second to last show of the SEBTP tour. The last gig was also played at the Academy. This one is pretty fantastic quality, and has some memorable performances and some great stories--the one for "Firth of Fifth" is particularly well told. It is also a show littered with technical screw-ups. After "Watcher" the famous "What's happened to my fucking lead?" skit makes its appearance--Mike is once again the star. In fact Phil even gets to do a drum solo (a rather rare occurence on this tour), accompanied by Pete's description of his education by a Russian spastic. Before "Box" Pete refers to Henry as the first streaker, and dates the story at the year 1896. After the story there are more problems which prompt Phil to ask, "Anybody want to buy some equipment?" The band breaks into an impromptu improv which is actually quite nice. I actually like these gigs where things go wrong, as it brings forth some interesting improvisations and also seems to get the band to form a stronger bond with the audience. Pete can actually be very funny when things go wrong.

The artwork above was sent to me with the discs, and is probably the original Highland cover. Some final notes--the story for "Supper" is rather interesting, for two reasons. One is that Pete begins it by asking the audience if they like lettuce. The other is that during the Jerusalem Boogie, Phil tries out a Latin drum beat. Also, there is a big sloppy cut in the middle of the "Cinema Show" instrumental section.


	Academy of Music (HW07) 4/5/74

1-1 Watcher of the Skies (8:12)
1-2 Intro: Moonlit Knight (2:25)
1-3 One-Handed Drum Solo (1:51)
1-4 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (8:36)
1-5 Intro: Cinema (2:09)
1-6 The Cinema Show (10:55)
1-7 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (6:12)
1-8 Intro: Firth (2:39)
1-9 Firth of Fifth (9:50)

2-1 Intro: Box (3:06)
2-2 Improv (1:20)
2-3 The Musical Box (10:46)
2-4 Horizons (2:15)
2-5 The Battle of Epping Forest (12:24)
2-6 Intro: Supper (3:24)
2-7 Supper's Ready (25:44)

Type/Quality: Audience/Very Good

Comments: I already had this show as the above entry, Voices in the Academy, so I didn't really see much point in getting the Hogweeds remaster. However, I am very very glad I did. The Hogweeds people seem to have gotten hold of a much better source recording than Voices, one that not only sounds utterly astounding (you could easily mistake this for a soundboard or radio recording), but which includes TWO MORE songs, plus much more additional audience applause at the end of "Supper." There were two problems with the original source recording. "Cinema" was missing a chunk out of its instrumental, and "Epping" was missing its ending. Both of those errors have been patched here with matching music from the next show at the Academy of Music, from 6 May of 1974 (which also happened to be the very last gig of the SEBTP tour). The splicing is seamless and smooth. This is really an excellent, excellent example of an SEBTP show--Pete tells some of his best stories, and the technical problems only make the show more interesting. I'd say just about the only thing marring it is that Pete messes up the lyrics in the first verse of "Epping Forest." This show was, as I say, the penultimate gig of this tour, so by now the band really knew their stuff with this set, and it shows. A very enjoyable bootleg.

Academy of Music '74 (last night)

6/5/74

01 Watcher of the Skies (8:02)
02 Intro: Knight (1:19)
03 Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (8:48)
04 The Cinema Show (incomplete)(8:57)
05 I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe) (6:25)
06 Intro: Firth (2:42)
07 Firth of Fifth (9:54)
08 Intro: Box (2:07)
09 The Musical Box (10:41)
10 The Battle of Epping Forest (12:39)

Type/Quality: Audience/Good-Very Good

Comments: This is the last night of the tour, played at the Academy of Music in New York City. As Pete explains after the first number, the band were supposed to play the previous night, but had their guitars stolen--and then offered back to them by the thief! This is quite a good recording, probably made by the same person who recorded the previous gig, but it is tragically incomplete. The beginning 1:15 of the first track has a strange fluttering problem which is probably a speed inconsistency. Several of the songs fade off at their ends and almost every intro has its beginning seconds cut (this problem actually helps to mask the fact that there are split second pauses on this disc, however). The entire intro for "Cinema" is gone, and that song cuts off in the middle of the instrumental section. There are occasional noises caused by fumbling with the recording device.

Still, as I say this is a good quality recording and documents a famous and well-performed gig. There is a nice long, long lawnmower opening for IKWIL, during which Pete presumably did a lot of mowing. He tells a nice story for FoF which is very similar to the one from the previous gig about seeing "death by the river"--he becomes very amused in the middle of it and lets out a wonderful laugh. There's a nice piano intro for the song, but Pete screws up the lyrics for the beginning and end of the song. There's another great story for "Box:" "1896. It was a warm, sunny afternoon..." And so forth. There is a small cut or stutter or something in the intro to "Epping." It's actually a great version of that song, they really nail it. Unfortunately "Supper," which the band must have played, is not on the recording. Still, nice to have what there is here--this was the last time the Pete era band would play a lot of these classics.