Best Genesis Bootlegs, by tour (my picks)

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A Reminder: All dates are written day/month/year. Unless I messed up somewhere, this is true throughout the site.

It's very hard for beginners in the Genesis trading circle to figure out what they should grab hold of. There are piles of boots out there and multiple versions of many of the more popular/better quality ones. Where to begin? I often get asked by people with smaller collections to just "pick the best shows from various tours" to burn for them. Well I thought it would make sense to compile a list of what I feel are the best shows from each tour.

Other people have attempted this feat, most notably Simon Funnell. While Simon was able to control himself and pick only one show per tour, however, I (as usual) couldn't keep it that short and have instead chosen multiple boots for each tour, depending on how many there were in that tour that I really liked. In addition to a main list of shows for each tour, I usually include "Honorable Mentions" to deal with other memorable and/or non-soundboard shows, and a list of shows with rarely performed numbers. I list each entry by date, venue, and then provide a listing of various bootleg titles that they are known by (not just the titles that I have in my collection, though every entry here--with a few tiny exceptions--I have in some form in my collection). As others seem to have done, I have chosen to ignore bootlegged studio material (BBC sessions, outtakes, rehearsals, soundchecks) and focus instead only on live shows. This may go without saying, but I've stuck to audio boots only (though some have been transferred from video sources).

I think my list is a fairly good indication of the better boots for each tour. In compiling it, I have referred to Simon's pretty comprehensive database of recordings as well as my own collection (which is nothing to sneeze at either!). As I become aware of and obtain newly-surfaced shows, I keep this page updated, so this should be an accurate look at the best shows currently available. As I hinted earlier, I focused on the completeness of the recording and the quality level in choosing these boots--quality was of course an important factor, but completeness was also very important and many good quality shows did not make the list due to their missing multiple songs. If you like the look of any of these shows (and you should, seeing as how they're the best!), or have information about an existing entry or one I may have missed, feel free to contact me.

Choose by tour: FGTR | Trespass | Nursery Cryme | Foxtrot | Selling England by the Pound | The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway | A Trick of the Tail | Wind and Wuthering | ...And Then There Were Three... | Duke | Abacab | Three Sides Live (Encore) | Reunion | Mama | Invisible Touch | We Can't Dance | Calling All Stations |


FGTR tour

There are at this time no live bootlegs available from this tour. A few BBC studio sessions are available from the period when this tour was going on, in fairly good quality. The dates are 9 January 1970 and 22 February 1970. 9 January is unfortunately staggeringly incomplete, as the only bits leaked to the general public are 20 second clips of songs from a first generation tape of numbers Genesis composed for a scrapped BBC documentary about painter Mick Jackson. The 22 February material consists of The Shepherd/Pacidy/Let us Now Make Love/Stagnation/Looking For Someone. The first three songs are all available in wonderful quality on the first box set, and the next two are prototype versions of those songs with slightly different lyrics. All tracks are available on the classic bootleg The Shepherd.

It is possible that one incredibly valuable professional recording of the band playing live during this period does exist. A bootlegged 1978 radio interview with Peter Gabriel features a 20-second clip of "Twilight Alehouse" which is believed to be from the band's 11 March 1970 gig at the Roundhouse in London. This gig was part of the "Atomic Sunrise Festival" sponsored by Yoko Ono, so it's possible (and band members have added strength to this theory) that archived audio and/or video footage of this gig does exist somewhere. Unfortunately until some miracle occurs which releases this full recording to the trading public, the 20-second clip remains the only live-before-an-audience recording of the band during this early period (and its authenticity has not been confirmed). There is not likely to be any more forthcoming, as in all likelihood at this period in the band's history no one cared enough about them to record them!

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Trespass tour

7 March 1971, La Ferme, Woluwe St. Lambert, Belgium (Twilight Francehouse, Besides the Silent Mirror, Hogweed 12) - As with the previous tour, though BBC sessions material is available, almost no live shows are in existence. This one makes the list as best in the tour simply because it has absolutely no competition--this is the only recorded gig available on bootleg from this tour. It details their very first show outside the UK, which gives you an indication of how popular they were inside the UK (no one there was interested enough to record them). Up until the early 21st century, it was of truly awful quality in all of its versions; but the Hogweed people have created an excellent remaster that makes the show at least listenable. All versions seem to include most of the gig--minus a couple of cuts in "Box" and one in "The Knife," and possibly one or two other small breaks. If you disregard the quality, this is actually a very valuable show, being the only gig from this tour and also including several very rare numbers, including "The Light" and "Going Out to Get You" and very early versions of "Happy the Man" and "The Musical Box." This is actually the only available recording of the song "The Light," whose main themes would eventually evolve into the song "Lilywhite Lilith."

Set: Happy the Man/Stagnation/The Light/Twilight Alehouse/The Musical Box/The Knife/Going Out to Get You

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Nursery Cryme tour

IN REVIEW
Main Picks:
2/3/72 (BBC Paris Studios), 4/3/72 (Watford Tech), 18/4/72 (Roma), 28/6/72 (Watford Town Hall)
Shows with Rarities:
9/4/72 (Lem Club), 14/4/72 (Pavia), 20/8/72 (Viareggio, early show), 22/8/72 (Genoa)

2 March 1972, BBC: In Concert, BBC Paris Studios, London (BBC Tapes, The BBC Sessions) - This is kind of not in keeping with my self-appointed rule of not including BBC sessions material in this list. However, this is sort of an exception in that it was played before an audience. Only three songs (the only numbers played) are available on bootleg from this performance (Salmacis/Box/Hogweed), and Peter tells a typical story before "The Musical Box" which is augmented by a humorous inclusion of green knickerbockers. Not a very long set, but I have a recording of this gig which is so ridiculously high in quality that I felt I should mention it here. I suppose because of its shortness this performance doesn't get mentioned much but I've always been shocked at how good it sounds--apparently it was rebroadcast in the early '90s, which explains the quality. It's probably the best sounding stuff from this era. I pulled some particularly nice versions of these songs off of the internet and used them for my own compilation of the BBC Sessions material, The BBC Sessions. It also seems a stellar pre-FM version of the 2/3/72 "gig" is in circulation.

4 March 1972, Watford Technical College, UK (Watford Technical College, Shade of Dawning (Highland version)) - For a long time this was one of the worst bootlegs in my collection, but then I picked up Highland's version of the show, Shade of Dawning, and was astounded to find that this actually comes from a quite good audience recording. This is a fantastic show, not only for its completeness and quality but also for the rarity of the performance. This comes very early at least in the bootlegged list of shows from this tour, and features the only live recording of the song "Harlequin." Pete also tells quite a few stories that are either very rarely told again or are totally unique. All are told wonderfully. A classic gig.

Set: Harlequin/Stagnation/The Fountain of Salmacis/Twilight Alehouse/The Musical Box/The Return of the Giant Hogweed/The Knife

18 April 1972, Piper Club, Rome Italy (Live in Roma) - This is another bootleg that for quite a while I had rated very low on the quality scale, probably because my collection at the time consisted only of a few radio shows and this one. However compared against the other boots of the period this one is definitely at the top in quality--it's quite audible and the audience is not interfering. The TM Productions remaster (named above) works wonders and makes for a fantastic audience recording from this period. Also this is a gig played in Italy, an area where Genesis were very popular and the atmosphere was always good. The set is fairly typical for this first half of the tour and the recording is complete. As they were in Rome, the band treated their audience to a rare playing of the much older number, "Going Out to Get You," which is not present on too many other live recordings. This recording even features Phil Collins' famous "One-Handed Drum Solo," which he played to cover up pauses due to technical problems. Most traders will tell you this is among the stronger shows from this tour.

Set: Happy the Man/Stagnation/The Fountain of Salmacis/Twilight Alehouse/One-Handed Drum Solo/The Musical Box/The Return of the Giant Hogweed/The Knife/Going Out to Get You

28 June 1972, Town Hall, Watford, UK (Watford Town Hall, Euchre Show (Highland version), Like a Nun With a Gun (PRRPGS002)) - By far one of the best bootlegs from this tour. Peter must have been feeling good that night, as he is especially humorous and jokes even through the technical problems (we get another drum solo from Phil and an interesting, twangy improv before the encore number--also Phil flubs the words to "Happy the Man" and gets made fun of). Many versions of this show exist; the quality in most versions is quite good, though the Highland version is rather rough. Probably the best version, which also includes the very unique opening act, is PRRPGS002, though I have heard some complain that the speed is too slow on that one. At this point in the band's career they had a habit of re-shaping their set as they wrote new songs. This show is an excellent example of that practice in action, as it features the second recorded playing of the famous "Watcher of the Skies," played in a slightly different fashion than it would be in following tours. Pete tells an interesting story for "The Musical Box" which avoids the croquet story and instead involves a box of mucus and some dead relatives in glass cases.

Set: Watcher of the Skies/Stagnation/One-Handed Drum Solo/The Fountain of Salmacis/Happy the Man/Twilight Alehouse/The Musical Box/The Return of the Giant Hogweed/The Knife

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It's worth noting that because this was an early tour in the band's career, their set changed quite a bit and new songs were incorporated into it as they were written. There are three particularly rare numbers that were played on this tour and that I do not have represented in any of my picks above. If you are the kind of person who doesn't just want good quality shows, but also wants the rare songs, you may be interested in collecting recordings of the following songs: Seven Stones, Harold the Barrel, and Can-Utility and the Coastliners (in its prototype form and in the more standard studio-recorded version). Below are the gigs where you can find these songs:

9 April 1972, Lem Club, Verona Italy (Lem Club, Sharpened to the Hilt) - A bootleg that comes in various stages of incompleteness (the Sharpened to the Hilt version has a few tracks from this date mixed with another NC show), and always in muddy quality, this nevertheless has the distinction of including the earliest version of the song that would become "Can-Utility and the Coastliners"--though in this case it is introduced as "Rock My Baby." It is longer than the studio version and has additional lyrics, though the lyrics that would be sung at the end are not there. A very interesting listen, and in fact I would have liked to hear this longer version on the Foxtrot album.

Set (for most complete audience recording): Happy the Man/The Fountain of Salmacis (incomplete)/One-Handed Drum Solo/Twilight Alehouse/Rock My Baby/The Musical Box (beginning only)

14 April 1972, Palasport, Pavia Italy (Live in Pavia) - In slightly better quality than the previous show, this one also features a prototype version of "Can-Utility," but unfortunately it is the only song on the recording that is incomplete--it fades out before it ends. Still as it is the only other recording of the song in this form (introduced under yet another title, "Bye Bye Johnny"), some might be curious to hear it (I know I was!).

Set: Happy the Man/The Fountain of Salmacis/Twilight Alehouse/Bye Bye Johnny (incomplete)/The Musical Box/The Return of the Giant Hogweed/The Knife

20 August 1972, Piper 2000 Club, Viareggio Italy (The Coastliners, Viareggio (Early Show)) - Two shows were played on this date at this venue, and both are available in audience-recorded form, in various levels of completeness. Coastliners has a partial representation of the early show, but a different boot exists with more songs, including a very rare gem: the only recorded playing of "Harold the Barrel" from this tour, played in a noticeably different fashion than it was during the SEBTP tour. This show also features the rarely played final version of "Can-Utility and the Coastliners," and several others which would end up on the Foxtrot album, in slightly different forms (the evening show has an almost identical set, including "Can Utility," though I believe the only full recording of "Harold" comes from this show). Unfortunately the quality is not of the best, though it could be worse. I'm particularly fond of this show, but it is very chopped up and very hissy. For diehards only.

Set (for most complete audience recording): Watcher of the Skies (ending)/Can-Utility and the Coastliners/The Fountain of Salmacis/Twilight Alehouse/Get 'em Out by Friday (incomplete)/The Return of the Giant Hogweed (ending)/The Knife (partial)/Harold the Barrel

22 August 1972, Teatro Alcione, Genoa Italy (Through the Looking Glass, Seven Stones in Genoa, BURP 08) - Played just two days after the long sets of the Viareggio gigs, this is a similar set of songs--with a very valuable difference. It happens to include the only known live playing of the song "Seven Stones." Quality is not that bad--surprisingly clear, actually, though with some break-ups from time to time. One of the better audience recordings of this tour--if I didn't already have so many boots in the main list for this tour, I'd probably have it up there. The BURP version is a definite improvement over the two other versions, though I believe it to be a bit fast. Interestingly, though some versions of this boot have "The Knife" on them, others do not--it's possible that the show is available in two different recordings, one of which (the lower quality one) includes the encore. "The Knife" is on the end of Seven Stones in Genoa (that bootleg orders the songs all wrong--Through the Looking Glass has them in the right order but is missing "The Knife"). I have chosen to not include "Knife" in the set list, as the master tape used for the BURP version did not include that song--whether it was actually played that night or not. Also has the very rare "Can-Utility"--apart from this version and the versions in the entries above, only two other live recordings of the song exist (both played early in the next tour).

Set: Watcher of the Skies/Can-Utility and the Coastliners/The Fountain of Salmacis/Twilight Alehouse/Seven Stones/The Musical Box/The Return of the Giant Hogweed

Now that I've filled up way too much space talking about this tour (well, it is probably my favorite one), let me also mention that Hogweed has produced a nice remaster of the Reading Festival performance of Genesis in 1972 (11 August, not 26 as some people date it!). This however is a shortened set of standard numbers, nothing rare, so I have chosen not to include it on my list (yes, I actually left something out!). But I still mentioned it, didn't I...?

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Foxtrot tour

IN REVIEW
Main Picks:
18/11/72 (Imperial College), 20/1/73 (Reggio Emilia), 22/1/73 (Roma), 24-25/2/73 (Manchester/Leicester)
Shows with Rarities:
19/9/72 (Marquee Club), 28/9/72 (Dublin)
Honorable Mention: 15/1/73 (Heidelberg - Hogweed 6)

18 November 1972, Imperial College, London (Violent Dreams, PGWeeds 05, BURP 25) - The Foxtrot tour is not one known for its good quality bootlegs, even compared to the previous tour. Though it does happen to have one of the first full radio quality shows, most of the audience gigs do not cut it in the quality department (and actually at least one of its radio shows, that of 7 May 1973, is even worse than some of the audience recordings!). This gig is one of the exceptions, which is fortunate as it features the first audience-recorded version of "Supper's Ready," with a different introductory story and a different ending than it ended up with. Unfortunately there is a cut in "Supper," though not a huge one--otherwise the recording is complete. It also features a particularly rare version of the story for "Musical Box," a "dirty" story involving a strange litter of kittens. Pete messed around with this story a lot before settling down to the standard croquet story. Also features "The Knife," which though a standard encore was either not always played or not always recorded. I have all versions listed above--the PGWeed and BURP versions should be better, since they come from a low gen source and have been remastered; though both suffer slightly from a bit of digital distortion running through the background--they sound too "doctored" for my taste.

Set: Watcher of the Skies/The Musical Box/Get 'em Out by Friday/Supper's Ready/The Return of the Giant Hogweed/The Knife

20 January 1973, Palasport, Reggio Emilia, Italy (Refugee, Viva Italia! (PRRP 020)) - Another exception to the norm of muddy, indistinct audience recordings from this tour. Genesis only played a few gigs in Italy on this tour, and dedicated Italian fans recorded almost every one of them, in better quality than any of the other audience shows from this tour. The band's set was generally very short at this time, but perhaps because they were in Italy Genesis played a nice full set this night, including an older number which had all but been dropped: "The Fountain of Salmacis." Also features "The Knife" and the earlier incarnation of "Supper's Ready." One of the only gigs from this tour which gets consistenly put onto two discs rather than one. The common version is named Refugee because a short technical problem was filled by the playing of the tape of a Van Der Graaf Generator song called "Refugee." The PRRP version, which also includes the subsequent Rome gig, is probably the best available.

Set: Watcher of the Skies/The Musical Box/The Fountain of Salmacis/Get 'em Out by Friday/Supper's Ready/The Return of the Giant Hogweed/The Knife

22 (often dated 19) January 1973, Palasport, Rome, Italy (Moonswept Paradise, Charisma Festival, PGWeed 3, Viva Italia! (PRRP 020)) - The other venue played in Italy was Rome's Palasport. Dating of this audience recording is strangely confused, but the experts say that its planned date of the 19th was cancelled and the gig was postponed to the 22nd. This sounds reasonable. There are also various versions of this bootleg, some with the set order slightly changed ("Hogweed" and "Supper," consecutive numbers, are swapped) and at least one with a drum solo and "Twilight Alehouse" tacked onto the end--I doubt these two tracks come from the same performance, though if they do it would be a very valuable rarity. The PGWeed release sounds pretty great, but the PRRP remaster is cleaned-up from a very low-gen source and is probably the best version. Neither versions have "Alehouse." Like the other recorded Italy gig, this features "Salmacis" and "The Knife." A good show, though short on intros since Pete is not fluent in Italian. Probably the previous gig is better in quality, though both are above average.

Set: Watcher of the Skies/The Musical Box/The Fountain of Salmacis/Supper's Ready/The Return of the Giant Hogweed/The Knife

24-25 February 1973, Free Trade Hall, Manchester and De Montfort Hall, Leicester, UK (Some of You Are Going to Die, Test Pressing, Live at Leicester and Manchester (TM Productions), Others) - A much-bootlegged show, whose original source is most likely the holy of holies of Genesis artifacts, the famous test pressing of the Genesis Live LP by the Dutch Philips label which features more complete intros by Pete and a live version of "Supper's Ready" (which by this time had the normal story before it with Michael and the normal ending). Recorded by KBFH, this was one of the first really professional recordings of Genesis playing before an audience, and indeed captures some of the power the band had live. I have Some of You Are Going to Die and an upgraded version dubbed "Test Pressing" which has the songs in the correct order (I think) and is slightly cleaned up (Some of You... had quite a bit of hiss and pops; the upgrade still has pops, but not as bad). The best version is the TM remaster, Live at Leicester... which may be better than the official Live album! Though a shorter set than that of the Italian gigs above, this is a more typical one, although at least one of Pete's stories (the one for "Get 'em Out by Friday," which speaks of the love story between a butterfly and a dog) is fairly rare and humorous. Unfortunately not all of the stories are here--the "Supper" story is, but notably missing is Pete's always entertaining "Musical Box" story. The quality is really quite excellent, being from the soundboard--this is probably the best quality material available from this tour. All songs on the recording are from Leicester except "Hogweed," which comes from Manchester.

Set: Watcher of the Skies/The Musical Box/Get 'em Out by Friday/Supper's Ready/The Return of the Giant Hogweed/The Knife

Probably it should be noted that strangely enough I have not chosen to put on my list of picks the bootleg that Simon Funnell chose for this tour--15 January 1973 at the Stadthalle in Heidelberg, Germany. He probably chose it because it is the only show from this tour that has been remastered by the good people of Hogweed (release number 6). However I don't think they chose a particularly stellar gig. While it is complete and in pretty good quality, for some reason it doesn't do it for me and it doesn't have any particularly interesting performances of the standard numbers. The vocals aren't very clear and the non-Hogweed version I obtained sounded no different to me than the remaster. It does not have "Supper's Ready" on it, though it does have a "One-Handed Drum Solo" and what is probably the last live recording of "Twilight Alehouse." Certainly not a bad gig, and much better than most from this tour quality-wise. It gets an honorable mention.

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Again, as with the NC tour, I'd like to mention for those of you interested two futher gigs which have the rarely played "Can-Utility and the Coastliners" on them. Both of these gigs came very early in the tour.

19 September 1972, Marquee Club, London UK (Live at the Marquee Club) - Often misdated and labeled with the wrong venue (the most popular being 4 October at Aberdeen, I've also seen it given the correct venue but the wrong date: 10 or 11 November), this is the first recorded gig from this tour. The quality is not good, and all song intros have been removed (to the extent that the beginnings of some of the songs are slightly cut as well), but if you can get one of the better versions it can be listenable.

Set: Watcher of the Skies/Can-Utility and the Coastliners/The Musical Box/The Return of the Giant Hogweed/The Knife

28 September 1972, National Stadium, Dublin UK (Live in Dublin) - This is a landmark gig, as it is the very first gig where Peter wore a costume of any kind--in this case, the ball gown and fox mask. However, though with Lamb tour shows you can hear the audience gasp in reaction to the wonderfully hideous Slipperman costume, you can hear absolutely no reaction to the gown (which was probably worn during the ending of "Musical Box") and I can only take people's word for it that it's there. The sound quality is not so good--there's lots of noise and there's a cut near the end of "Hogweed." However this performance does feature a rare intro story for "Watcher" as well as "Can-Utility," which is one of my favorite early Genesis songs--it confuses and disappoints me that they did not play this song more often (or perhaps they did, so maybe I should say that I wish it had been recorded more often).

Set: Watcher of the Skies/Can-Utility and the Coastliners/Get 'em Out by Friday/The Musical Box/The Return of the Giant Hogweed

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Selling England by the Pound tour

IN REVIEW
Main Picks:
20/10/73 (Rainbow), 20/1/74 (Drury Lane), 21/4/74 (Montreal), 4/5/74 (Academy of Music, NY)
Shows With Rarities/Honorable Mention: 22/11/73 (Felt Forum, NY), 19/12/73 (Roxy Club, LA)

20 October 1973, Rainbow Theatre, London (The Great Lost Live Album, Live Supper, Watchers of the Skies, "Willow Farm" in Rainbow, Over the Rainbow, Great Lost Live Album Recompiled, Others) - As you may be able to guess simply by the number of bootleg titles listed, this is a rather common radio show. In fact some overdubbed and cleaned-up bits from it are also available on the first Archive box set. Oddly, few bootlegs feature all of the broadcast songs, though all of the songs are available on bootleg (my own version, Over the Rainbow, does compile all of the songs, as does Recompiled). Various versions of varying quality are out there--the best quality are probably those taken from very recent re-broadcasts in 2000 and 2005 by WXRT in Chicago, but those broadcasts are missing "Cinema" and "Epping Forest." Oddly, none of the broadcasts ever featured "The Musical Box," though it was almost certainly played that night (they played it every night!)--perhaps they screwed up the song. Another strange omission is the ending section of "Moonlit Knight," which they always played, but which is edited out of this broadcast. The set I have listed below is probably the order in which the broadcast songs were played live, though it is not always the order in which they were broadcast. All in all this is a very typical show from this tour and gives the listener a very good idea of what the Genesis live show was like at this period in the band's history. I have a very nice remaster (done by a musician who is also a fan of Genesis) of all of this material except "Cinema Show," which is always a trouble track for people because for some reason it has a lot more hiss on it than the other broadcast songs. The best version compiling all the songs (including all available from the 2005 broadcast) is Great Lost Live Album Recompiled.

Set: Watcher of the Skies/Dancing With the Moonlit Knight/The Cinema Show/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)/Firth of Fifth/More Fool Me/The Battle of Epping Forest/Supper's Ready

20 January 1974, Drury Lane Theatre Royal, London, UK (Drury Lane, BURP 26) - Few people would probably number this among the top bootlegs of this tour, but it's one of my personal favorites. The main reason, other than the fact that its quality is not too shabby for an audience recording, is that it is a very full set. Apparently Genesis were very anxious to please the crowds at Drury Lane--this was the last of five gigs at this venue--and played a lot of songs. In fact, this set includes every song they played during this tour, excepting only "The Knife." Peter tells the fairly rare tube train story instead of the normal story for "Firth of Fifth," expands upon the intro for "Dancing With the Moonlit Knight" a bit more than usual, and rarest of all the band play "Harold the Barrel." This song was only recorded live on a handful of occasions, and this is probably one of the better ones. I find this a landmark gig from this tour. The BURP remaster, though not spectacular, is probably the best version available.

Set: Watcher of the Skies/Dancing With the Moonlit Knight/The Cinema Show/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)/Firth of Fifth/Harold the Barrel/The Musical Box/Horizons/More Fool Me/The Battle of Epping Forest/Supper's Ready

21 April 1974, University Sports Centre, Montreal, Canada (Magma, Live in Montreal, Horizons, Invisible Life, FAde 4, A Classic Broadcast Revisited (PRRP SAE 04)) - This complete radio show is probably the most famous boot from this tour, and with good reason. Bootlegged in various versions, the best version used to be the FAde release, which also includes a radio interview with Peter Gabriel and the entire opening act. The people of PRRP revisited the recording several years later with improved technology and a different outlook and produced what is probably the definitive version (though it is missing the opening act and the PG interview). Quality is excellent and the show is complete. Nothing particularly rare, though this is probably the best live version of "Horizons" available. Just a classic gig in great quality.

Set: Watcher of the Skies/Dancing With the Moonlit Knight/The Cinema Show/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)/Firth of Fifth/The Musical Box/Horizons/The Battle of Epping Forest/Supper's Ready

4 May 1974, Academy of Music, New York City, New York, USA (Voices in the Academy, Hogweed 7) - The penultimate gig of the tour, one could definitely argue that by now the band knew their material and were playing it well. The quality of this recording is simply astounding for its being an audience recording, especially on the Hogweed version, which is probably one of their best remasters. This gig is interesting not only for its position in the tour but also because it is plagued with technical difficulties which force the band to come up with new ways to entertain the audience (Pete makes some great jokes about the problems and before "Box" the band engage in an impromptu instrumental). The stories are also slightly unique. Unfortunately this recording is partially marred by the fact that both "Cinema Show" and "Epping Forest" were incomplete. However the Hogweeds version has been patched with bits from the last night of the tour, producing an excellent full show.

Set: Watcher of the Skies/One-Handed Drum Solo/Dancing With the Moonlit Knight/The Cinema Show/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)/Firth of Fifth/Improvisation/The Musical Box/Horizons/The Battle of Epping Forest/Supper's Ready

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Though some people seem to have listed it as a pretty regular number for this tour, "The Knife" is not available in recorded form for many gigs at all (though of the two songs "Harold" is admittedly the rarer). The band played it early in the tour in Glasgow, a bit late in the tour for their Italian gigs in early February '74 (those Italian audiences always got the good stuff), and once in America at the Felt Forum in NYC on Thanksgiving. There are really plenty of good audience gigs to be had for this tour--much more than the previous tours, and the best ones I've listed are not all the gems that are out there. (In fact while I'm at it, another great gig is 16 April 1974 at Ford Auditorium in Detroit, known under various names: Dance Right on Through the Night, My Mother Doesn't Eat Shit (this is a reference to Pete's response to a comment made by a drunk fan), and Jerusalem Boogie in Motor City (probably the best version, from the Coaster Factory). It's a good quality gig and has a unique singing of the "Jerusalem Boogie" from Phil and Pete before "Supper.") So it's a combination of this fact and the fact that it has "The Knife" that makes me want to mention this gig:

22 November 1973, Felt Forum, New York City, New York, USA (Romeo Show, A Death in Anytown, BURP 06, HW13, possibly others) - Still kind of early in the tour, this gig was a special one and as I said features a rare recorded performance of "The Knife" on this tour. In fact it boasts a very full set with the also somewhat rare "Horizons," and is missing only "Harold the Barrel" to make it a totally complete representation of everything they played on this tour. The BURP version is probably not the absolute best, but it fixes the error of previous versions which all seem to have the songs in the wrong order. It is also a fairly clear remaster, though it still suffers slightly from the problems of the original audience recording, and the very end of "Epping" is cut, as in other versions. Probably the definitive version of this show is Hogweed's release, their 13th, which patches the small cuts and comes from a low-gen source which is without the tiny break-ups of other versions. I have three different versions of this show now, and Hogweed 13 is by far my favorite; I highly recommend that version to anyone who has not heard this gig. This is one of the more famous and widely distributed audience gigs from this tour, with some nice audience atmosphere (such as the famous cry of "I love you Phil Collins!" after "More Fool Me"). I thought it was worth a mention.

Set: Watcher of the Skies/Dancing With the Moonlit Knight/The Cinema Show/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)/Firth of Fifth/The Musical Box/Horizons/More Fool Me/The Battle of Epping Forest/Supper's Ready/The Knife

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention the famous Roxy gigs of 1973. Genesis closed out their touring in that year with six gigs at the Roxy Club in Los Angeles, two each on 17, 18, and 19 December. These gigs are considered to have been magical and have assumed a mythical status in Genesis live history. A recording is available from each night. The 18th early show was broadcast on AM radio; bootleg versions are not very good. Soundboard recordings of the 19th early show sound better, but all versions seem to have an incomplete "Supper" which cuts off before the end. What is probably the best Roxy recording available comes from a leaked pseudo-soundboard recording from the late show on the 19th--the so-called "Roxy 6":

19 December 1973, Roxy Club, Los Angeles California, USA (SAB 13) - The band have a power failure in "Watcher" and Peter uses helium for a couple of his intros. This one was supposedly recorded by the road crew with microphones placed around the stage. A classic gig.

Set: Watcher of the Skies/Dancing With the Moonlit Knight/The Cinema Show/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)/Firth of Fifth/The Musical Box/More Fool Me/Supper's Ready

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The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway tour

IN REVIEW
Main Picks:
8/12/74 (Providence RI), 10/1/75 (West Palm Beach), 28/1/75 (Phoenix), 10/4/75 (Groningen), 15/4/75 (Empire Pool), 28/4/75 (Manchester, second night)
Shows with Rarities: 1 and 2/5/75 (Birmingham Hippodrome)
Honorable Mention: 24/1/75 (Shrine Auditorium), 3/4/75 (Jahrhunderthalle)

8 December 1974, Palace Theatre, Providence Rhode Island, USA (Rael Imperial Aerosol Kid, Hogweed 14, Others) - A well known audience bootleg that is often mistaken for soundboard due to its very high quality--in fact it is often used as a patch for missing portions of the actual soundboard shows from this tour (below). I have multiple versions, one which is very muddy for some reason and another which is missing portions, but I believe most versions are complete, missing only most of "Ravine" and the very beginning of "Chamber of 32 Doors." The definitive version is certainly the Hogweeds release, which patches the missing bits and also includes the second encore of "Watcher of the Skies." Simon also lists a low-generation version with the second encore, probably the source for the Hogweed remaster. (Perhaps worth it to note that an excellent audience recording also exists of the next night's gig in Boston, remastered by both BURP and the Digital Brothers. It has a couple of cuts which the Digital Brothers patched from Providence--the only thing that perhaps makes the Providence show a bit better is that it has two encores, whereas the Boston show has only one.)

Set: The Lamb (full album)/The Musical Box/Watcher of the Skies

10 January 1975, West Palm Beach Convention Center, Miami Florida, USA (probably) (The Lamb Descends on Waterbury, Supper's Ready With a Little Lost Lamb, Hogweed 5, Burp 09, SAB 06, Digital West Palm Beach, Others) - This is an excellent bootleg produced from some illegally-absconded soundboard tapes, which has long been confused with its sister soundboard show of the following day, and may in fact be from a different venue than the one I have named above (it's possible this gig was actually played at the Gusman Philharmonic). The Waterbury show confuses the issue further by labeling it as a gig in Waterbury, Connecticut. That bootleg also features some interesting studio outtakes from the recording of the album. The Supper's Ready version includes the title song, from the Rainbow Theatre '73 radio gig. At least the Waterbury version includes patched portions from the Providence show, above.

Many remastering groups have taken a shot at this one, as can be seen by the long list of titles above. Once again, Hogweeds has produced an excellent, arguably definitive version of this gig, by filling in the various missing portions with bits from the audience recording of the same show--making it in fact a full document of the performance. An alternate solution was used for the SAB remaster, which plugged the holes with soundboard material from the Shrine Auditorium recording used on the Archive box set. The Digital Brothers version chooses to avoid the question and is a remaster of only the original soundboard recording, cuts and all.

Soundboard gigs are not necessarily perfect but they're much better than most audience gigs--this one is a bit less than perfect, but very good all the same. High quality, complete audience gigs from this tour are hard to find. As I mentioned above, the 11 January gig played at the Lakeland Theatre is also available in soundboard form (see From One Fan to All the Others, The Lamb Lives, SAB 09, or Rael Visits San Diego--another misleading title!!), but a complete version such as Hogweed 5 for the 10 January gig is not available for this one, which is probably the only reason I chose the 10 January gig over the 11 January for this list.

Set: The Lamb (full album)/The Musical Box

28 January 1975, Civic Plaza Assembly Hall, Phoenix Arizona, USA (Live at Phoenix (GASP 009 & 010)) - In 2007 many Farm-sourced Lamb recordings saw the light of day in trading circles, forcing me to expand my best bootlegs list to ridiculous proportions. This particular gig was recorded in two different forms by the road crew, on OAM and straight from the board. The people of GASP distributed both as their ninth and tenth releases. Obviously GASP 010 is the more exciting of the two, as it is a real 'board show, in stereo sound, with only one little cut in the middle of "Waiting Room" due to tape changing. Peter's story for "Box" is also missing, and he has some trouble with his microphone and his lyrics in the latter half of the show, but it's so nice to hear the show in this way--especially Phil--that you won't mind so much.

Set: The Lamb (full album)/The Musical Box

10 April 1975, Martinihal-Centrum, Groningen, Holland (Groningen '75, A Blaze of White Light (PRRPGS09)) - This one is basically the Lamb show I have always wanted. It is from late in the tour, it is nearly complete, and it is soundboard quality, having been "officially" recorded by open-air microphones near the recording desk. Unfortunately it remains imperfect for me, as I find the sound quality good but somewhat lacking in punch and energy. This show was uncovered and released through the exclusive Meeks Genesis group, and then distributed more widely in early 2007. There were also at least three other OAM shows from this tour released in 2007, but this one is probably the most complete at least in regard to the main show. Memorable things about the show: Peter begins singing the first line of the first song and apparently falls flat on his face on stage! He recovers quickly and keeps right on singing. The beginning piano intro from Tony is unfortunately missing, and we only hear a little bit of the story for "Musical Box" before the recording cuts off, but pretty much the whole regular show is there. The PRRP remaster improves on the original by patching in the piano intro and fixing one or two other tiny gaps, and doing some small clean-up to the overall sound.

Set: The Lamb (full album)

15 April 1975, Empire Pool, London (The Light Goes Down on Empire, Live in London 1975, Lamb Stew, The Waiting Room, Live in London 1974 (!!), Awed Man Out, A Perfect Vintage, Perfect Wembley, Empire Pooled, We Are the Lami of the Pool, AV 01, etc.) - This one simply had to be mentioned, seeing as how it has got to be one of the most bootlegged shows ever. Not only do various versions of various different broadcasts of the show exist, but various shows also include tiny bits of the radio tracks mixed in with tracks from other gigs--and there is a great, full audience recording available as well. It's somewhat difficult to find radio versions with all the broadcast songs--a particular rarity is "Grand Parade." One release which was pre-radio was A Perfect Vintage, but it did not include all songs broadcast, and while Light Goes Down does include all broadcast songs, it has sound problems. The best version out there is probably the AV version, which compiles the best possible pre-FM versions of all extant songs; though my own compilation, Empire Pooled, is also complete and has been nicely cleaned up and dehissed by David Kempler of the Coaster Factory.

It's important to note at this point that the radio broadcast, even in its most complete form, was never the whole show. Nowhere near, in fact! This is very unfortunate, because from what you can hear in radio quality, this was a fantastic gig. "Waiting Room" and "Back in NYC" are particular gems. In my opinion, the band didn't really know how to play their album live until around this point in the tour--which is a real shame, as most soundboard and radio shows come from earlier in the tour. For instance, the Shrine Auditorium gig of 24 January 1975, broadcast in very incomplete form by the KBFH, released in almost complete form by the band's management on the first Archive box set, and offered in even more complete form by Wolfgang's Vault. A nice gig, but it lacks all the power and improvisational nuances of this show.

Unfortunately it doesn't look like a full soundboard recording will surface any time soon; however, we do have the next best thing: a fully complete and exceptionally good quality audience recording. Even if you already have the partial radio broadcast, I urge you to enjoy the whole experience of this landmark gig by checking out the audience, available under the name We Are the Lamia of the Pool or The Audience at Empire Pool. Though the quality shift away from soundboard may take some getting used to, the Lamb doesn't get much better than this.

Set (broadcasted tracks only--a full audience gig does exist): Cuckoo Cocoon/In the Cage/Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging/The Story of Rael/Back in NYC/Hairless Heart/Counting Out Time/The Carpet Crawlers/Lilywhite Lilith/The Waiting Room/Anyway/Silent Sorrow in Empty Boats (partial?)/The Colony of Slippermen (Arrival section only)/Ravine/The Light Dies Down on Broadway/Riding the Scree/Watcher of the Skies

28 April 1975, Palace Theatre, Manchester, UK (Hogweed 8) - As I suggested in the previous entry, I have yet to find what I feel is the most perfect, full gig from this tour (though the Groningen show comes darn close). I prefer later in the tour, and of course I prefer to have the full show. This gig--at least the Hogweed version--comes somewhat near what I'm looking for. Unfortunately the source is an audience recording, though its quality could be worse. On the Hogweed version, "It" and "Box" have been replaced by versions from the gig of the previous night, played at the same venue--unfortunately at the end of the show the recorder put in a new tape which apparently had inherent speed problems, and these tracks needed to be replaced because of their bad quality. The second encore has not been replaced, since the first night in Manchester did not have a second encore to patch it from, so on this second night's version of "Watcher" you can hear the speed problem of the tape--it sounds pretty awful. The second encore mars what might otherwise be a nearly perfect show.

I love these gigs later in the tour, because the band was so comfortable with this material at this point that they felt able to stretch out and experiment more--the best example of this being "Waiting Room" (AKA "Evil Jam"). Other highlights are the "Arrival" section of "Slippermen" and "Fly on a Windshield." Also Peter at this time was telling the Rael story in the first person, and had greatly expanded upon it and added many funny bits. This show is a very good example of a very good, accomplished and polished Lamb gig.

Set: The Lamb (full album)/The Musical Box/Watcher of the Skies

In passing I'd like to mention that there is at least one rare number from the Lamb tour, and that is "The Knife." There are only very few occasions on which it was played, as a second encore. Probably the two best versions are documented on Hogweed 11 and FAde 1, from 1 and 2 May 1975 (though there is some confusion as to which show comes from which date), both played at the Hippodrome in Birmingham UK. Unfortunately Hogweed 11 is probably one of their worst remasters, as it comes from a recording with irreparable pitch drops, noise and an annoying audience, and during the performance Peter forgets the whole second verse of "In the Cage." The original recording also had cuts, which the Hogweeds people had to patch with bits from a different gig. FAde 1 is probably the better of the two, though its sound is not as exceptional as it could be. The 1 May show (which is generally what HW11 is regarded as being) has also been remastered as BURP 05, though Simon does not seem to think it has any improvement in sound quality. The only other recorded Lamb gig with "Knife" as an encore seems to be the show of 12 April in Brussels, Belgium--my version of this show sounds rather off and has several cuts.

There are also some more trivial rarities from this tour, such as one occasion on which a drum solo was played before the encore, and one on which there was a power failure during "Waiting Room"--these can be found by taking a leisurely trip through my longer lists (longer than this?! you may well ask--yes, they are). If we really want to keep it to "best" bootlegs, they're not worth mentioning here.

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Now for the honorable mentions!

24 January 1975, Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles California, USA (As Through Emerald City, Twilight Alehouse, BURP 19, Live in Los Angeles (TM), Revelation Without a Cause, Wolfgang's Shrine) - I couldn't let this tour pass without bringing up the Shrine show, which was of course the source for the first two discs of the first Genesis Archive box set. The soundboard used there was majorly overhauled and overdubbed by the band twenty years after the fact. The last story section was removed altogether, and the last number and encores were not included, apparently because they were not recorded. Old and very incomplete KBFH broadcasts from this date (available in various versions represented by most of the titles listed above) include these very same supposedly unrecorded songs. The nearly-full soundboard recording was offered in 2007 by the web site Wolfgang's Vault, and immediately pulled off and bootlegged. This is the full show, missing a bit of the introductory story, a bit of the last story section--and that's it. The reason this show gets an honorable mention and is not in the main list is due partly to its questionable legality as a tradeable show and also to the fact that it is just not the best performance of the show available--this one is fairly early in the tour and has its share of screw-ups.

Set: The Lamb (full album)/The Musical Box/Watcher of the Skies

3 April 1975, Jahrhunderthalle, Frankfurt, Germany (Revelations on Broadway (Highland), There's Always Magic in the Air (PRRPGS01)) - There are several good audience recordings from Germany on this tour; this is one of the better-sounding and more complete. There was originally a cut in "32 Doors" that is patched in the PRRP version, which also adds a bonus interview track to the end. Enjoyable.

Set: The Lamb (full album)/The Musical Box

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A Trick of the Tail tour

IN REVIEW
Main Picks:
27-28/3/76 (Kitchener/Buffalo), 13/4/76 (Syria Mosque), 1/5/76 (Starlight Bowl, Burbank), 10/6/76 (Hammersmith Odeon)
Honorable Mentions: 29/4/76 (Berkeley), 7/5/76 (Will Rogers Auditorium, Fort Worth)

27 and 28 April 1976, Kitchener Auditorium, Canada and Century Theater, Buffalo New York, USA (BURP 23, GRU 05, Others) - The year 2004 brought Genesis fans some great soundboard shows taken from the mysterious realms of the hidden show locker and spread among ordinary traders--these two very early Trick tour shows, from a part of the tour never before documented in generally-traded recordings, are among those special shows. They come from consecutive nights recorded through a backstage microphone and feature a rather rusty, new formation of Genesis still feeling each other out and still getting on their touring feet. The unfortunate consequence of this tentative uncertainty is that "Supper's Ready," a regular in almost every other show of the tour, is not present here. Other than the fact that the second night's recording is without the encore, these shows are pretty identical, right down to the cuts (which is why I'm listing them here as one entry). The tape used to document them runs out near the end of "White Mountain" and in between "Squonk" and IKWIL, causing some pretty inconsequential cuts. Though missing "Supper," these recordings certainly catch Genesis at a very interesting and candid moment in their career, and are of pretty great quality--worth a listen. Multiple versions are available for both shows--I of course recommend the remastered versions with the names listed above.

Set: Dance on a Volcano/The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway/Fly on a Windshield - Broadway Melody of 1974/The Carpet Crawlers/The Cinema Show/Robbery, Assault and Battery/White Mountain/Firth of Fifth/Entangled/Squonk/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)/Los Endos/It - Watcher of the Skies

13 April 1976, Syria Mosque, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, USA (A Trick of the Stage, A Trick of the Show, FAde 2, SAB 04, Others) - If you ask a fan what the best gig is from this tour, probably 9 out of 10 (or possibly even all 10 of them) will say this show. The FAde release is slightly more complete than the others as it includes the full show plus the radio announcements at the end, but I understand that the SAB version sounds better (I have the FAde version only). The quality is fantastic. After those initial shows missing "Supper," the set for this tour was always the same, with no variation other than the fact that some boots are incomplete and possibly on some nights the band did not play the encore number ("It/Watcher"). This tour is special for various reasons, the obvious being that Phil is at the mic for the first time in his career, and that Bill Bruford plays drums for Genesis (the only tour on which he did this). "Volcano" is played for the only time in complete form, as is "Los Endos," Phil sings "White Mountain," and this is one of the only tours in which the Phil-era band played "Watcher of the Skies" (albeit only bits of it instrumentally). A very atmospheric tour, looking back to the past more than showing where the band eventually ended up. Another notable fact unique to this performance is that Phil greets the audience but gets the venue wrong ("Hello Baltimore!"). Also to my ears it sounded as if there is a patch to a different source during "Supper's Ready," but as I couldn't reach any notes on the production of the show I can't be sure. Classic, definitive show.

Set: Dance on a Volcano/The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway/Fly on a Windshield - Broadway Melody of 1974/The Carpet Crawlers/The Cinema Show/Robbery, Assault and Battery/White Mountain/Firth of Fifth/Entangled/Squonk/Supper's Ready/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)/Los Endos/It - Watcher of the Skies

1 May 1976, Starlight Bowl, Burbank California, USA (Live in Burbank) - As I couldn't let this tour go without mentioning at least one other show, I have chosen this one. This is one of my favorites from my collection of audience gigs from this tour. In fact, almost all of the audience gigs I have from '76 are in pretty good quality. This one is exceptionally good, though, and is probably one of the most complete. It features all of the intros and all of the songs, except for one cut which removes part of the intro for, and the first few lines of, "Firth of Fifth." It includes the encore number and even the theatre's canned exit music at the end. A very enjoyable show. It's a tad early in the tour (about a month into it, actually), but not so early that the band are unfamiliar with their songs.

As a final, unfortunate note, I've been told by someone that this show is too fast. I've never noticed it. I'm sure if I listen to it again I'll hear it because I've had it told to me, so I'm keeping away from it. I still think it's a great show...

Set: Dance on a Volcano/The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway/Fly on a Windshield - Broadway Melody of 1974/The Carpet Crawlers/The Cinema Show/Robbery, Assault and Battery/White Mountain/Firth of Fifth/Entangled/Squonk/Supper's Ready/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)/Los Endos/It - Watcher of the Skies

10 June 1976, Hammersmith Odeon, London, UK (Live at London (GASP 14) ) - The 10/6 performance has long been available in very partial form as a KBFH broadcast--in that form it was just too incomplete to merit inclusion on this list. However in early 2008 the entire soundboard recording was made available as the fourteenth GASP release. This exciting recording finally provides us with a rival for Syria Mosque as the best show in the tour. There are two small cuts to Mike's intros, and "Volcano" starts a few notes in, but otherwise this is a complete and excellent-sounding show.

Set: Dance on a Volcano/The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway/Fly on a Windshield - Broadway Melody of 1974/The Carpet Crawlers/The Cinema Show/Robbery, Assault and Battery/White Mountain/Firth of Fifth/Entangled/Squonk/Supper's Ready/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)/Los Endos/It - Watcher of the Skies

Admittedly I seem to be on my own in my support of the Starlight Bowl show, so here are some other good audience shows from the tour:

29 April 1976, Community Center, Berkeley California, USA (Dance on a Berkeley (Highland), Robbery, Assault & Berkeley (PRRP 07)) - A nice recording; my version from Highland has some cuts, most notably in "Endos." The PRRP version patches in the missing part of "Endos" from an alternate source; I was a little disappointed with the remastering, though it is probably the best version available.

7 May 1976, Will Rogers Auditorium, Fort Worth Texas, USA (Los Endos in Fort Worth, BURP 14, The Tail of a Tour (PRRPGS04)) - The last US gig of the '76 tour, this is a particularly great audience recording, with no cuts and with the encore. Definitely among the best this tour has to offer. My only problem with the show is with one audience member who has a creepy laugh.

It's worth it to note that another, nearly full radio show from this tour does exist: 15 April 1976 at Cleveland Music Hall (two other radio shows also exist from near the end of the tour, but the broadcasts document only snippets from each show and thus I do not include them among my picks). However unlike the Burbank show and the Syria Mosque show, it is missing "Squonk" and "Entangled," has static during "Supper," and also features a couple of notable screw-ups by the band and the road crew which, though interesting for their uniqueness, are not the kind of things wanted in a "best bootleg" pick.

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Wind and Wuthering tour

IN REVIEW
Main Picks:
3/1/77 (Rainbow), 20/1/77 (Southampton), 25/3/77 (San Francisco), 21/5/77 (Sao Paulo), 24/6/77 (Earls Court), 2/7/77 (Zurich)
Honorable Mention: Various good audience recordings mentioned briefly below
Shows with Rarities: 1/1/77 (Rainbow)

3 January 1977, Rainbow Theatre, London UK (Live in London (TM Productions)) - The 1977 tour is quickly becoming the most well-represented when it comes to leaked soundboard material. This gig, the last of the first three gigs of the tour all held at the Rainbow, is represented by a complete soundboard recording of very good quality; though the performance itself is not up to the par of later shows, it is interesting for a rather unique set order.

Set: Eleventh Earl of Mar/The Carpet Crawlers/Robbery, Assault and Battery/Your Own Special Way/Squonk/One For the Vine/Firth of Fifth/All in a Mouse's Night/Supper's Ready/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)/Dance on a Volcano - Drum Duet - Los Endos/The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - The Musical Box (closing section)

20 January 1977, Gaumont Theatre, Southampton UK (Southampton '77, In a House of Dreams (I4Detail 04), In Our Own Special Way (Coaster Factory), BURP 10) - A complete soundboard show leaked around the end of 2002, this one surely belongs at the top of anyone's list for best shows from this year. The quality is excellent, especially on the remastered, dehissed versions (I have the Coaster Factory release). The original show suffered from odd breaks between some of the songs, as well as a bit of hissiness. I am told by those who know those in the know that the original tapes did not have hiss, but the ones that leaked did. The recent BURP release strangely enough also includes a Roxy show from '73 and some BBC Studios material and weighs in at 4 discs. Features the somewhat rare "All in a Mouse's Night," with a clever intro by Phil.

Set: Squonk/One For the Vine/Robbery, Assault and Battery/Your Own Special Way/Firth of Fifth/'...in that quiet earth.' - Afterglow/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)/Eleventh Earl of Mar/The Carpet Crawlers/All in a Mouse's Night/Supper's Ready/Dance on a Volcano - Drum Duet - Los Endos/The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - The Musical Box (closing section)

25 March 1977, Winterland Arena, San Francisco California, USA (Winds on the Pier (PRRPGS11)) - Another complete soundboard show from this tour, this is a pretty great performance. The quality is pretty fantastic. The recording has a few gaps and the slightest bit of the openings of "Squonk," "Crawlers" and "Lamb" are clipped. The PRRP version (which I do not have) fixes some of the cuts using the audience recording and has been speed-corrected.

Set: Squonk/One For the Vine/Robbery, Assault and Battery/Your Own Special Way/Firth of Fifth/The Carpet Crawlers/'...in that quiet earth.' - Afterglow/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)/Eleventh Earl of Mar/Supper's Ready/Dance on a Volcano - Drum Duet - Los Endos/The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - The Musical Box (closing section)

21 May 1977, Ibirapuera Stadium, Sao Paulo, Brazil (Sao Paulo '77, BURP 18, AV05, Live in Sao Paulo (TM Productions)) - This show, like Southampton and Winterland, above, was a long-hidden full soundboard show that leaked to the public around the beginning of 2004 (and which may be the second of two shows played that day). It quickly received a remaster from Mark Bataitis and was released as his 18th BURP show. The sound is remarkable--clear, fantastic, with no cuts and no problems that I can hear. Just sit back and listen to one of the best '77 shows out there. This also happens to be one of the only extant recordings of Genesis' infamous Brazilian tour leg, when they started playing the rare "Inside and Out." Phil speaks Portugese.

Set: Squonk/One For the Vine/Robbery, Assault and Battery/Inside and Out/Firth of Fifth/The Carpet Crawlers/'...in that quiet earth.' - Afterglow/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)/Eleventh Earl of Mar/Supper's Ready/Dance on a Volcano - Drum Duet - Los Endos/The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - The Musical Box (closing section)

24 June 1977, Earls Court Arena, London, UK (Living Revelations (incomplete version), Before Riches, Simply Follow (Highland version), Robbery, Assault & Battery, BURP 07, SAB 01) - Like the Chicago radio show of 16 February, this was the middle gig of three gigs at this venue, it was broadcast over the radio, and has been released under various bootleg titles (the best is probably the SAB, but make sure to get the corrected v2). I have the SAB remaster and Before Riches--I also have one by the name of Living Revelations, but it is severely incomplete and not as good quality. Before Riches is the whole show (with just some of the audience noise between songs edited out) and sounds quite good. It is just a tad rough around the edges, but the only lapse from very good quality occurs during "Supper's Ready," which is unfortunately scattered with static noise. The SAB version does not have the static and overall sounds better, but other soundboards from this tour are probably better-sounding. This features one of the only b-sides Genesis ever performed live, "Inside and Out" (prefaced by a humorous comment from Phil about the EP from which it came "racing up the Indonesian charts")--they only played it for the final months of this tour. Also it features a quite rare Phil-era singing of "The Knife," one of the reasons it remains on the best list.

Set: Squonk/One For the Vine/Robbery, Assault and Battery/Inside and Out/Firth of Fifth/The Carpet Crawlers/'...in that quiet earth.' - Afterglow/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)/Eleventh Earl of Mar/Supper's Ready/Dance on a Volcano - Drum Duet - Los Endos/The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - The Musical Box (closing section)/The Knife

2 July 1977, Hallenstadion, Zurich, Switzerland (Eleventh Earl of Zurich (GRU02), Hallenstadion Zurich (Digital Brothers Production), Zurich Revisited (Digital Bros.)) - Yet another long-hidden soundboard show leaked in 2004--the '77 tour seems to be a favorite for these kind of shows. This has the distinction of being the second to last gig of the tour, which for some reason is not mentioned on any gig guides I can find. However, here it is. The only real problem with the recording is that "Carpet Crawlers" is severely cut, with only a bit more than the last verse present. There are several versions circulating, but people seem to agree that the Digital Brothers remaster is the best one. An interesting alternative to just the soundboard recording is Zurich Revisited, another Digital Brothers production which combines the audience and soundboard recordings to give some much-needed audience atmosphere (not to mention a complete "Carpet Crawlers"!). Like several other shows listed for this tour, this show also features the rare (honestly!) "Inside and Out."

Set: Squonk/One For the Vine/Robbery, Assault and Battery/Inside and Out/Firth of Fifth/The Carpet Crawlers/'...in that quiet earth.' - Afterglow/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)/Eleventh Earl of Mar/Supper's Ready/Dance on a Volcano - Drum Duet - Los Endos/The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - The Musical Box (closing section)

You'll see that I've only chosen radio/soundboard shows from this tour--there were a lot there, and it was hard to eliminate any of the complete soundboard shows from the list. I can't think of any audience recordings from this tour that are as good in quality as these, and all of these shows are complete and give an indication of the different changes the set went through on this tour. In fact, there are several more radio/soundboard shows available from this tour (2 January, 6 February, 16 February, 15 May, 13 June), but they are either incomplete or, in the case of the 16 February Chicago show and the 15 May Brazil show, of a quality that does not match up with other available soundboard shows. These guys I've chosen are the best out there.

However if you really want to hear that audience flavor, here are some good recordings: 12/2/77 Detroit (get the version called Happy Birthday Steve), 24/2/77 Boston (A Layer of Gold), 13/3/77 Atlanta (Second Nature), 24&27/3/77 California (BURP 33, a combination of two very very good audience recordings), 2/4/77 Vancouver (Just a Pool of Tears, but be careful as another boot from a different tour has this same name!), 4/6/77 Stockholm (my copy from a first-gen source sounds pretty great).

As for rarities on this tour, there are "All in a Mouse's Night," "Your Own Special Way," and "Inside and Out," all of which are documented on the recordings chosen above. One odd track which is not is the famous "Lilywhite Lilith/The Waiting Room/Wot Gorilla?" medley, because it was only played once: 1/1/77 at Rainbow Theatre, the first night of the tour. The only problem is that the recording from that night is really not very good. But, if you want rarities, that's about as rare as it gets.

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...And Then There Were Three... tour

IN REVIEW
Main Picks:
9/4/78 (Bloomington), 3/6/78 (Dijon, France), 13/10/78 (Uptown Theatre), 28/11/78 (Kosei Nenkin Hall, Tokyo)
Shows with Rarities:
7-8/6/78 (Sweden/Norway), 14/6/78 (Dortmund, Germany) (also mentioned: 28/8/78 (Vienna), 29/7/78 (NYC))
Honorable Mention: 24/6/78 (Knebworth Festival '78)

9 April 1978, Assembly Hall, Indiana University, Bloomington Indiana, USA (Down in Bloomington, Blooming in Bloomington, SAB 02) - Not that many people seem to mention or care about this particular bootleg too much, possibly because it does not document the whole performance (all of the stuff in between songs, the very beginning of "Eleventh Earl of Mar," the improvisational ending of "Say It's Alright Joe," "One For the Vine," and the ending numbers of the show--"Volcano/Drums/Endos" and IKWIL--are all missing). There is also some oddly fluctuating hiss (some tracks have next to no hiss, others do--this is explained on Simon's site). However this is a soundboard show of very good quality and I have a soft spot for it. It happens to feature "Down and Out," which I personally think is a great Genesis song and which was not performed in any other tour (and was only played in some of the gigs from this year). This is the only Phil-era tour where the band attempted "Fountain of Salmacis," which is also present on this recording.

The first two titles I have listed above are probably the very same show. Halley mentions that her show was labeled with a venue of Assembly Hall, University of Indiana, which would actually put the gig at 9 April, not 3 April (the date it was traditionally given). Recently people seem to have decided this makes sense and have changed the date to 9 April. For some reason, both Halley and Simon's track lists for this show list FYFM as being 2:21 long, which seems much too short for the whole song to be there. My version of this show has FYFM clocking in at 3:35, and it is the complete song (all of my other track times match theirs). I believe this is just a transcribing error on their part, since the more recent remaster SAB02 lists the song with the correct time. SAB02 is probably the best version out there; I have that one as well, and it probably is slightly cleaner, plus I heard Phil saying "Good evening, Bloomington!" on the recording. I didn't notice on my original version, but probably all versions of this recording have a mix problem where the lead guitar is very low (see the opening riff in "Down and Out" and the solo at the end of "Lady Lies"). Still a very clean show.

Set (only songs present on bootleg): Eleventh Earl of Mar/In the Cage/Burning Rope/Ripples/Deep in the Motherlode/The Fountain of Salmacis/Down and Out/Squonk/Say It's Alright Joe/The Lady Lies/The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - '...in that quiet earth.' - Afterglow/Follow You Follow Me

3 June 1978, Palais des Sports, Dijon, France (Dijon '78, AV06, The Digital Brothers of Dijon, SAB 14) - A full soundboard show leaked to the trading public around 2004, this is a real gem in the catalogue of '78 tour shows. Not only is it great quality, it also features the very rare "Ballad of Big." Several versions are available, one the raw transfer of the first generation recording, another a slightly cleaner third generation remaster. The first gen version has a few moments of silence between some songs, and the opening of the first number is clipped. There is a real lack of soundboard recordings from the '78 tour, so this is definitely a must-have.

Set: Eleventh Earl of Mar/In the Cage/Burning Rope/Ripples/Deep in the Motherlode/The Fountain of Salmacis/Ballad of Big/One for the Vine/Squonk/Say It's Alright Joe/The Lady Lies/The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - '...in that quiet earth.' - Afterglow/Follow You Follow Me/Dance on a Volcano - Drum Duet - Los Endos/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)

13 October 1978, Uptown Theatre, Chicago Illinois, USA (Follow You Follow Me, From the Mouth of the Monster, Master of Chicago Show (Highland version) , Live in the USA, BURP 03, SAB 05 v2) - Coming towards the end of the tour, this is a very over-bootlegged radio show. My original version was definitely not the best available, as the quality--while still very good--was a tad lacking in depth and power. Also it originally came from the bootleg Live in the USA, which is an awful version of the broadcast because the tracks have been re-ordered seemingly at random and with no consideration for the flow of the medleys or the set in general. I re-tracked the show to reflect the actual set order. The Highland release and the BURP remaster are good, but the definitive version must be SAB 05 v2. It includes an interview with Phil just after the show and sounds truly excellent. This recording is not only a great quality full show, but it also features the only recording of the strange live medley "Dancing With the Moonlit Knight/The Musical Box (closing section)," including almost the whole "Moonlit Knight" and more of "Box" than was usually played in other medleys.

Set: Eleventh Earl of Mar/In the Cage/Burning Rope/Dancing With the Moonlit Knight - The Musical Box (closing section)/Ripples/Deep in the Motherlode/One For the Vine/Squonk/Say It's Alright Joe/The Lady Lies/The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - '...in that quiet earth.' - Afterglow/Follow You Follow Me/Dance on a Volcano - Drum Duet - Los Endos/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)

28 November 1978, Kosei Nenkin Hall, Tokyo Japan (Izakaya (Highland)) - The ATTW3 tour was a big world tour for Genesis and included their first trip to Japan. This was where an audience member captured this particularly clean and good quality recording--the rest of the audience was surprisingly quiet and "respectful," so there's very little audience noise. The full show is documented, except for two cuts: the end of "Squonk" is missing a bit and IKWIL fades out before actually ending. Phil covered his mic during part of the final number so that only the back-up vocals are audible. This is a fairly famous bootleg.

Set: Eleventh Earl of Mar/In the Cage/Burning Rope/Ripples/Deep in the Motherlode/One For the Vine/Squonk/Say It's Alright Joe/The Lady Lies/The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - '...in that quiet earth.' - Afterglow/Follow You Follow Me/Dance on a Volcano - Drum Duet - Los Endos/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)

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As a final note: Izakaya, while a great audience recording in quality, does not document a really rousing performance. The band is a tad static, possibly due to lack of audience participation (Japanese fans of Queen were not so quiet, let me tell you!). Some very good quality and more romping performances from their European gigs in early to mid-June are also available and include rare numbers like "Down and Out" and "Ballad of Big" (though the Dijon '78 show listed above probably already has the best quality version of that song around). I particularly recommend the following shows:

7 June 1978, Scandinavium, Gothenburg Sweden (Once in a While (Highland)) - A pretty darn good audience recording (not perfect, of course) that is almost totally complete. "Fountain" and "Lady" have no intros, probably due to cuts, and "Down and Out" has a small break near its beginning which I have repaired rather seamlessly on my version. There is no encore--possibly it was not played that night.

Set: Eleventh Earl of Mar/In the Cage/Burning Rope/Ripples/Deep in the Motherlode/The Fountain of Salmacis/Down and Out/One For the Vine/Squonk/Say It's Alright Joe/The Lady Lies/The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - '...in that quiet earth.' - Afterglow/Follow You Follow Me/Dance on a Volcano - Drum Duet - Los Endos

8 June 1978, Ekeberghallen, Oslo Norway (Oslo '78) - Very similar to the previous entry, a nearly complete, good quality audience recording. In fact it comes from the very next day. This one has the encore and instead of "Down and Out" has the possibly even rarer "Ballad of Big." The sound is somewhat tinny but is very clear. The only thing that seems to be missing is the intro for "Lady Lies."

Set: Eleventh Earl of Mar/In the Cage/Burning Rope/Ripples/Deep in the Motherlode/The Fountain of Salmacis/Ballad of Big/One For the Vine/Squonk/Say It's Alright Joe/The Lady Lies/The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - '...in that quiet earth.' - Afterglow/Follow You Follow Me/Dance on a Volcano - Drum Duet - Los Endos/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)

A possible substitute for the above would be One For the Show, a pretty great bootleg of the gig of 28 August 1978 at the Stadthalle in Vienna. The quality is very similar to Oslo and the set is identical, except that Vienna has the "Lady Lies" intro and also a very rare performance (for this tour, anyway) of the "Lamb/Box" encore instead of IKWIL--unfortunately the encore has a large cut in the middle of it, but this is the only cut in the show.

14 June 1978, Westfalenhalle, Dortmund Germany (Apocalypse in Dortmund) - A full, good quality audience gig which happens to feature what may be the only recorded live performance of bits of "Supper's Ready" on this tour--the band start at the "Apocalypse" section, hence the name of the bootleg. Also has "Down and Out." The audience is really into it but manage to not get in the way. Apart from what is probably an error at the end of "Squonk," the show has no particular problems and is complete.

Set: Eleventh Earl of Mar/In the Cage/Burning Rope/Ripples/Deep in the Motherlode/The Fountain of Salmacis/Down and Out/One For the Vine/Squonk/Say It's Alright Joe/The Lady Lies/The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - '...in that quiet earth.' - Afterglow/Follow You Follow Me/Dance on a Volcano - Drum Duet - Los Endos/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)/Supper's Ready (from Apocalypse in 9/8 on)

Another kind of rarity occurs on the pretty good recording of 29 July at MSG in New York, where Peter Gabriel joins the band for the encore!

I realize I have now already mentioned far too many gigs from this tour, but there were some good recordings and some rare numbers and I wanted to mention them. There are two other radio shows from this tour as well (22 October and 24 June), but they are both incomplete to varying degrees. The best one that I have not mentioned is the radio broadcast of the Knebworth Festival performance of 24 June 1978. It has been bootlegged in numerous forms, the best and most complete version probably being the pre-FM BBC Rock Hour Special release. A more complete audience recording is also available, but Knebworth being a festival gig the band had to shorten their set, so all versions are missing a few songs that were normally played.

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Duke tour

IN REVIEW
Main Picks:
22/3/80 (Friars Club), 17/4/80 (Sheffield), 7/5/80 (Lyceum), 19/6/80 (Montreal), 29/6/80 (MSG)

22 March 1980, Friars Club, Aylesbury UK (Live at the Friars Club, Back in Aylesbury (Coaster Factory version)) - I've included this gig because I think it's a special moment for the band. They'd played a lot of gigs at the Friars Club early in their career, and built a lot of their original following on those shows. Their last tour was a big international thing that took in a lot of larger venues and largely ignored the UK. The beginning of the Duke tour was, then, a welcome homecoming, as the band did a lot of shows in smaller clubs in their birth country and specifically visited this club which they had not played since 1972. This was very early in the tour and features an interesting set with rare performances of "Back in NYC" and "The Knife." Remastered by the Coaster Factory, the audience recording of the show is pretty good quality and has no cuts except one small one towards the end of "Duke's End." It even includes the presentation by the Friars Club of a "Talent Winners Cup" to Genesis--partly in memory of a similar cup given to them by Genesis many years earlier. Sure, radio and soundboard shows sound great, but sometimes the atmosphere and energy of an audience show in a tiny venue like this is not to be missed.

Set: Back in NYC/Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (intro)/The Carpet Crawlers/The Lady Lies/One For the Vine/The Duke Suite (prefaced by "The Story of Albert"): Behind the Lines - Duchess - Guide Vocal - Turn It on Again - Duke's Travels - Duke's End/Say It's Alright Joe/In the Cage - The Colony of Slippermen (The Raven) - Afterglow/Follow You Follow Me/Dance on a Volcano - Drum Duet - Los Endos/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)/The Knife

17 April 1980, City Hall, Sheffield UK (Steeltown Revelation, Steeltown Remastered, Steel City, The Hallam Tapes (Highland version), Albert in Wonderland (I4Detail 01), BURP 01, SAB 12, Live in Sheffield (TM Productions)) - A radio show known under many names and many versions--the best one probably being the TM Productions version. My original Highland version had various problems including noise, the ghost of another recording, and at least one gap--all of which are gone in the TM version. The more famous Lyceum show (see next entry) is probably better quality, but it's much harder to get the Lyceum show with Phil's intros since that radio broadcast omitted them--Sheffield has all the intros, except possibly the one for "Ripples." A radio show is a radio show, and this one is a good one.

Set: Deep in the Motherlode/Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (intro)/The Carpet Crawlers/Squonk/One For the Vine/The Duke Suite (prefaced by "The Story of Albert"): Behind the Lines - Duchess - Guide Vocal - Turn It on Again - Duke's Travels - Duke's End/Say It's Alright Joe/The Lady Lies/Ripples/In the Cage - The Colony of Slippermen (The Raven) - Afterglow/Follow You Follow Me/Dance on a Volcano - Drum Duet - Los Endos/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)

7 May 1980, Lyceum Ballroom, London UK (Revelatory Genesis, Musica, Duke Side Live, Duke's Source Live, Musicissima, Another Musica (my version), BURP 15, As Good as Gold (POT 1), many others) - Many might call this the ULTIMATE GENESIS BOOTLEG. I am not one of those people, but I do believe it's pretty darn good. This one has had many versions of rather varying quality and completeness. Revelatory is the name of the original LP bootleg. Both names with Duke in them are Highland versions. Musica is the most famous of the older versions. My version used a multi-generation tape of Musica and an incomplete version of the show broadcast on "The Source," plus the song "Say It's Alright Joe" from an mp3 to create the most complete and best-sounding version I could put together. Most broadcasts do not include "Say It's Alright Joe," and apparently the song "One For the Vine" is unerringly always from the 6 May performance at the same venue (the theory is that the 7 May "Vine" was botched by the band). There is also a version called Musicissima which adds in stories and songs from other performances.

The ideal version of this gig is probably As Good as Gold, which combines the full pre-FM broadcast with the actual intros from the gig, taken from a professional video recording of the show. Unfortunately the sound is very different on the video, so the splices are quite obvious, but for me having the full show outweighs any problem I might have with this. The broadcast portion of the show sounds as good as I have ever heard it. Includes the rarely played "Knife" encore.

Set: Deep in the Motherlode/Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (intro)/The Carpet Crawlers/Squonk/One For the Vine (from 6 May)/The Duke Suite: Behind the Lines - Duchess - Guide Vocal - Turn It on Again - Duke's Travels - Duke's End/Say It's Alright Joe/The Lady Lies/Ripples/In the Cage - The Colony of Slippermen (The Raven) - Afterglow/Follow You Follow Me/Dance on a Volcano - Drum Duet - Los Endos/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)/The Knife

19 June 1980, Forum, Montreal, Canada (Montreal '80 (first night), Duke of the Forum (GRU 01), Albert a la Carte (PRRP SAE 01)) - Long hidden, this full soundboard recording is now available to traders who can find it, and no collection of best Genesis shows would be complete without it. The PRRP version sounds great, and also includes a radio interview with Tony Banks held on the same day as the gig. The sound is quite nice. You can hear Phil try desperately to break down the language barrier between himself and the French-speaking audience.

Set: Deep in the Motherlode/Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (intro)/Squonk/One For the Vine/The Duke Suite (prefaced by "The Story of Albert"): Behind the Lines - Duchess - Guide Vocal - Turn It on Again - Duke's Travels - Duke's End/The Lady Lies/Ripples/ Misunderstanding/In the Cage - The Colony of Slippermen (The Raven) - Afterglow/Follow You Follow Me/Dance on a Volcano - Drum Duet - Los Endos/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)

29 June 1980, Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York (MSG '80, Madison Square Garden, Back in the Garden, In-A-Gadda-Da-V'Albert (Coaster Factory remaster)) - A fairly good audience recording exists of this, the penultimate gig of the Duke tour. It has now been remastered by the Coaster Factory and the result sounds excellent. This is a great gig, as for the very end of the tour Genesis brought "Back in NYC" back into the set--a song they had played for only a few gigs at the beginning of the tour. Now it appeared as an encore rather than a set-opener, and was a particularly appropriate number to play at this venue. I called my original version of this gig "MSG '80," but its track times match a show that Halley has called "Back in the Garden." Simon has a version which he calls "Madison Square Garden," but his thumbnail album cover is labeled "Back in the Garden." However his track times do not match the show that Halley and I have. My original version of this show had stutters on the first disc. That disc was replaced with a stutterless one that had its own problem of some noise in the second half. The Coaster Factory version has none of these problems. It is an exceptional quality audience recording with no cuts--not a one. Also it's always good to have shows from the end of the tour, as usually the band are in high form by that point. The only problem I have with the end of the Duke tour is that the band dumped "Say It's Alright Joe," "Follow You Follow Me," and "Carpet Crawlers" from their set by this time, so you lose several songs that you'd get on earlier boots. However you get "Misunderstanding," which was added to the set during the tour's American leg.

Set: Deep in the Motherlode/Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (intro)/Squonk/One For the Vine/The Duke Suite (prefaced by "The Story of Albert"): Behind the Lines - Duchess - Guide Vocal - Turn It on Again - Duke's Travels - Duke's End/The Lady Lies/Ripples/Misunderstanding/In the Cage - The Colony of Slippermen (The Raven) - Afterglow/Dance on a Volcano - Drum Duet - Los Endos/Back in NYC/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)

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Abacab tour

IN REVIEW
Main Picks:
30/10/81 (Frankfurt), 21/11/81 (Cincinnati), 28-29/11/81 (Savoy and Nassau Coliseum, NY), 21 and 23/12/81 (Birmingham NEC)
Shows with Rarities:
27/9/81 (Spain) with 29/9/81 (Frejus France), 2/12/81 (Hartford, CT)

30 October 1981, Festhalle, Frankfurt Germany (Live at Frankfurt (GASP 012), Live In Frankfurt Am Main (TM)) - This complete soundboard show surfaced in late 2007 and was quickly remastered. It adds to the previously very slim collection of soundboard shows available from this tour, and gives us a totally complete performance, which is more than can be said for the others. An easy pick for one of the best this tour has to offer.

Set: Behind the Lines - Duchess - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway/Dodo - Lurker/Abacab/The Carpet Crawlers/Me and Sarah Jane/Misunderstanding/No Reply at All/Firth of Fifth/Man on the Corner - Who Dunnit?/In the Cage - The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - The Raven - Afterglow/Turn It on Again/Dance on a Volcano - Drum Duet - Los Endos/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)

21 November 1981, Riverfront Coliseum, Cincinnati Ohio USA (Cincinnati '81, SAB03) - This is a soundboard boot that doesn't get mentioned much because it's not perfect quality and the other soundboard show from this tour, the one used for the Three Sides Live album, is more popular. Also several versions of this show suffer from speed problems, and I had to tangle with multiple versions, some of which had major stuttering errors and some of which were missing some intro stories. There are two cuts--one in the beginning of "Cage" and one in the beginning of "Turn It on Again." They're short. (Also strange is the omission of "Carpet Crawlers," since by this time it was a standard number in the set--it's possible that for some reason it was not played this night. Interesting that that song is also not on the next entry in my list.) However a remaster in the form of SAB03 cleans up the recording considerably and fills in all the holes, even patching the two cuts in "Cage" and "Turn It." The SAB show makes this a very presentable show which I think any respectable fan should have in their collection, especially considering the general dearth in other good quality Abacab live shows.

Set: Behind the Lines - Duchess - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway/Dodo - Lurker/Abacab/Me and Sarah Jane/Misunderstanding/No Reply at All/Firth of Fifth/Man on the Corner - Who Dunnit?/In the Cage - The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - The Raven - Afterglow/Turn It on Again/Dance on a Volcano - Drum Duet - Los Endos/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)

28 and 29 November 1981, The Savoy Theatre and Nassau Coliseum, New York USA (Perfect Three Sides Live (Highland version), FIABA, Perpetual Soundwave, ABaCab, Others) - This is rather a mess of a show. It's fantastic quality as it came from the soundboards and was used for a KBFH broadcast and for the 3SL album. It is a mix of two gigs (possibly more), and I'm not going to try to sort out which song comes from which--I believe David Dunnington does a pretty good job of this. The Highland version features studio songs from the official 3SL release, plus a "Keep It Dark" from the Mama tour, in addition to an "opening rehearsal" track and an ending interview track. FIABA is just the soundboard material with the interview at the end. Perpetual Soundwave is one of the better ones quality-wise, but unfortunately is not nearly as complete as the others. Simon lists an excellent version taken from the KBFH transcription LP. The transcription LP does not have the interview backstage but does have "Who Dunnit?" and "Turn It on Again," which FIABA does not have--it also has the KBFH introduction.

Some versions (Perfect 3SL, Perpetual Soundwave, ABaCab) have FYFM, but this song was not played on this tour and is probably from the famous Lyceum '80 Musica gig--good proof of this is that FYFM is not on the transcription LP. FIABA is not very good quality for some reason--it sounds very fuzzy and compressed. Perpetual sounds great but, as I said, is not complete.

The best version I have is most definitely the Coaster Factory remaster of the pre-FM ABC material, which is mostly from the '81 shows and has bookend tracks of the band in the dressing room. Most versions feature I believe a cleaned up "No Reply" editing out Phil's use of the word "shit," and also an edited FoF in which most of the last verse has been removed. No versions include "The Lamb" or "Carpet Crawlers," though by this time both were a normal part of the set and were almost definitely played on both nights--the old songs are always the first to get the axe on edited radio broadcasts of this sort.

Most of these songs are already present on official releases (in fact, not just 3SL--some additional songs from the Savoy/Nassau gigs have surfaced on best of compilations and the second box set). Still, if you're in search of a fantastic soundboard show, this one is better quality than the Cincinnati gig. I have decided not to include "Lamb" or "Crawlers" in my set list below, since the songs don't seem to be available in soundboard (though they were played in their usual places that night). Probably the normal encore of IKWIL was also played.

Set: Behind the Lines - Duchess/Dodo - Lurker/Abacab/Me and Sarah Jane/Misunderstanding/No Reply At All/Firth of Fifth/Man on the Corner - Who Dunnit?/In the Cage - The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - The Raven - Afterglow/Turn It on Again/Dance on a Volcano - Drum Duet - Los Endos

It's worth it to note that what is an excellent quality audience recording of the Savoy show of 28/11 does exist (known mainly under the names of Abacab to the Savoy or The Hottest Ticket, and as the Coaster Factory remaster, The Way New Yorkers Walk). It does include "Lamb" (after "Duchess") and "Crawlers" (after "Abacab"), as well as the encore IKWIL; and is an energetic and exciting show, which may very well be a more enjoyable listening experience than the soundboard material listed above. I highly recommend it.

21 December 1981, National Exhibition Centre (NEC), Birmingham UK (Birmingham '81 (second night)) - To round out and end the Abacab tour, Genesis played four nights at the NEC, and all of them are available on audience recorded bootlegs. I have the shows from the 21st and the 23rd, and both of them are on my list. Really they are very similar shows in similar quality, so I'm almost treating them as one. They are good performances since they come from the end of the tour, and the quality is pretty good (apart from some slight background pops/scratches). This boot features the full set with intro stories, but it's missing the end of "Los Endos" and the encore number. Unlike the previous couple entries from this tour, this show has "Carpet Crawlers" on it.

Set: Behind the Lines - Duchess - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway/Dodo - Lurker/Abacab/The Carpet Crawlers/Me and Sarah Jane/Misunderstanding/No Reply At All/Firth of Fifth/Man on the Corner - Who Dunnit?/In the Cage - The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - The Raven - Afterglow/Turn It on Again/Dance on a Volcano - Drum Duet - Los Endos (incomplete)

23 December 1981, National Exhibition Centre (NEC), Birmingham UK (Birmingham '81 (last night)) - The very last show of the tour, this audience recording is very similar in quality to the last one and also has a very similar performance. The audience is more annoying in this one, however, and the cuts are in different places--the very end of FoF and the ending of "Who Dunnit?" are missing. This gig was recorded for the 3SL video and I suppose it's possible that some of its material is also on the album. It is particularly special in that it features one of the last playings of "The Knife," and is in fact the only time it seems to have been played on this tour. It has some of Phil messing around on a trumpet, though not much. Phil has a good time with the audience on both gigs I have listed here, and tells some good stories, notably the one for FoF about Cindy Lou.

Set: Behind the Lines - Duchess - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway/Dodo - Lurker/Abacab/The Carpet Crawlers/Me and Sarah Jane/Misunderstanding/No Reply At All/Firth of Fifth/Man on the Corner - Who Dunnit? (incomplete)/In the Cage - The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - The Raven - Afterglow/Turn It on Again/Dance on a Volcano - Drum Duet - Los Endos/The Knife/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)

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Those were probably the best shows I have from this tour--they include all the radio/soundboard gigs available plus what are probably the best audience shows out there (weighing together completeness and quality). Now for the rarities. The three songs that were only very rarely played on this tour were "The Knife"--the only recording of which happens to already be among my main picks--"Me and Virgil" and "Like It or Not." Below are the gigs I recommend if you want to get these songs.

27 September 1981, Velodromo Anoeta, San Sebastian Spain; 29 September 1981, Arenes de Frejus in Frejus France (Me and Virgil (Highland version)) - Unfortunately there is not an available good quality live recording of "Me and Virgil." It was only recorded two times, at the first two gigs of the tour in Spain, and only one of those times seems to have been a complete recording of the song. The quality is average at best. The date of the second gig used to be questionable, but seems to have been confirmed as 27 September 1981. What I recommend if you want this song but don't want a sub-par quality gig is to go for the Highland title I've mentioned above. It documents the entire French gig with the complete "Me and Virgil" from the Spain gig added in (though the set order for the Spain show was slightly different and the placement of "Virgil" in the Highland set is not exactly consistent with its actual placement). The gig in France is still an audience recording, but its quality is much much better. It has some noise in the back and probably a bit of the in between stuff has been cut, but it's still quite a good show. The band is a bit rusty this early in the tour and Phil in particular makes some memorable screw-ups, including actually forgetting the words to IKWIL! This show came before "Carpet Crawlers" was being played. Since the sets from these two dates are noticeably different, I've chosen to depict both the full Spain gig set and the French set, showing where "Me and Virgil" is inserted into the second set on the Highland bootleg. For the record, I do not have the full Spain show, only the Highland show.

Set (from actual full Spain gig): Behind the Lines - Duchess - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway/Dodo - Lurker/Abacab/Me and Virgil/Firth of Fifth/Man on the Corner - Who Dunnit?/Misunderstanding/Me and Sarah Jane/No Reply At All/In the Cage - The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - The Raven - Afterglow/Turn It on Again/Dance on a Volcano - Drum Duet - Los Endos/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)

Set (from Highland version): Behind the Lines - Duchess - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway/Dodo - Lurker/Abacab/Misunderstanding/Me and Virgil (from Spain)/Firth of Fifth/No Reply At All/Me and Sarah Jane/Man on the Corner - Who Dunnit?/In the Cage - The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - The Raven - Afterglow/Turn It on Again/Dance on a Volcano - Drum Duet - Los Endos/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)

2 December 1981, Hartford Civic Center, Hartford Connecticut, USA (Hartford '81) - I have all four performances which have been recorded featuring "Like It or Not." The gigs are as follows: 26 November (Philadelphia), 30 November (Landover, Maryland), 2 December (Hartford), 4 December (Montreal). The Philadelphia show is complete but suffers from an overall sub-par quality. The Landover show is probably the most well known of the four, and even goes by the name of "Like It or Not." Most would probably choose that show over this one, as it is probably better quality. However the Landover show really annoys me because it was recorded very badly--it is littered with cuts, fade-outs, and microphone bumps. The Montreal show is missing the first two songs and the audience can sometimes drown out the music, but it has fewer interruptions. My version has a small error in "Los Endos." The most complete, best quality gig with "Like It or Not" is probably the 2 December show. This one features Phil on the trumpet a bit and the normal intro stories. The sound is somewhat thin, but fairly clear, even though there is a high-pitched hiss running through it. There are some pops and scratches in some songs, but not a lot of them. My version sounds as though it may have a splice near the end, as the sound changes a few times. There are two cuts in "Endos" and IKWIL fades off a bit before the end. Most versions I've seen of the boot include two bonus tracks, both of them alternate live recordings of the rare number, "Like It or Not." You get the one from Landover and the one from Philly. So not only is this probably the best gig with the song, the boot also provides you with almost every recorded version of it!

Set: Behind the Lines - Duchess - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway/Dodo - Lurker/Abacab/The Carpet Crawlers/Like It or Not/No Reply At All/Misunderstanding/Firth of Fifth/Man on the Corner - Who Dunnit?/In the Cage - The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - The Raven - Afterglow/Turn It on Again/Dance on a Volcano - Drum Duet - Los Endos/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)

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Three Sides Live (Encore) tour

IN REVIEW
Main Picks:
26/8/82 (Saratoga Springs), 27/9/82 (Marquee Club, London)
Shows with Rarities:
9/8/82 (LA Forum), 22/8/82 (Forest Hills, NY)

26 August 1982, Saratoga Performing Arts Centre, Saratoga Springs, New York USA (Live in Saratoga Springs, Saratoga Springs '82, BURP 02) - The two-month 3SL tour is documented by only one soundboard show, and this one is it. The recording is almost complete. The best version is BURP 02--in fact, previous versions have had speed problems, among other things. There is unfortunately a rather large cut in the recording--starting near the beginning of the "Cinema Show" section in the "Cage" medley and continuing quite a ways into "Afterglow." Previous versions attempted to splice material in to fill this whole, with rather obvious and amateur results. Mark Bataitis in his BURP release makes no such attempt. He does however add some tracks from a Foxtrot tour radio broadcast--they're good quality, and though it doesn't really make much sense to have them on there, it is a quick way to identify and differentiate the show from the other available versions. There are better soundboard shows in the world. The audience is so far away and gone in this recording that it sounds somewhat dead, and what should be clear and clean is actually a bit dull and fuzzy. It still sounds very good however.

Set: Dance on a Volcano - Behind the Lines - Follow You Follow Me/Dodo - Lurker/Abacab/Supper's Ready/Misunderstanding/Man on the Corner - Who Dunnit?/In the Cage - The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - The Raven - Afterglow/Turn It on Again/Drum Duet - Los Endos/The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - Watcher of the Skies/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)

27 September 1982, Marquee Club, London UK (Small Club at the Marquee (Highland version), Marquee Club '82 (remaster), Supper's Ready at Marquee (BURP 27), Master of Marquee) - The Highland version of this gig is great. The remastered version I have is awesome. It is easily one of the best audience gigs I've ever heard. The atmosphere is fantastic, the crowd is pumped, Phil is in full swing, and the show is complete. This gig will teach you why audience shows are better than soundboard shows (sometimes). Lots of good audience recordings can be had from this tour, especially at the end of August and beginning of September, but none of them hold a candle to this one. Played at a nice tiny club that Genesis had not visited for around ten years. This boot beats the Saratoga show any day. I don't know why "Who Dunnit?" is not included on here, but I think it's because the band just chose not to play it that night. The original Highland version for some reason did not have the complete "Lamb/Watcher" medley, but the remaster does. I don't think it's a splice. By the way, this tour is the only one that features the "Lamb/Watcher" medley, and it's one of my favorite Genesis medleys.

Set: Dance on a Volcano - Behind the Lines - Follow You Follow Me/Dodo - Lurker/Abacab/Supper's Ready/Man on the Corner/Misunderstanding/In the Cage - The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - The Raven - Afterglow/Turn It on Again/Drum Duet - Los Endos/The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - Watcher of the Skies/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)

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Now there are rarities from this tour. For what I believe were only four gigs, Genesis was able to play some songs with the Phenix Horns, their horn section on the Abacab album. They played "No Reply At All" and, most rare of all, "Paperlate." This is one of the few times that Genesis played a b-side live, and they only played the song those four times (whereas "No Reply," sans horns, was a regular from the previous tour). Here are the dates: 9-10 August at the LA Forum and 22-23 August at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, New York. All but the performance of the 10th are on audience recordings. I have all three shows, and have provided entries for two of them below.

9 August 1982, Forum, LA California USA (LA Forum '82; 3 Drummers, 4 Horns) - A full show with the Phenix horns, this one is even more unique for the reappearance of drummer Bill Bruford, who sits in on percussion for the two encore numbers. The only problem is that the show is not very good quality--the audience can overwhelm the music and there's the odd break between tracks.

Set: Dance on a Volcano - Behind the Lines - Follow You Follow Me/Dodo - Lurker/Abacab/Paperlate/Supper's Ready/No Reply At All/Misunderstanding/Man on the Corner - Who Dunnit?/In the Cage - The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - The Raven - Afterglow/Turn It on Again/Drum Duet - Los Endos/The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - Watcher of the Skies/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)

22 August 1982, Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, Forest Hills New York USA (Paperlate, Forest Hills) - Another of the shows with the Phenix Horns and "Paperlate"--one version was even named for it. This one sounds better than the LA Forum show. My version had some pops at the beginning of each disc. My original version of disc two had pops all through the first track, but I have since received a cleaner copy. Other than that it's nice and quite enjoyable. I also have the following night's show on boot, but its overall sound quality is not quite equal to this one, and though also a complete show with the Phenix Horns it is probably an inferior performance (Phil messes up the lyrics of several songs). Also beware that a "fake" version of the 23 August show is circulating. Really it's only half-fake, the first disc being from 23 August but the second disc being merely a repeat of the 22 August disc two--caveat emptor!! Regardless, I think the 22 August show is superior.

Set: Dance on a Volcano - Behind the Lines - Follow You Follow Me/Dodo - Lurker/Abacab/No Reply At All/Paperlate/Supper's Ready/Misunderstanding/Man on the Corner - Who Dunnit?/In the Cage - The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - The Raven - Afterglow/Turn It on Again/Drum Duet - Los Endos/The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - Watcher of the Skies/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)

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Reunion gig (Six of the Best)

IN REVIEW
Main Picks:
29/9/82 (Hammersmith Odeon), 2/10/82 (Milton Keynes)

29 September 1982, Hammersmith Odeon, London, UK (All the Help I Can Get) - Amazingly, in early 2008 a soundboard recording of the rehearsal sessions for the famous reunion concert was made public. Though the band are naturally even rougher around the edges than they were at the actual show, this remains a wonderful document of an historic event, and I feel it is not to be missed.

Set: Back in NYC/Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (intro)/The Carpet Crawlers/Firth of Fifth/The Musical Box/The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway/Fly on a Windshield/Broadway Melody of 1974/In the Cage/Supper's Ready/The Knife/Solsbury Hill (three takes)

2 October 1982, Milton Keynes Concert Bowl, UK (Gabacabriel, The Lamb Woke Up Again, Six of the Best (Highland version), FAde 3, Live in Milton Keynes (TM Productions), Others) - There's only one reunion gig. One of the more famous and emotional gigs in the long live history of the band. Probably the people in the audience NOT recording this gig were fewer in number than those recording it--there are plenty of versions to choose from. For a while the best one was an untitled first-generation recording. Then the good people of FAde came along, sorted through many, many versions, seamlessly clipped together the best portions of each, and came up with FAde 3, what was then considered the definitive bootleg of this most historic event. More recently TM Productions put together what is an even better version. Featuring many songs that the band had not played in a long, long time and would not play again, plus some rare and unique stories from Peter and even an appearance from Steve Hackett on the last two songs. The band are introduced by Johnathan King and Pete comes out on stage in a coffin. The audience members serenade Mike with "Happy Birthday" multiple times, and of course it rains. Not to be missed.

Set: Back in NYC/Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (intro)/The Carpet Crawlers/Firth of Fifth/The Musical Box/Solsbury Hill/Turn It on Again/The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway/Fly on a Windshield/Broadway Melody of 1974/In the Cage/Supper's Ready/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)/The Knife

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Mama tour

IN REVIEW
Main Picks:
27/11/83 (Spectrum, Philadelphia), 29/1/84 (Kansas City), 29/2/84 (NEC, Birmingham)
Shows with Rarities:
7/11/83 (Normal), 29/11/83 (Worcester), 19/1/84 (Norman)
Honorable Mentions: 11/12/83 (Greensboro), 16/2/84 (Reno)

27 November 1983, The Spectrum, Philadelphia PA, USA (Three Nights in Philly, Home by the Sea/No Replay At All, No Reply At All, Fugitives From Justice, A Phantastically Phabulous Philly (Coaster Factory), Others) - Another much-bootlegged radio show. This one is very nice and the quality is excellent, but you have to find a complete show, which can be difficult. Even the complete broadcast is missing a few songs, namely the "Eleventh Earl of Mar" medley (which is in fact missing from all official releases and radio shows from this tour), the drum duet, "Man on the Corner," "Who Dunnit?," "Follow You Follow Me," and possibly "Carpet Crawlers," though since that number was not played every night it may not be an omission on the recorders' side. All of these missing songs are deplorable, but you just can't ignore the stellar quality of this recording. The first two versions I have listed above tack on "Behind the Lines" and "No Reply At All" from the 3SL soundboard show of 29/11/81. No Reply At All is a sort of radio show compilation disc which only has a few songs from this performance, and Fugitives is similarly incomplete. I somehow have managed to get my hands on a version which does not match any of these bootlegs and only includes the complete radio broadcast of the show. I did some meddling to it and added a drum duet before "Los Endos" which is most likely actually from 14/1/84 at the LA Forum, the other radio show from this tour (which is woefully incomplete in all of its forms and thus has not made it to this list), and I also gave it a title: Philadelphia Only, No Nassau At All.

However, the best version is the Coaster Factory remaster, with just the full broadcast from Philly from a pre-FM source. The "Turn It on Again" medley on here has been dubbed the "Damn Medley" and has been released in single form and on a best of compilation from the '80s. It should be noted that a radio/soundboard recording of the previous night in Philly, 26 November, also exists. It is similarly incomplete (in fact, the songs that are missing are exactly identical except that the 26 November show has a drum duet but is missing "It's Gonna Get Better") and also out of order, but sounds pretty good as well, though I think this show is better.

Set (broadcast songs only): Dodo - Lurker/Abacab/That's All/Mama/Illegal Alien/Home by the Sea - Second Home by the Sea/In the Cage - The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - '...in that quiet earth.' - The Raven - Afterglow/Keep It Dark - It's Gonna Get Better/Los Endos/Misunderstanding/Turn It on Again (medley)

29 January 1984, Kemper Arena, Kansas City Missouri, USA (That Nice Electrical System) - A well-known audience gig for two main reasons: it's a great quality show and the band have to stop "Illegal Alien" because of a power failure (this causes them to play the song "Misunderstanding" much earlier in their set than they normally would). Really the sound is quite clear and the recording is complete, with only the fact that the band sound just a tad far away to keep it from being near perfect. Be warned, this one got weeded around a lot and it took me a long time to track down a version that did not have "Cage" marred by a few scratches. If you can find a clean version of this show you should be very impressed. The recording does have a problem which is probably on all versions, which is that the speed is just a bit too slow for the whole second half of the show. Unlike radio/soundboard shows, this full show has the "Earl of Mar" medley, in the final of its many forms.

Set: Dodo - Lurker/Abacab/That's All/Mama/Eleventh Earl of Mar - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - Firth of Fifth - The Musical Box/Illegal Alien (incomplete due to power failure)/Misunderstanding/Home by the Sea - Second Home by the Sea/Keep It Dark - It's Gonna Get Better/Follow You Follow Me/In the Cage - The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - '...in that quiet earth.' - The Raven - Afterglow/Drum Duet - Los Endos/Turn It on Again (medley)

29 February 1984, National Exhibition Centre (NEC), Birmingham UK (Royal Cinema Show (Highland version)) - Almost the entire Mama tour took place in North America, but for the last bunch of shows Genesis returned home and, as they had done at the end of the previous tour, played the Birmingham NEC. This bunch of shows was filmed for the official tour video. They were also all recorded by audience members, making for some great bootlegs (the 25 February show, known as Home At Last, is also a great quality show, as is that of the 27th). For this, the very last gig of the tour, the Prince and Princess of Wales attended (hence the Highland boys' clever title). This is one of my definite favorites from this tour, as Phil has a great rapport with the audience and the quality of this show is really good. This show, unlike the others I have chosen, has "Carpet Crawlers" and a "Turn It" medley featuring "Karma Chameleon," "Every Breath You Take," and "Sunshine of Your Love." Also of course the "Earl of Mar" medley. Phil messes up the lyrics to HBTS. The recording seems to document the whole show.

Set: Dodo - Lurker/Abacab/That's All/Mama/Eleventh Earl of Mar - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - Firth of Fifth - The Musical Box/Illegal Alien/Home by the Sea - Second Home by the Sea/The Carpet Crawlers/Keep It Dark - It's Gonna Get Better/Follow You Follow Me/In the Cage - The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - '...in that quiet earth.' - The Raven - Afterglow/Drum Duet - Los Endos/Turn It on Again (medley)

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And now the rarities. One thing which my picks have not accurately depicted about this tour is that the songs "Man on the Corner" and "Who Dunnit?" were fairly regularly played. However there are plenty of instances of those songs to be seen in my picks for the previous two tours, and there are some (many!) who might not be too interested in hearing "Who Dunnit?" anyway. The set for this tour was rearranged a lot, and as it went on many numbers were dropped, but the only very changeable and unique occurrences are found within the "Earl of Mar" and "Turn It" medleys. The "Turn It" medley was played around with too much to really get a handle on every version, and actually a good spread of variations is seen in the choices I have made above. However I find the four different incarnations of the "Earl of Mar" medley or "Trip down memory lane," as Phil calls it, interesting and worth noting. Now my picks above already cover some good recordings of the fourth and final version, but below are some gigs which detail the other versions the medley went through (they also, incidentally, all have both "Man on the Corner" and "Who Dunnit?" on them):

7 November 1983, Horton Fieldhouse, Normal Illinois, USA (Normal '83) - This gig is the first night of the tour, often a night of uncertainties, unique performances, and "dodgy bits." This show definitely fits that rule. It features a version of the "Earl of Mar" medley which was only seemingly played at one other gig, plus an early and much simpler version of the "Turn It" medley. Phil tells an interesting story that he would not tell too many other times for the "Earl" medley, and also part of the "Earl" section actually has sung lyrics (other versions of the medley would use only an instrumental portion of that song). Phil's intro for HBTS is also different than what it would eventually become, as he makes the crowd repeat a bizarre phrase about masturbation. Unfortunately the quality is not that great, and there are cuts in "Who Dunnit?," "Keep It Dark," and "Cage." However it could be worse and there are enough rarities in this gig to make the real Genesis collector very excited. For another example of very similar material, probably in slightly better quality, one could check out the following night's gig at Iowa State University in Ames.

Set: Dodo - Lurker/The Carpet Crawlers/That's All/Mama/Illegal Alien/Eleventh Earl of Mar - Ripples - Squonk - Firth of Fifth/Man on the Corner - Who Dunnit?/Home by the Sea - Second Home by the Sea/Keep It Dark - It's Gonna Get Better/Follow You Follow Me/In the Cage - The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - '...in that quiet earth.' - The Raven - Afterglow/Abacab/Drum Duet - Los Endos/Misunderstanding/Turn It on Again (medley)

29 November 1983, Worcester Centrum, Worcester Massachusetts, USA (Worcester '83) - This is actually an above average audience gig which happens to feature the version of the "Mar" medley which was played for the remainder of 1983 and part of the beginning of '84. My version of this show was spread across three discs because an interview with Phil Collins from around 1973-74 and a version of the rare "Silver Song" had been tacked onto the end of the show. However 2-disc versions exist without these bonus tracks. My version is of somewhat dull but still quite good quality, and has one tiny cut at the end of "Misunderstanding." It also unfortunately has stuttering problems during the end of "Keep It Dark"--this is probably a burning error and not typical of most cleaner bootleg versions. A good moment in the tour. (An alternative to this show which is probably more complete and better quality is Hartford '83 from 1 December of that year, played at the Civic Center in Hartford Connecticut. It has an identical set list, but is probably a tad harder to find than this one, for whatever reason.)

Set: Dodo - Lurker/Abacab/That's All/Mama/Eleventh Earl of Mar - Squonk - Firth of Fifth/Illegal Alien/Man on the Corner - Who Dunnit?/Home by the Sea - Second Home by the Sea/The Carpet Crawlers/Keep It Dark - It's Gonna Get Better/Follow You Follow Me/In the Cage - The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - '...in that quiet earth.' - The Raven - Afterglow/Drum Duet - Los Endos/Misunderstanding/Turn It on Again (medley)

19 January 1984, Llyod Nobel Centre, Norman Oklahoma, USA (Norman '84) - This is a complete and pretty good-sounding boot featuring a particularly rare incarnation of the "Mar" medley. My version may have the slightest, slightest speed problems on the first disc, but also may not. Seems to be the full show, with no cuts. This version of the "Mar" medley is probably only on something like four recordings, and was only played from mid- to late January '84.

Set: Dodo - Lurker/Abacab/That's All/Mama/Eleventh Earl of Mar - Behind the Lines - Firth of Fifth - The Musical Box/Illegal Alien/Man on the Corner - Who Dunnit?/Home by the Sea - Second Home by the Sea/Keep It Dark - It's Gonna Get Better/Follow You Follow Me/In the Cage - The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - '...in that quiet earth.' - The Raven - Afterglow/Drum Duet - Los Endos/Misunderstanding/Turn It on Again (medley)

As if there weren't already enough shows, here are some honorable mentions. I still think the 27/11 Philadelphia show is the last word on soundboards for this tour, as I am dissatisfied with the incompleteness and/or quality of other available soundboards (26/11/83, 14/1/84). But there are a couple of other audience gigs that I think are worth mentioning.

11 December 1983, Coliseum, Greensboro North Carolina, USA (Greensboro (Coaster Factory)) - A nice full show with only a well-masked tiny cut in the drum duet--played on Chester's birthday. Great audience energy on this one. Features the "Mar" medley with "Squonk" and "Firth of Fifth," and a "Turn It" medley with "Glad All Over" in it.

Set: Dodo - Lurker/Abacab/That's All/Mama/Eleventh Earl of Mar - Squonk - Firth of Fifth/Illegal Alien/Man on the Corner/Who Dunnit?/Home by the Sea - Second Home by the Sea/The Carpet Crawlers/Keep It Dark - It's Gonna Get Better/Follow You Follow Me/In the Cage - The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - '...in that quiet earth.' - The Raven - Afterglow/Drum Duet (edited) - Los Endos/Misunderstanding/Turn It on Again (medley)

16 February 1984, Lawlor Events Center, Reno Nevada, USA (Reno: The Center of the Universe (Coaster Factory)) - Another great audience show with a particularly humorous Phil. Seems to be missing "Follow You Follow Me." It was "Genesis Day" in Reno!

Set: Dodo - Lurker/Abacab/That's All/Mama/Eleventh Earl of Mar - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - Firth of Fifth - The Musical Box/Illegal Alien/Home by the Sea - Second Home by the Sea/Keep It Dark - It's Gonna Get Better/In the Cage - The Cinema Show - Riding the Scree - '...in that quiet earth.' - The Raven - Afterglow/Drum Duet - Los Endos/Misunderstanding/Turn It on Again (medley)

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Invisible Touch tour

IN REVIEW
Main Picks:
30/9/86 (MSG, NY), 15/10/86 (Los Angeles), 8/6/87 (Berlin), 4/7/87 (Wembley, London)
Honorable Mentions: A few good audience recordings listed below
Shows with Rarities:
11/12/86 (Melbourne)

30 September 1986, Madison Square Garden, New York, USA (Outvisible Side, Invisible Garden (BURP 16)) - The Invisible Touch tour was a monstrous tour--it was long, it took in Japan, Australia, America, and Europe, and it saw the band at the height of their popularity. Many radio shows are available from this tour, though three Italian radio shows are startlingly incomplete and have an announcer talking during the songs, and one is actually a fake show which purports to be from Paris but is in fact a lot of radio songs from the previous tour mixed in with studio tracks. Still there are at least four other very good radio shows to choose from for this tour, so that even though there are plenty of good quality audience gigs as well, there's no need to go to them at all. In fact, some might say there's no need to choose this show, which is not a radio broadcasted show at all but a soundboard one. I prefer this complete recording from even earlier in the tour. The sound is not perfect on older releases--it can get a tad muffled at times and seems to fluctuate in strength a bit, and the encore of "Turn It on Again" is missing. The BURP version of this show is an impressive remaster and greatly improves on my original version--and includes the encore. I'm always attracted to shows from earlier in this tour as they feature lots of things that were dropped later in the tour: "Follow You Follow Me," "In Too Deep," and most importantly the exciting "Cage" medley with the ending sections of "Supper's Ready" in it. Also I particularly like the way they played "Domino" in this show, before it got some touch-ups from Phil in the vocal department.

Set: Mama/Abacab/Land of Confusion/That's All/Domino/In Too Deep/The Brazilian/Follow You Follow Me/Tonight, Tonight, Tonight/Home by the Sea - Second Home by the Sea/Throwing It All Away/In the Cage - '...in that quiet earth.' - Supper's Ready (from Apocalypse in 9/8)/Invisible Touch/Drum Duet - Los Endos/Turn It on Again (medley)

15 October 1986, Forum, Los Angeles California, USA (Invisible Forum (Coaster Factory)) - For a long time the only material available from the Forum gigs was an edited radio broadcast. However in 2007 the web site Wolfgang's Vault offered a complete soundboard recording from one night of the Forum gigs in a streaming source. It was quickly taken and remastered by the Coaster Factory in this great-sounding version. The only problem with this is that if the recording ever goes on sale, this will no longer be a bootleg but an official release, and so should be purchased through normal, legal means. For now, this excellent show cannot be ignored in any listing of best IT shows.

Set: Mama/Abacab/Land of Confusion/That's All/Domino/In Too Deep/The Brazilian/Follow You Follow Me/Tonight, Tonight, Tonight/Home by the Sea - Second Home by the Sea/Throwing It All Away/In the Cage - '...in that quiet earth.' - Supper's Ready (from Apocalypse in 9/8)/Invisible Touch/Drum Duet - Los Endos/Turn It on Again (medley)

8 June 1987, Reichstagsgelaende, Berlin, Germany (Triangle on Domino (Highland version), Live in Berlin (pre-FM version), BURP 12) - There are two great radio shows from Germany in this tour, but I've chosen this one over the other because my version of this one has more of the song intros and also includes "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight"--which, curiously enough, is missing from the other German radio show because flooding problems that night caused an omission in the actual set while the stage was re-positioned. That show also featured Mike messing up on guitar at the end of "That's All." I have the Highland version of this show, which seems complete and in great quality. The pre-FM Live in Berlin is a TM productions release, probably the best version available. BURP 12 is based on that recording--I have what I believe to be Live in Berlin. I have heard that the BURP version is actually not as good as the source show.

Set: Mama/Abacab/Domino/That's All/The Brazilian/In the Cage - '...in that quiet earth.' - Afterglow/Land of Confusion/Tonight, Tonight, Tonight/Throwing It All Away/Home by the Sea - Second Home by the Sea/Invisible Touch/Drum Duet - Los Endos/Turn It on Again (medley)

4 July 1987, Wembley Stadium, London UK (Live in the City of Light, The Domino Principle (I4Detail 02), Live at Wembley Stadium) - The last gig of the tour, and one of several at Wembley taped for the tour video, this one was also broadcast in full on radio and this is the recording of that broadcast. A great show, lots of energy, full, in great quality. Pretty easily the best from this tour. It's available in various versions--try to avoid getting the bootleg which is actually just an audio transfer of the tour video, as this will not all be from this gig and will be missing "In the Cage."

Set: Mama/Abacab/Domino/That's All/The Brazilian/In the Cage - '...in that quiet earth.' - Afterglow/Land of Confusion/Tonight, Tonight, Tonight/Throwing It All Away/Home by the Sea - Second Home by the Sea/Invisible Touch/Drum Duet - Los Endos/Turn It on Again (medley)

If you want that audience energy instead of the clean, sometimes lifeless soundboard/radio stuff, I recommend the Japanese gigs of 13-19/3/87--most versions of any of these gigs sound quite nice. 2/6/87 (The Invisibles in Paris) is a nice show, and there is a low-gen recording from 26/6/87 in Glasgow that is pretty great.

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A lot of the rarities of this tour have already been covered in Outvisible Side--however there's definitely some other very unique performances that can be mentioned. This tour, as intimated earlier, marked Genesis' first and only visit to Australia. For this special bunch of gigs, the band employed a local string section which they dubbed "The Invisible Strings." According to Alan Hewitt, local Musicians' Union rules required the use of a string quartet! The strings joined the band for two numbers: "In Too Deep" and "Your Own Special Way," which had not been played in any form since around April of 1977. These make for some interesting performances which are worth adding to your collection. Thanks to the second box set you can now hear the '86 Invisible Strings version of "Your Own Special Way" in excellent quality. This is a good thing, because bootlegs from the Australia gigs are spotty at best. However I've chosen one that I think is pretty good.

11 December 1986, National Tennis Centre, Melbourne, Australia (Melbourne '86) - There are only three shows that seem to be available from Genesis' trip to Australia and New Zealand--this is probably the best quality one. It also happens to have taken place on Chester's birthday. Featured are the Invisible Strings and the rarely played (at least on this tour) FYFM--however by this time the "Supper" portion of the "Cage" medley had been replaced with the more usual "Afterglow." The set is short and one version of the recording is missing the album's title track and the old stand-by "Los Endos"--another version has those. Also my version has the entire first verse of "Cage" cut out--I think this is pretty common. Still, the rarity of the gig cannot be denied, and the quality is not bad--a bit dull and muffled.

Set (of most complete recording): Mama/Abacab/Domino/Your Own Special Way/In Too Deep/The Brazilian/Follow You Follow Me/Home by the Sea - Second Home by the Sea/Throwing It All Away/In the Cage - '...in that quiet earth.' - Afterglow/Invisible Touch/Drum Duet - Los Endos/Turn It on Again (medley)

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Oh, so you thought I was done talking about the Invisible Touch tour, did you? Well, sit back down, buster. Though I don't myself consider them part of the tour, Genesis did play two more special gigs after the end of regular touring in 1987 but well before the beginning of the WCD tour of '92, and boot traders generally lump them in with the IT shows. Really they are one-off shows unto themselves, which makes them unique and interesting, and both are available in high quality audio and video (I have both on one DVD, by the way!). So I mention them below:

15 May 1988, Madison Square Garden, New York USA (Atlantic 40th, MSG '88) - This performance from Genesis was played for the 40th anniversary celebration for Atlantic Records, hosted by none other than the great Phil Collins himself. Coming off of an opening performance in which he played his own song, "In the Air Tonight," and embarrassingly screwed up the lyrics, Phil got behind the mic once again with his band mates and proceeded to even more heights of embarrassment. Apparently this was broadcast both on radio and on television--Genesis performed a unique "Turn It on Again" medley featuring lots of their top hits plus one number each from solo projects. The band are very rusty, the medley is awkward in structure, and the stage and set-up they are using probably unfamiliar, resulting in what Simon Funnell tentatively dubs the "worst performance ever." Still, the uniqueness of it all makes it valuable, and even screw-ups can be entertaining...David Dunnington puts the date for this performance at 14 May, but for once I believe him to be wrong.

Set: Turn It on Again medley: Land of Confusion - Misunderstanding - Throwing It All Away - You Can't Hurry Love - Shortcut to Somewhere - All I Need is a Miracle - That's All - Tonight, Tonight, Tonight - Invisible Touch

30 June 1990, Knebworth Park, Stevenage, UK (Knebworth '90, Silver Clef) - After a rather long hiatus, the band got back together for the Knebworth Festival of 1990, which was actually a charity gig involving many different bands, and played a short set. "Turn It on Again" received a somewhat unique treatment as during the song the band were backed up by Phil's "Serious Band"--Phil also played as a solo act at the Festival. This performance was broadcast on the radio, on MTV, and clips from it are used in a lot of the later TV spots for the band and in all of their history videos. Make sure to get the full performance of all four numbers, as some versions seem to be missing "That's All."

Set: Mama/That's All/Throwing It All Away/Turn It on Again (medley)

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We Can't Dance tour

IN REVIEW
Main Picks:
6/5/92 (Texas), 8/7/92 (Gothenburg), 16/7/92 (Vienna), 17/7/92 (Munich), 2/8/92 (Knebworth), 16/11/92 (London)
Honorable Mentions: 19/6/92 (Sacramento)
Shows with Rarities:
4/5/92 (listed first), 23/10/92 (Southampton)

A quick warning that I don't have the same volume of WCD shows than of other Genesis tours, so I am basing some of my choices here on average ratings from The Movement. For my main choices I just listed the soundboard stuff that is available.

First, I could not let it go by without mentioning a recently-surfaced soundboard boot of a rehearsal session, supposedly from 4 May of '92, which includes the only known recording of "Way of the World" being played live. The disc is very partial and for some reason also includes an "interview" track of the band backstage from a radio show from '81. This is not technically a radio show and not technically a live gig, but the rarity of "Way of the World" and the soundboard quality of the boot make it rather valuable.

6 May 1992, Texas Stadium, Irving Texas, USA - Actually only two numbers are played from Genesis' soundcheck before playing their first real gig--some interviews were also included in the broadcast (in fact I believe I actually have a good deal of this broadcast among my Rarities tapes in the Compilations section).

8 July 1992, Ullevi Stadium, Gothenburg Sweden - Again a very short one, only two numbers from the show were broadcast for various legal reasons.

16 July 1992, Wiener Prater Stadion, Vienna Austria (Vienna, Fading Lights in Vienna)- This is actually a full show broadcast, though it's missing the intros between songs. The sound quality is quite excellent. There are two versions, the first mentioned (Vienna) being the more basic version, the second an upgrade with supposedly slightly better sound and some radio announcer chatting between songs. The first version is the one I have, and in order to remove all of the announcer parts they actually had to cut the beginning lines of "Hold on My Heart." My particular copy also features a unique ordering mix-up, with HBTS and SHBTS coming after "Hold on My Heart" instead of before it, as is usual. In addition, I noticed one line edited from "Turn It on Again," though I'm not sure why. An excellent radio show, though, with virtually all the music intact.

Set: Land of Confusion/No Son of Mine/Driving the Last Spike/Old Medley/Throwing It All Away/Fading Lights/Jesus He Knows Me/Home by the Sea - Second Home by the Sea/Hold on My Heart/Domino/Drum Duet/I Can't Dance/Tonight, Tonight, Tonight - Invisible Touch/Turn It on Again

17 July 1992, Olympiastadion, Munich Germany (DD Version, Moonlight Over Munich, Live in Munchen (TM Productions), Others) - Almost the whole gig is available, missing a few numbers that were not broadcast--interestingly, the first number is missing due to technical difficulties, but the DJ played the studio version of it halfway through the broadcast. A lot of the versions omit the studio LOC, since it is not a live track. I have what is called the "DD" version of this, which does include LOC and even has a German traffic report from the radio station; and which sounds good.

Set (broadcasted songs only, in order broadcast): No Son of Mine/Driving the Last Spike/Throwing It All Away/Old Medley/Hold on My Heart/Land of Confusion (studio)/Jesus He Knows Me/Fading Lights/I Can't Dance/Tonight, Tonight, Tonight - Invisible Touch/Turn It on Again

2 August 1992, Knebworth Park, Stevenage UK (Sincerely Yours, The Last Dance (I4Detail 3), 18 Million Dollars to Dance, Summer Nights, A Midsummer Night's Dance, Others) - Probably the best radio show available, if you can get a complete version. This show was broadcast on radio and television and bootlegged in various versions with various levels of competency. I have the I4Detail version, which is probably one of the better ones. I think the mixing or something is a tad off in places, but that's just being picky. Summer Nights is supposed to be superior in quality but is missing some of Phil's intros. This is a great radio show of one of the more famous gigs of the tour, which Phil calls the last (though it was eventually followed by quite a few gigs in October and November).

Set: Land of Confusion/No Son of Mine/Driving the Last Spike/Old Medley/Throwing It All Away/Fading Lights/Jesus He Knows Me/Home by the Sea - Second Home by the Sea/Hold on My Heart/Domino/Drum Duet/I Can't Dance/Tonight, Tonight, Tonight - Invisible Touch/Turn It on Again

16 November 1992, Royal Albert Hall, London UK (Never Forget Jesus (Highland version), BURP 11, SAB 11, Others) - Another good one, from one of the very last gigs of the tour--I have the BURP version of this, and it is excellent. A full show, with all the intros and DJ announcements--there's no "Throwing It All Away," but I believe this is because it was dropped from their set by then. The Highland version fixes this by tacking on the version of the song from 2 August.

Set: Land of Confusion/No Son of Mine/Driving the Last Spike/Old Medley/Fading Lights/Jesus He Knows Me/Home by the Sea - Second Home by the Sea/Hold on My Heart/Domino/Drum Duet/I Can't Dance/Tonight, Tonight, Tonight - Invisible Touch/Turn It on Again

I know the Albert Hall gig is good, and the Knebworth one is as good if not better, followed probably by the Austria show and then the Munich one. The others are only for big collectors, as they are not complete gigs. There are also plenty of fairly good audience recordings out there for the discerning listener...I recommend 19 June 1992, Hornet Field Sacramento, remastered by the Coaster Factory as We Walked on Hornet Field.

In the realm of rarities, the WCD tour's treasures are threefold. First we have "Mama," which, while it was played very regularly in the previous two tours, was only played at the beginning gigs of this one and then dropped (probably in an attempt to save Phil's voice). Only a few audience recordings from May of '92 have this song on them. Secondly there is "Dreaming While You Sleep," which was played more often than "Mama" but still only spottily. It was played at most of the gigs in May and June and then returned near the end of October. Fortunately it was professionally recorded for one of the November gigs at Earls Court, and is featured both on the second box set and on the official live video from this tour. The most rare of rarities from this tour has to be "The Carpet Crawlers," an oft-played number of previous years which nevertheless was only played at one gig of this year: 23 October 1992, Mayflower Theatre, Southampton UK. This gig happens to be documented by two different audience recordings. The first circulating version (called The Carpet Crawlers) was low quality and incomplete--there is another one going around that is much more complete and sounds better.

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Calling All Stations tour

IN REVIEW
Main Picks:
13 December 1997 (RTL Studios, Paris), 31 January 1998 (Spodek, Katowice Poland), 25 and 26 February 1998 (NEC Birmingham), 8 March 1998 (Point Depot, Dublin)
Honorable Mention: 12 February 1998 (Stuttgart Germany)
Shows with Rarities: 23 January 1998 (Bray Film Studios, UK)

13 December 1997, RTL Studios, Paris France (Small Talking in Paris, After the Ordeal, The Other Calling All Stations, Practice Makes Perfect) - There are no stolen soundboard recordings currently available from the CAS tour, and though there are multiple radio shows, none of them document a complete, normal live set! The beginning radio shows (26 August, 28 August, 15 November, 9 December and 13 December 1997) are all from short, promotional sets played to select audiences before the actual tour began. The broadcasts from them probably represent the complete sets, but the sets (especially in the case of the first gigs, which were entirely acoustic and consisted of four songs each) are very short. The 9 December show is also all acoustic and is only 5 numbers in length. The 15 November show is electric but is still rather short and also does not have the more accomplished playing and rare songs of the 13 December show, my first pick for best CAS bootleg. This is a rather famous set from this tour, in great quality, which has been released in various official forms as b-sides on some of the album's singles and as a shortened promotional CD to some lucky fans. The more common version that combines all the songs played is Small Talking in Paris. I don't have it, but Practice Makes Perfect seems to be a slightly better version of the full broadcast. In addition to being a nice clean performance from a fresh band just starting to get used to each other, this show also features the very rare "Small Talk," which was only played live on this night. Also, though the set still does not reflect that of the normal live shows to come, it is fuller than any of the other pre-tour broadcasts.

Set: No Son of Mine/Congo/Land of Confusion/Small Talk/Mama/(Acoustic set: Not About Us/Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (intro)/Follow You Follow Me/Lover's Leap)/Calling All Stations/Invisible Touch/Shipwrecked/Alien Afternoon/Turn It on Again

31 January 1998, Spodek, Katowice, Poland (Katowice, Poland; Alien Afternoon in Poland) - This is one of the very first regular shows played before an audience on this tour--the band were still playing "warm-ups" and "dress rehearsals" a few days before this one (you can tell if you listen closely, because the band mess up on a few little things, especially near the end of the show). It features a very full set and was actually broadcast on television, making for a high quality bootleg (I also have an incomplete version of this on VCD in my video section). Multiple versions exist and one of my versions is missing the first number--the person who made the show compensated by adding some bonus tracks from other sources. It's probable that most other versions will have the full show without bonus tracks. I have a version like this, and it sounds pretty great. You might hear some slight crackles or pops from time to time, but otherwise the transfer is generally very good. Halley has a version which is titled Alien Afternoon in Poland, and is probably one of the better versions. The audience is quite excited here and Ray gets them to sing along to several bits. Ray also speaks some Polish. There are at least two other TV broadcasts from this tour, played at 2 February in Prague and at 15 February in Vienna. Both are available on video and on audio discs, but though both are probably very good quality neither document a complete show and the Vienna broadcast (at least on the VCDs I have of it) is missing all the song intros. This show is one in which both "Alien Afternoon" and "There Must be Some Other Way" were played together (the band did not play both in the same set after mid-February), and "Shipwrecked" was not always a part of the set later in the tour.

Set: No Son of Mine/Land of Confusion/The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway/Calling All Stations/Alien Afternoon/The Carpet Crawlers/There Must be Some Other Way/Domino/Shipwrecked/Firth of Fifth (instrumental section)/Congo/Home by the Sea - Second Home by the Sea/(Acoustic set: Dancing With the Moonlit Knight/Follow You Follow Me/Lover's Leap)/Mama/The Dividing Line/Invisible Touch/Turn It on Again/Throwing It All Away/I Can't Dance

25 and 26 February 1998, National Exhibition Centre (NEC), Birmingham UK (Calling At All Stations, Revised Repeat, A New Beginning, Live After Dividing (Highland version), Nir Perfect) - My other pick from the available radio shows of this tour. There are several others available from actual before-an-audience performances, but this is one of the more complete and better quality ones, though still not a full show. You'll notice that, of the thirteen songs broadcast, only three are actually from the new album. This is probably a combination of two different nights at the NEC, and in fact the set listed below is a compilation of two different broadcasts from these performances. Many bootlegs do not include all of the available songs--A New Beginning, for instance, is only the first radio broadcast and is missing three songs that were played on the second broadcast (my version also has some small cuts in it). Calling At All Stations seems to be the exact same thing. Revised Repeat is the second broadcast, which is missing songs that the first one has. The Highland bootleg Live After Dividing still only uses the first broadcast and fills out two discs by tacking on some tracks from the 2 February Prague TV broadcast mentioned earlier.

My best version seems to match the track times of one Simon lists as Nir Perfect, an excellent quality bootleg (said to be pre-FM) which features all of the broadcast tracks combined, pretty much in the correct order, and with an intro from an announcer of BBC 2 Radio. This is really a great performance. Definitely worth a listen, even if you may not have been a big fan of the CAS album.

Set (the order of the last two pairs of tracks is probably reversed from the actual play list): No Son of Mine/The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway/Calling All Stations/The Carpet Crawlers/Domino/(Acoustic Set: Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (intro)/Lover's Leap/Not About Us)/The Dividing Line/Mama/Turn It on Again/Invisible Touch

8 March 1998, Point Depot, Dublin Ireland (Point Depot, A Single Lonely Voice (Highland version), The Red Dress Returns) - As the two radio shows I picked for my list are incomplete, I felt it would be well to get a full gig from later in the tour in here, and so have chosen this one. One of the more famous audience bootlegs from this tour, this is the show Simon picks as his favorite. It's a nice performance and Ray is pretty comfortable with the audience. My version, dubbed The Red Dress Returns, had problems during the track transitions in the form of pauses and cross fades which cut parts of the song intros, but I doubt the other versions have this problem. The quality is good, and this set represents as close as you can come to the "typical" set of this tour.

Set: No Son of Mine/Land of Confusion/The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway/Calling All Stations/The Carpet Crawlers/There Must be Some Other Way/Domino/Firth of Fifth (instrumental section)/Congo/Home by the Sea - Second Home by the Sea/(Acoustic set: Dancing With the Moonlit Knight/Follow You Follow Me/Lover's Leap/Not About Us)/Mama/The Dividing Line/Invisible Touch/Turn It on Again/Throwing It All Away/I Can't Dance

An honorable mention must go to the following show, a fairly common and good quality audience recording along the same lines as the Katowice gig:

12 February 1998, Schleyerhalle, Stuttgart Germany (Strictly Mechanic, ...Through the Ages... (Highland version)) - A full audience gig, in great quality. The set is very full--in fact it's identical to the Katowice show--and includes more songs from the album than the Point Depot gig, though its quality is probably not quite as good. According to the ratings Simon assigns to these shows, there are plenty of great audience recordings from this tour and you can hardly go wrong with any of them. This one is probably in fairly wide distribution. The widely distributed show is a double-edged sword however, because though it will be easier to find, the fact that everyone has a copy means that the chance of added noise, gaps and stutters is much higher. Know your trader!

Set: No Son of Mine/Land of Confusion/The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway/Calling All Stations/Alien Afternoon/The Carpet Crawlers/There Must be Some Other Way/Domino/Shipwrecked/Firth of Fifth (instrumental section)/Congo/Home by the Sea - Second Home by the Sea/(Acoustic set: Dancing With the Moonlit Knight/Follow You Follow Me/Lover's Leap)/Mama/The Dividing Line/Invisible Touch/Turn It on Again/Throwing It All Away/I Can't Dance

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You might think, what with all of those big, full audience gigs up there, that I must have covered all of the rare songs from this tour. But in fact you'd be wrong! There are two songs that were played live by the Ray-era band on only a handful of occasions, and both of them can be heard if you listen to the following entry:

23 January 1998, Bray Film Studios, Windsor UK (Bray Warm-Up '98) - Genesis appear to have done some of their tour rehearsals in early '98 here, and also played this "warm-up" gig in front of an audience before really bringing their tour underway. The early, casual nature of this gig resulted in an exploratory set which took in two numbers that the band quickly gave up: "That's All" and "Hold on My Heart." The latter song was played a couple more times before it was totally dropped, but as far as I can tell "That's All" was never played again, probably because Ray just didn't sing it all that well. Still, interesting to hear. The bootleg I have of this is a fairly good quality audience recording which has only one small cut near the end of "Congo"--if it is in fact a cut at all. Once the tour really got going, Ray developed some intros for some of these songs, particularly HBTS where he told a funny story about lighting rigs posing as surrogate girlfriends while the band tours. Here he does not have those stories developed, and actually tells a rare straightforward intro for HBTS. I found this show to be enjoyable and am glad to have the rare performances.

Set: No Son of Mine/Land of Confusion/The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway/Calling All Stations/Hold on My Heart/That's All/There Must be Some Other Way/Domino/The Carpet Crawlers/Firth of Fifth (instrumental section)/Congo/Home by the Sea - Second Home by the Sea/(Acoustic set: Dancing With the Moonlit Knight/Follow You Follow Me/Lover's Leap)/Mama/The Dividing Line/Invisible Touch/Turn It on Again/Throwing It All Away/I Can't Dance

Though they do not have "That's All," two other early performances that sound great and that feature "Hold on My Heart" are available on bootleg. 28 January 1998 was a "dress rehearsal" gig played in an almost totally empty hall, so the sound is very clear. The very next day the band played their first gig before a normal audience, at the same venue in Budapest. The set was identical and the quality of the show very similar (with an audience this time), though perhaps not quite as good as the dress rehearsal gig. These are two very good bootlegs and I almost feel guilty for not including them on the main list for this tour. But you've got to draw the line somewhere!

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Now if you're anything like I am and have read this list, you desperately want all of these recordings right now! Feel free to head over to my own Live Recordings section for details about my particular versions (though I provide most of the same details on this page), or contact me for a trade. Keep in mind that this list is more of a reference guide than a ploy to get more trade contacts, and that I don't always have the best possible version of the gigs mentioned above. Feel free to try elsewhere to obtain the recordings you see listed here. Happy hunting!