Tony Stratton-Smith Presents: Genesis in Concert/Bataclan '73
Shepperton Studios (30-31/10/73): Watcher of the Skies/Dancing
With the Moonlit Knight/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)/The
Musical Box/Supper's Ready
Bataclan Club, Paris (10/1/73): The Musical Box/Supper's
Ready/The Return of the Giant Hogweed/The Knife
Comments: A nice compilation DVD of classic Genesis
video clips from 1973. The Shepperton footage is, as always,
too dark, but looks better than my VCD copy (however, see
the entry for the 16 mm version below). The audio is slightly
out of synch, but the whole thing is there. The Bataclan footage
is better than the VCD. For one, it doesn't have the typical
VCD pixellation. For another, it has the full opening of the
program, including the cryptic scanning shot of the graveyard
while the French narrator seems to talk about Genesis' contemporaries
in the prog music scene (this opening scene is probably the
only thing it has over the GMDVD version of the footage--see
above entry). It's just nice to have these clips on DVD, and
these seem to be generally stable and clean VHS transfers.
Bataclan's picture is a bit jumpy.
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Genesis in Concert '76/Seconds Out Promo/Pop Shop '72
Genesis in Concert (9-10/7/76): I Know What I Like
(in Your Wardrobe)/Fly on a Windshield/Broadway Melody of
1974/The Carpet Crawlers/Cinema Show (pt 2)/Entangled/Supper's
Ready (from Apocalypse in 9/8)/Los Endos
Seconds Out Live Promo (19/3/77): Firth of Fifth/Dance
on a Volcano/Drum Duet/Los Endos/The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway/The
Musical Box (closing section)
Belgian TV (20-21/3/72): The Fountain of Salmacis/Twilight
Alehouse/The Musical Box/The Return of the Giant Hogweed
Comments: This is mainly a collection of clips from
the band's four-piece period with Phil as singer, with the
famous "white room" footage from '72 on the end.
The '76 movie comes from the Japanese laserdisc version; even
so, the picture is not perfect, though I think I still would
prefer it to my VCD version
which chops off the sides of the picture (this version does
not!). The ideal version that I have is the officially-released
DVD on the 2007 reissue of A Trick of the Tail.
The Seconds Out promo I'm glad to have in good digital form,
because my VCD had errors on it. The picture is a bit blurred,
but not bad. Please see my previous entries in the VHS
and VCD section for descriptions of this footage (including,
in the VCD entry,
my theories on the actual venue for this footage). This version
has some tape interference and a speed drop during the second
verse of "Lamb." There's some picture jumping at
the end of "Box" as well.
The Belgian clip is unfortunately not an absolutely perfect
version, because the opening titles and the first few seconds
of "Salmacis" are missing. In the upper left corner,
the logo "3SAT" appears. Later in the video, the
phrase "ZDF Musik Kanal" appears in the upper right
corner. This must come from a different broadcast than some
of my other versions of the footage, which do not have these
logos. See my VCD for
what is possibly a better and more complete version, but see
GMDVD03 and the entry following it for
the best versions.
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Shepperton 1973 - The 16 mm Film
Tony Stratton-Smith Presents: Genesis in Concert (30-31/10/73):
Watcher of the Skies/Dancing With the Moonlit Knight/I Know
What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)/The Musical Box/Supper's Ready
Comments: In 2005, the 16 mm reels for the famous
Shepperton Studios footage surfaced on e-bay. A dedicated
group of great fans decided to band together and pledge their
pooled money to the cause of capturing this major relic. They
succeeded, and the amazing results are contained on this DVD.
There quite simply will never be a better version of this
footage, unless it is some day officially released (which
I highly doubt will happen). The DVD features a nice menu
screen, some informative credits, and some cool still shot
montages animated to the sounds of FoF. There is also an "easter
egg," or secret section, of some kind, though I'm ashamed
to say I have yet to find it.
Now, before I saw this footage, I heard people raving about
it. My reaction was somewhat excited, but more of a: "Yeah,
yeah, so it looks slightly better than my six other versions;
it can't be that great. The original footage was always
too dark, there's no way they can fix that." Still everyone
went on about how fantastic it was. I finally got my copy
(someone very graciously sent one to me, gratis--the greatest
thing about this video is the true generosity which made it
possible), stuck it in my DVD player--and watched, utterly
dumbstruck, my jaw hanging open, my eyes wide, as "Watcher
of the Skies" opened, and I could actually see the
band, and see the background slides, and see everything
that was just a bunch of mud before.
You have to be familiar with the previous versions of this
footage for it to really grab you, but even if you are not
familiar with it, you will still love to have this, what is
the best video footage we have of Genesis at their costume-and-story-telling
prime, the way it really looked and sounded on stage. Now
I know those of you who haven't seen this yet are still going,
"Yeah, yeah, he doesn't know what he's talking about;
so it's a little brighter." But you'll see; you'll see...
By the way, there are already multiple versions of this footage
being released. I believe mine is the Genesis Museum version.
The soundtrack has also been remastered and sounds great;
and what's even better, it's in synch with the video, which
was sometimes a problem in my previous versions. The only
criticism I have is that when it comes to stuff that is really
white, the footage can sometimes get almost too bright--such
as when the spotlight shines directly on Peter's head, his
head becomes a white blob. But this may have been a problem
of the other versions as well.
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Midnight
Special ('73)/Live in Tokyo ('78)/Three Dates With Genesis
('78)/Peter Gabriel 1978
Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank CA
(20/12/73): Watcher of the Skies/The Musical Box
Genesis Live in Tokyo (3/12/78): Eleventh Earl of
Mar/Dance on a Volcano - Drum Duet - Los Endos/I Know What
I Like (in Your Wardrobe)
Three Dates With Genesis (Edited UK TV, 1978)
Peter Gabriel, Grugahalle, Essen Germany
(15/9/78): On the Air/Moribund the Burgermeister/Perspective/Here
Comes the Flood/White Shadow/Waiting For the Big One/Humdrum/I
Don't Remember/Solsbury Hill/Modern Love/The Lamb Lies Down
on Broadway (partial)
Comments: This DVD features a bunch of
stuff I had on VHS that I wanted to have on DVD instead--it
has all been transferred from VHS versions. I should mention
right away that some of this stuff is not great quality-wise,
and that better versions exist (some of which I have!). But
all of these are pro-shot clips and they get better as it
goes along. I have described all of these elsewhere on the
VHS/VCD page, but I'll do
some quick explanations here.
The Midnight Special footage is from the US
TV program of that name, with the classic Gabriel line-up
in the studio doing the full costume and make-up performance
of two of their classics. The slideshow does not appear to
be on, and the flute solo is removed from "Musical Box,"
taking even Peter by surprise. Unfortunately the picture especially
during the intro of "Watcher" is very flickery and
breaks up from time to time throughout the rest of the recording,
but when it is not breaking up it looks and sounds not bad.
For a better version see GMDVD03, above.
The Tokyo footage is fairly stable and doesn't
do much jiggling or breaking up, but the overall visual is
very blurry and unless you know what you're supposed to be
looking at, it can look sometimes just like a bunch of brightly
colored blobs. There are some shots when the lights are certain
colors, or when there is a close-up, where the picture looks
fairly normal. Strangely there doesn't seem to be a single
shot of the audience in the whole thing--apparently they weren't
doing anything interesting. There is at least one shot of
the strobe laser lights near the end of "Los Endos."
Nice text titles for the songs appear in English and Japanese.
See the comments on my VHS
version for a few extra details.
The "Three Dates" documentary is supposed
to follow the band on three of their European gigs: the Eistadion
in Mannheim, Germany on 17 May; the Groenoordhal in Leiden,
Holland on 20 May (this venue according to the narrator is
actually a cattle market); and the Knebworth Festival on 24
June. However my version is a severely edited clip that is
about one-third the length of the full documentary, and features
only heavily-edited shots from the cattle market (the instrumental
section of "Cinema Show") and some footage of Knebworth
(a good deal of "Lady Lies"--and a fake "rehearsal"
of "Many Too Many" on the Knebworth stage, the same
version used as the promo video for that song). There is also
a clip of the band doing a bit of "The Lamb" from
1977. I have the full version in its officially-released form
as a bonus item on the 2007 reissue of And Then There Were
Three, in addition to a PAL bootleg version below--it
does not have much more music, but focuses more on interviews
(there are little to no interviews here, apart from one shot
of Mike Rutherford at the very beginning talking about how
hard their music is to classify).
All of these Genesis clips were pretty short,
so there was plenty of room left on the end of the DVD for
the nice trader I got this from to stick on Peter Gabriel's
live performance on Rockpalast, from his second tour. This
is probably the highest quality footage on here, which I discuss
on the last entry
of my VHS section. Very glad to have this all on DVD!
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Montreal
'74
Centre Sportif
de L'Univeritete de Montreal, Quebec (20/4/74):
(all songs edited) 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/The Battle of Epping
Forest/Supper's Ready
Comments: This DVD features a lot of audience-shot
footage which has been edited together, looped, and otherwise
tinkered with to try to put together a good chunk of a Selling
England tour show. It is either 8mm or 16mm film, I'm
not sure which. I acquired multiple DVD versions of this footage
at roughly the same time; most are very high generation, blobby,
flickery, and generally nasty. However one of them (the one
which I am now describing) appears to be much lower generation
than the others and is really quite watchable considering
its age. The editing must have taken a lot of work, and does
manage to give a fairly good overview of a show from late
in the tour (though keep in mind it is very incomplete). It
is nice to have something to look at while listening to the
Montreal '74 radio material, which is the audio source used
to sort of synch to the silent video (note that the radio
broadcast is from 21/4, but this footage seems to generally
be dated as the day before, at the same venue).
The songs are all in varying degrees of completeness; "Watcher"
and IKWIL are the most complete. The whole French story for
"Cinema" is present, but only the ending instrumental
section of the song is here. You can hear the FoF piano intro
and guitar solo, see the ending of "Musical Box"
and the intro portion of "Epping Forest." "Supper"
starts at the "Sanctuary Man" section, has a bit
of the "Ikhnaton," all of "Willow Farm,"
part of "Apocalypse," and all of the "Eggs
is Eggs" section. There are shots of every band member
and you get to see most of Peter's costumes. If you look very
carefully on the first couple of numbers you can even make
out some of the slide projections behind them. There is even
some rather indistinct after-the-concert footage: one shot
of what may be Tony getting into a car, and a pan shot of
the nearly-empty auditorium afterwards, while on the audio
track we hear the Montreal DJ trying to figure out whether
the band is going to come back on stage for an encore.
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The Lamb Live Down on Broadway
Various amateur/official sources, 1974-1975: The Lamb
Lies Down on Broadway (clips from all songs except "Chamber
of 32 Doors" and "Ravine")/The Musical Box/Watcher
of the Skies
Comments: Up until 2005, the only video footage of
the famous Lamb tour which I had managed to glean--and, indeed,
the only stuff I thought was out there--was, to put it bluntly,
a bunch of crap. Amateur concert video in the 1970s was really,
really amateur. Consult my comments on the Lamb
VCD and you'll see what I mean.
However, now Chris West has come along and painstakingly
(and I do mean painstakingly) matched all of the existing
silent amateur footage with the correct songs, put together
all of the still shots taken from the tour, and taken (what
was then) the only professionally shot footage (from a German
documentary about Bill Graham, a few shots of "In the
Cage," "Slippermen," and some backstage make-up
application, as well as a shot of a Lamb billboard), and stripped
them all together to make a nearly whole concoction which
will give viewers a fairly good idea of what it was like to
be in the audience for the real thing.
The amount of work which must have went into this feat is
mind-boggling. The result, unfortunately, while impressive
for the sheer work and care that went into it, and while an
eye-opening glimpse into the concert's structure and a nice
listen for all those who really love the album, is still not
what fans would ideally like to see: the real concert in full.
For the time being, it is the best we have, and if you take
it for what it is and not for what you'd like it to be, it
is a fantastic thing. I take my hat off to everyone involved.
The DVD itself is very nice and has a great main menu screen
from which you can directly jump to any song. There is also
a very well-written set of credits which gives you a very
detailed run-down on all the video footage and where it came
from (which is why I won't bore anyone now reciting venues
and dates). The soundtrack which was used is from the 10/1/75
soundboard material. Many of the songs are edited to last
for whatever amount of video footage was available. Sometimes,
little clips of band members are looped to fill in time, and
still shots are repeated. There is some very clever cutting
of video to help match the rhythm of the music, and some of
the audio editing is also very seamless--verses are removed
from songs without a beat being dropped.
The best songs to watch are, of course, "In the Cage"
and "Colony of the Slippermen," as those are the
numbers with the most amount of footage shot of them. "In
the Cage" in particular has some impressively long shots
of Peter singing which totally synch up to the audio. You
also get a lot of great shots of Peter jiggling around in
his slipperman outfit, plus some neat footage of Peter's fire
bomb during "Back in NYC." And don't forget Peter
behind his "shower curtain" for "Lamia."
A section of the last bit of storytelling is also present,
and even some footage from the two encores. The still shots
are actually very valuable, since the video footage never
gives you a good view of the slides being shown behind the
band--the photos show quite a few memorable slides. The two
numbers which are missing from all of this are "Chamber
of 32 Doors" and (nobody's favorite) "Ravine,"
both of which do not seem to be represented by any extant
video footage.
Anyways, for all of you searching desperately for that hidden
Lamb footage, I think this is about as good as you can get--unless
you go out and see The Musical Box do their re-creation of
the tour (which I highly recommend). Also see next entry.
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The Lamb Lies Down on Berlin (RaelMatrix)
Eissporthalle, Berlin (23/2/75): Short clip, featuring
audio section of "It"
Comments: This is a fascinating little fragment of
pro-shot Lamb footage, only about two minutes long, which
surfaced recently enough that it was not incorporated into
Chris West's footage (above entry). It is an Italian language
report on the Genesis show, very low resolution, in rather
blotchy black and white, with lots of shots of the audience
and some of the band. The only actual audio from the gig is
from the song "It," though we see the typical glimpses
of the Slipperman outfit and the "Lamia" shower
curtain. Pro-shot Lamb footage is very rare and exciting;
otherwise this wouldn't be anything to write home about. This
DVD comes from RaelMatrix Productions and has a menu screen.
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Three Dates With Genesis (EFDVDG08)
Eistadion, Mannheim (17/5/78); Groenoordhal, Leiden (20/5/78);
Knebworth Festival (24/6/78): Clips from the three dates,
featuring Say It's Alright Joe/The Cinema Show/The Lady Lies
Stadthalle, Vienna (26/8/78); Ulm, Summerfest (28/8/78):
German TV, mostly interviews with Phil
Many Too Many: alternate redubbed promo video
Comments: This is in PAL format. This Epping Forest
DVD is probably my best quality bootleg version of the BBC
Nationwide programme, though the officially-released version
included as a bonus item on the 2007 reissue of And Then
There Were Three has now made this version somewhat obsolete.
My other bootleg versions of this show are severely edited,
but this is the full broadcast. It features more band history
at the beginning (the same kind of stuff you've heard before,
and some footage re-used in the A History video), and
a great deal more interviews. There is an extended clip from
Phil Collins' big, big movie, Calamity the Cow, including
some commentary from Phil on his disagreements with the director.
This show is very much a product of its time and is quite
dated, which makes it amusing (the narrator calmly asserts
that the band's music would "never go down in the discos"),
but also at times can hit you with waves of nostalgia. All
of the "high-tech" gear which the band uses, for
instance, is ridiculously antiquated. Consider that in 1978
the personal computer and the Internet were both many years
away. The footage of all those happy-go-lucky youngsters camping
out on the Knebworth grounds almost brought a tear to my eye--where
are those youngsters now?
Strangely enough, the programme ends up being more about
the "modern" British rock group in general than
it is really about Genesis. Lots of time is spent showing
the stage and road crew breaking up and putting away all of
the gear (without the help of the local crew, who for the
Mannheim date just up and left!), and there are several interviews
with the truck drivers and lighting engineers. There is a
long piece about getting through customs, a tour of the crew
coach (bus), and extended figures for all of the refreshments
that had to be shipped to the Knebworth festival.
Of course, in between all of this (perfectly fascinating)
information, there is some actual footage of the band playing.
At Mannheim we see a very short clip from "Say It's Alright
Joe," and at Leiden an edited portion of the instrumental
passage from "Cinema Show." At Knebworth, the third
of the three dates featured and the only date in the UK, we
are treated to a nearly-complete "Lady Lies." Also
included is a mimed performance to the studio track "Many
Too Many." This was the promo video for the song and
shows the band on the Knebworth stage. Of course it is just
the three of them for the video; even during the actual live
performances there is very little footage of Daryl and Chester,
and their names are not mentioned at all.
From time to time the band members are asked questions, but
apart from the past history stuff at the beginning of the
video, most of the questions are very generic, like "Are
you a millionaire?" "Do you like your job?"
"Do you live in a mansion?" They provoke generic
and noncommital answers from the guys. In one ironic passage
Tony is asked if he will still be performing when he's 40.
Ha!
I really liked the background music which was used--it was
all studio Genesis tracks from their entire catalogue up to
that point. I don't think an album was overlooked except their
first one, and the songs were always well-used (I particularly
enjoyed the use of the flute solo in "Firth of Fifth"
while the camera filmed roadies sleeping on the bus).
There are a few picture fluctuations and speed drops in here,
all in the first third or half of the show, but mostly this
is just an excellent presentation of this fascinating show.
Also we get some neat bonus footage. The first bit is a German
news show of some sort; mainly it's an interview with Phil
and a little with Mike, but it also features some live footage
of the band which was probably taken at the gigs listed above,
in Vienna and Ulm (though the program has inaccurately labeled
the songs as being from 1977). Since it's all in German it's
hard to get much out of it except for the tiny live clips
(unless of course you speak German!). Though this footage
is better quality, I have a more complete chunk of the live
Vienna footage and Phil interviews on my Liverpool
'80/Austria '78 DVD (see next entry).
The other bonus clip is a better-quality version of the "Many
Too Many" promo video, with a time code running along
the bottom and the message "Nationwide Genesis 21/7/78"
on the top. This time it has been overdubbed with a new audio
track taken from the Platinum Collection remix--it
sounds very nice.
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Liverpool '80/Austria '78
Empire Theatre, Liverpool, UK (2&3/5/80): Granada
TV Documentary, including edited footage of: (Part One) Behind
the Lines/Turn It on Again/Duke's Travels/Follow You Follow
Me/Deep In The Motherlode/ (Part Two) Behind The Lines/Duchess/Duke's
End/I Know What I Like/Dance On A Volcano - Drum Duet - Los
Endos
Stadthalle, Vienna (26/8/78): German TV, interviews
with Phil, clips from: The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - The
Musical Box (closing section)/In the Cage/The Cinema Show/Afterglow
Comments: This DVD features two unconnected clips
(and no menu system, unfortunately). The first, a good documentary
from the Duke tour (a la the Three Dates documentary
of the previous entry), I have in better quality as a bonus
item on my Old Grey Whistle Test (EFDVDG11)
entry, below. Please go to that entry for a description of
the show. This version doesn't look bad, but the Epping Forest
version is pretty stunning comparatively.
The real interesting thing for me is the second clip, from
the band's gig in Austria in 1978. I have a severely edited
bunch of footage from this on my previous entry, but this
version features longer clips from the live show and more
interview footage with Phil. My other version was clearly
from a different TV broadcast and had some shots from their
Ulm gig as well as interviews with Mike, which are not included
here. This one is unfortunately not as good quality, and has
a bit of a jiggly picture. It's still pro-shot stuff, though,
and it's undeniably nice to have these much less edited versions
of the live numbers. The Vienna gig happens to have been one
of the very few on the '78 tour for which the band revived
their "Lamb/Box" medley of the previous tour--the
footage begins with this number.
Unfortunately though more of the songs are here than in my
other version, they are still heavily edited: only the beginning
minutes of "Lamb" are there, and some of the "Box"
section, separated by some interview footage. We get to see
the crazy light show at the end of "Cage." "Cinema"
is the most complete number and goes all the way from the
beginning to the second Father Tiresias section (though the
instrumental interlude before that has been edited). Another
interview bit comes in as Phil is getting behind the drum
kit for the instrumental section. When the live footage cuts
back in it is partway through "Afterglow." We get
to see another big light display with smoke machine effects
in that song, which continues to its end. At the end of the
song the DVD abruptly ends.
As for the interviews, they are dubbed in German but some
of the English questions and answers are audible; Phil talks
about the background of the band members and the light show
(most of the band members' references to their light show
during this period are very defensive and downplay the importance
of the thing--they feel it necessary to stress that they are
musicians first and foremost). He also talks about how he
considers himself a drummer more than a singer.
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Duke's Travels in London
Lyceum Ballroom, London, UK (6/5/80): Deep in the
Motherlode/Dancing With the Moonlit Knight (intro)/The Carpet
Crawlers/Squonk/One For the Vine/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 (partial)/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
Comments: This is the 1980 Genesis footage that I
have come to know and love (I already have the bulk of this
on VHS and VCD,
and footage from a very similar gig, below). This one is probably
about the best version I've seen. Most other versions have
suffered from some wavery sound and a very dark picture, and
the VCD had pauses between songs and a few video glitches.
This one has no glitches, is definitely a bit brighter (though
still too dark in places), and I actually thought the sound
was better as well. It has the ending part of "Ripples,"
coming in at the the end of the bridge section and going to
the end of the song (my original VHS version was missing the
entire song). The big bonus, which may actually come from
the same source as the below DVD, is video of "The Knife."
The way it works is, the whole regular movie is on the DVD,
going to the end of IKWIL, showing the band leaving and the
house music playing. The crowd boos, then the frame freezes.
Then there is some dead air. Then some footage comes in near
the end of IKWIL. It is a handheld camera from behind Tony
Banks, the same type of feed presented on the below DVD. IKWIL
gets to the end, the band leave, the camera points at something
very dark, and eventually the band come back on and do "The
Knife." My guess is this "Knife" comes from
7/5/80, not 6/5, but I could be wrong. Either way, it's cool
to have a very full, clean version of this 1980 footage.
One thing to note: this DVD appears to be PAL video format,
which means it did not work in my home DVD player. It did
work in my computer DVD player, which is how I'm able to review
it here.
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Live At the Lyceum, Parts 1 & 2/Melody '74/Santa Monica
'74
DVD 1:
Lyceum Ballroom, London, UK (7/5/80): Deep in the Motherlode/Dancing
With the Moonlit Knight (intro)/The Carpet Crawlers/Squonk/One
For the Vine/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 (partial)/In the Cage - The Colony of Slippermen
(The Raven) - Afterglow/Follow You Follow Me
DVD 2:
Lyceum Ballroom, London, UK (7/5/80): Dance on a Volcano
- Drum Duet - Los Endos/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)/The
Knife
ORTF Studios, Paris (Melody) (12/2/74): I Know What
I Like (in Your Wardrobe)/Supper's Ready
Live At the Civic Reunion Center, Santa Monica CA, USA
(21/3/74): Dancing With the Moonlit Knight/The Cinema
Show/I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)/Firth of Fifth/The
Musical Box/Supper's Ready (All songs very incomplete)
Live At the Civic Reunion Center, Santa Monica CA, USA
(21/3/74): Same footage as above, different source
Comments: Mainly this 2-DVD set comprises an almost-complete
video record of the famous 7 May 1980 Genesis show at the
Lyceum Ballroom (made famous, of course, by its radio broadcast
and subsequent bootlegging as Musica).
The more common video footage from the Lyceum gigs is that
from 6 May, which is cut together from various cameras and
seemingly ready for public viewing (though, to my knowledge,
it was never officially distributed--see above entry). The
7 May is also distributed in a very edited form as a broadcast
from the "Old Grey Whistle Test" program (see next
entry). This footage is of surprisingly much better quality
than those (the picture is shockingly clear, and the picture
and sound are much better than one might expect), but comes
from only one handheld camera. The guy holding it was on stage,
shooting from behind Tony Banks. I have no idea how this footage
leaked, but here it is, very raw: the cameraman seems at times
to have been drunk or suffering from seizures, since the camera
sometimes veers away and points at nothing, or refocuses.
A lot of the time the camera is pointed at Tony, and keyboardists
will be able to make out what chords Tony hits for a lot of
the songs. The camera can also catch Phil (mostly in profile,
though for SIAJ you get to see the back of his head--his best
side!), and sometimes it points at Mike or Chester (thrill
as, before the encore, Mike sips his beer!). Sometimes the
camera seems to be almost sitting on the floor of the stage,
getting some very low angles.
One very interesting thing about this footage, aside from
the curious raw nature of it, is that at last we can hear
the full song introductions for the 7 May performance--something
that is often missing from the radio bootlegs (and the Whistle
Test footage). In fact this video was almost certainly the
source for the spliced intros in the excellent 7 May audio
bootleg, As Good as Gold.
Phil does some great intros (though during them we are left
almost entirely in the dark, since the lights went down between
songs), and really seems to have a better time with the crowd
than he did on the more common footage from the previous night.
As with that footage, "Ripples" seems to have been
the spot where the tape was flipped (or whatever)--about the
first half of the song is missing (note though that there
is more of "Ripples" here than on the 6/5 footage).
After a long break and silence during which we see solid black
and solid white screens, the video picks back up at the chorus
right before the bridge.
My copy begins with a title screen which appears to be a
still from the performance. It mentions the Genesis Museum
in the corner and plays a short bit from "The Knife."
This Lyceum footage, from what I recall, leaked fairly recently
and has been released by various sources. Most releases fit
it on one DVD, but mine has been spread over two, the second
disc filled up with some nice bonus material. First up after
Lyceum is the Melody TV clip from 1974, featuring a surreal
broadcast of Pete and the gang, Pete probably at his weirdest
(at least as a member of Genesis). The picture is not perfect--this
one was probably transferred from VHS--but it's probably clearer
than the VCD I have.
It also features a split second of additional title footage
at the beginning.
The final set of footage, which is actually on the disc twice,
comes from an 8mm amateur video recording. I usually try to
stay away from amateur footage, and viewing this footage helped
strengthen my stance on that issue: the picture is very contrasty,
has ghosting, speed problems, and an unstable picture. All
of the songs are very incomplete, as the taper was forced
to turn his camera on and off to avoid being caught. You get
a bit of the story for "Cinema," but I believe that
is the only story on here. "Moonlit Knight"'s footage
comes mainly from the ending of the song. The guys taping
the show are very impressed by the ending of "Musical
Box," most of which they manage to catch on tape. "Supper"
cuts out during the last section of "Apocalypse in 9/8."
The repeat of the footage is from a different source or generation;
it has fewer of the tape defects (picture instability, speed
drops) of the first one, but the overall image may be even
more unclear than the first. Interestingly, when this footage
is described on the Movement it is said to be silent video
footage with "dubbed" sound. If so, I guess the
guys who lugged in their hefty 1974 8mm camcorder also lugged
in an audio recorder, because the audio certainly seems to
be from the concert, and it's synched up quite well. (I have
an incomplete audio
recording of the second Santa Monica gig of 22/3 which
was probably made by the same people who took this video and
may have been the source for at least some of the audio on
this clip, though definitely not all, since that audio recording
ends at "Firth of Fifth" and does not include any
portion of "Box" or "Supper.") As I hinted
earlier, you can sometimes hear some audience chatter, but
actually in general the audio is quite nice and probably better
than the video.
This set would be more than worth it just for the Lyceum
stuff, but it's even better to have these bonus clips, even
if the amateur one is very amateur.
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The Old Grey Whistle Test (EFDVDG11)
Lyceum Ballroom, London, UK (7/5/80): Intro/Behind
the Lines/Duchess/Guide Vocal/In the Cage - The Colony of
Slippermen (The Raven) - Afterglow/Dance on a Volcano - Drum
Duet - Los Endos
Empire Theatre, Liverpool, UK (2&3/5/80): Granada
TV Documentary, including edited footage of: (Part One) Behind
the Lines/Turn It on Again/Duke's Travels/Follow You Follow
Me/Deep In The Motherlode/ (Part Two) Behind The Lines/Duchess/Duke's
End/I Know What I Like/Dance On A Volcano - Drum Duet - Los
Endos
Comments: This Epping Forest DVD (which begins with
a very very cool montage of animated chunks of artwork from
the band's albums and a soundtrack featuring pieced-together
bits from songs throughout their history) presents a very
good quality version of the Old Grey Whistle Test footage
from the famous Lyceum gig. I have this footage on various
media in various forms, but this is no doubt the best non-official
version of the Whistle Test footage (see previous entry for
a more complete version of the gig, from a more raw and unedited
video source). Of course the Whistle Test footage is now available
officially as a bonus clip on the 2007 reissue of Duke.
This version, unlike others I have, begins with a countdown
screen and then plays the full Whistle Test opening graphics
and has a female announcer introducing the footage. I think
this must have come from a nice low-gen source, because it
looks pretty great and of course sounds great also.
The interesting section of the DVD for me was the "bonus"
stuff, a two-part TV documentary about the band's two-night
run in Liverpool a few days before the Lyceum gig. Though
I have since obtained other copies of this footage, my first
time seeing the complete unedited show was on this DVD, and
this is by far the best quality version. (Incidentally, this
footage was cut up and used without the band's permission
in the DVD Inside Genesis 1975-1980, which I review
on my Compilations/Misc.
page.) The format of the show and the way it is presented
reminded me pretty strongly of the 3 Dates documentary
from 1978. This one fortunately has more live music than that
show, though the songs are generally very heavily edited and
sometimes play in the background during interviews with band
members. In the track listing above I tried to list all the
live songs played in the order in which they were played,
even if it was a small section. Generally from "Motherlode"
on the songs are much more complete and we see and hear the
band playing most of the song, though during the ending numbers
the video intercuts between interviews and the theatre.
The whole documentary has a timecode running near the top
of the screen. The video is very good but the sound is rather
crackly, with scattered pops. The more complete songs are
given text titles at the bottom of the screen, sometimes with
the song's chart position, but in a few cases the song titles
are incorrect (bizarrely, "Duke's Travels" is labeled
by what I think was its working title, "JAZZ," and
"Deep in the Motherlode" is labeled simply "Motherlode").
The non-song parts of the video feature some good interview
footage, not only with members of the band but also with random
fans stopped on the street or gathered in a local record store.
This footage is particularly fun to watch and very interesting.
It gives you a very good idea of the incredible level of excitement
among Genesis fans during the 1980 tour--there is one intense-looking
German fan who hiked all the way from Cologne with no tickets,
hoping to be able to buy some on arrival. It's also interesting
to find that Genesis have a very "uncool" aura about
them, very similar to the general feeling some twenty years
later. Very few other shows about the band get such a good
cross-section of the band's fanbase and their attitudes.
There is some footage at the beginning of part one showing
the crew unloading the trucks and talking about the lighting
and merchandise, very a la 3 Dates. Apparently there
was a ticket-forging problem which required security to very
carefully check everyone's ticket before they were allowed
into the Empire. We also get to see some very awkward-looking
young contest winners meeting members of the band, and band
members signing autographs in the street. There is some very
short footage of the band doing a soundcheck/rehearsal. This
is a very nice documentary which gives an accurate overall
picture of the band's image and way of working in 1980. The
interviews are done in a nearby Liverpool hotel it seems,
and there are good answers from all three of the guys, including
a memorable line from Phil about how playing a live set to
an audience has to be done "the same way you would titillate
a woman."
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Genesis in the 1980s
Incontri Musicali, TV Rai Due, Venezia Gondola D'Oro,
Spain (26/9/81): Turn It on Again/Man on the Corner/No
Reply At All/Keep It Dark/Abacab
TV Rai Uno, ZUM (1986): In Too Deep
TV (1983?): That's All
Whistle Test Extra (1986): Documentary
German TV (6/87?): Tour Documentary
Comments: This Genesis Museum DVD (from the Reformed
Sniper) features a bunch of clips that I don't have anywhere
else. All of the "live" footage except for the tiniest
bit in the last section is not really live music at all, just
the band miming to the studio version of the song. In fact,
the first clip may well be the most fake "live"
performance I have ever seen. The first indication that something
is clearly not right (if you can't tell right off that the
first song is the studio version) is at the end of the first
number, when Phil is somehow able to sing the lead vocal "Turn
it on again" while simultaneously singing the backup
vocal line of "I can see another face" (which he
never sang live anyway). Chester's "drumming" at
the beginning of "Man on the Corner," which clearly
begins with a synthesized drum machine beat, is also a big
clue. Meanwhile Daryl and Mike hang out in the back of the
stage and pretend they are causing the synthesized clapping
noise. The stage, by the way, is a pretty impressive setup,
with a floor that can light up in different patterns, a classical-looking
set of columns, and some pictures made out of lights on the
back wall.
More obvious fake stuff occurs in "No Reply." Since
they are using the studio version, it is complete with the
Phenix horns, and Mike and Phil have to pretend they are playing
the sax and the trumpet--Phil has to quickly get some toots
in in between doing the vocals, often missing his cue. For
"Keep It Dark," Chester pretends to play guitar
for some reason while Mike has an absolute blast behind the
drum kit. Chester does about the most fake strumming of a
guitar I have ever seen, kind of banging the strings with
his thumb. In "Abacab," the hilarity continues,
as Phil pulls a napkin or paper towel out of his pocket partway
through the song and dabs his forehead with it. For the line
"There's a hole in this somewhere," he puts the
napkin up to his mouth and attempts to knock a hole in it
with his tongue. He is unsuccessful and ends up with a string
of paper hanging out of his mouth! Afterwards he goes around
wiping everyone's forehead with the licked napkin.
If this weren't all enough, the fakeness is made even more
obvious by the very unconvincing piping in of applause over
random moments in the songs, and the shots of the audience
between songs, which are clearly just the same two shots over
and over again. This may sound just very silly, and not an
enjoyable thing to watch, but I got a big kick out of it and
I think the band did as well.
The next two clips on the DVD are just individual studio
songs. The first aired on a program called "Zum"
on TV Rai Uno, which is an Italian TV channel (the Incontri
Musicali show of the first clip was on TV Rai Due--you'd think
since it was a Spanish gig it might be on Spanish TV, but
Due is the Italian word for two, and I'm pretty sure Rai is
an Italian network). The band mime to the studio version of
"In Too Deep" while standing in a big airplane hangar,
surrounded by a giant Alitalia plane which has been wrapped
in plastic. A smoke machine has been hard at work filling
the hangar with atmosphere. It is just Phil, Mike, and Tony,
so they weren't really trying to fake this one too much--nobody
is playing drums at all. I have no idea what the date for
this one is; if you do, please contact
me.
The next clip's date is again a mystery to me. It features
the trio on a stage miming to "That's All." Based
on Phil's hairstyle and the song chosen, I think this one
must be from 1983, possibly 1984.
The next clip is much longer than the previous two, a "Whistle
Test Extra" with extended interviews with band members.
This was almost definitely before the band went on tour for
Invisible Touch, but it does feature footage from the
promo video of "In Too Deep" and the end of "Invisible
Touch." It also features the band supposedly playing
a few cuts from the new album in the studio, but I think they
are again simply miming to the album versions. The only one
that is questionable is "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight,"
which is clearly not the final album version as it is instrumental
only. The interviews on here were a lot of the same old stuff
(Phil's well-worn tale about going for a swim in Peter's parent's
pool and learning all the drumming parts for his tryout),
but maybe has a few new little revelations--for instance,
Phil had some slightly more detailed things to say about the
timing of Peter's departure and Steve's departure than I remember
hearing before. The footage also features some clips from
the Tony Banks video for "This is Love," which I'd
never seen before--it was funny.
The only actual tour footage on the whole disc comes in the
last clip, from a German TV show. The woman introducing the
footage and conducting the interviews with the band speaks
in German and mentions something about Hanover, so the date
for this one is most likely some time around June 1987. The
DVD menu puts this one in 1986, but this is just not possible,
since the band didn't even hit Europe until May of '87, and
did not tour Germany until June of that year. The clip is
obviously narrated all in German, but has some nice behind-the-scenes
footage of the road crew building the stage, and the band
(and opening act Paul Young) getting out of their plane and
being driven to the venue. The interview is necessarily conducted
in English, but has been dubbed over in German; if you listen
very carefully you can kind of make out the English parts.
There is a question to Phil which involves him talking about
buying lots of suits in Texas. There is some very very short
live footage of "Mama" which is probably the Hanover
gig. There is some footage of Tony playing table tennis, and
a weird final shot of the announcer standing in a small room
while a set of stage lights blasts a colorful pattern behind
her. It seems to end very abruptly and it's possible this
is not the entire program.
As a final bonus, there is a tiny Genesis-related gag from
a British TV show stuck on the end--nice to end with a laugh
(and begin with one, considering how humorous I found the
first clip)!
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Three Sides Live
Savoy Theatre and Nassau Coliseum, New York; NEC Birmingham,
UK (28-29/11 and 23/12/81): Behind the Lines/Duchess/Misunderstanding/Dodo-Lurker/Abacab/No
Reply At All/Who Dunnit?/In the Cage medley: The Cinema Show,
Riding the Scree, The Raven/Afterglow/Me and Sarah Jane/Man
on the Corner/Turn It on Again
Comments: Originally released by Weinerworld Video
in 1982, this is a look into the Abacab tour. Apparently
it was put together by people who thought that just sitting
down and watching the band play their show would be way too
boring. Interspersed between the live footage are various
interviews with Hugh Fielder, behind the scenes stuff with
the roadies and Tony Smith and the band (and their various
families), a radio interview with Phil, and some other footage
of the stage set-up, etc. This is all well and good--in fact
I find the Fielder interviews very interesting and illuminating,
and they give you a good picture into the atmosphere of the
recording of the album and the feelings behind it. Also the
radio interview is a special treat for me (even though some
of the guys they get to talk to Phil are some real wackos--one
of them seems to want him to sing "To grandmother's house
we go"), because the station he's at is 93.3, WMMR--I'm
from South Jersey, and this Philadelphia station is the one
I listened to when I was growing up. However, often this extra
footage will cut into the live performance. Bits of "Duchess"
are missing, "Me and Sarah Jane" is incomplete,
and you only get the very end of "Man on the Corner."
This is rather annoying. I'd rather have the full songs. Except
for this song editing, however, this is an entertaining video
that probably gives you a better picture of the way the band
works on and off the stage than many of the other tour videos
I've seen. It's interesting to compare the songs on this video
to the songs used on the actual album 3SL, as they are quite
often different versions--the video is from the same few nights
as the album, but they must have used quite a few takes from
different nights. Also whatever footage on here that's from
the Birmingham show is not used on the album--I believe the
album was taken from only 28-29/11/81.
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The Mama Tour
Genesis Live - Mama Tour (25-29/2/84): Abacab/That's
All/Mama/Illegal Alien/Home by the Sea/Second Home by the
Sea/Keep It Dark/It's Gonna Get Better/In the Cage medley:
The Cinema Show, Riding the Scree, In that Quiet Earth, The
Raven/Afterglow/Drum Duet/Turn It on Again medley
Comments: This is the pro-shot, official video of
this tour, taped at the last range of gigs at the Birmingham
NEC in the UK. This one was transferred from the officially-released
VHS version, now out of print (as far as I know). The picture
is very good and you get a great set of songs from the band,
well-performed since it was at the end of the tour. Phil has
a great time with the UK audience and tells what I think are
some of his best intros. Too bad it's not the full performance
(as with all official material from this tour, it's missing
the "Earl of Mar" medley, as well as a few other
songs--see a great full audio performance from the 29/2 show
here).
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Detroit '86 (last night)
Joe Louis Arena (20/9/86): 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
(ending sections)/Invisible Touch/Drum Duet (incomplete)
Comments: The IT tour began with a few shows at the
Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Michigan. This is the last of
those shows, taped by an audience member and transferred by
my good friend Dennis Lengel onto DVD for my viewing pleasure.
This is a nice alternative to the official tour video, because
it comes from the beginning of the tour rather than the end
and features a rather vastly altered set list. Also it has
the "In the Cage" medley, and not just any medley,
but the rare version featuring the ending sections of "Supper's
Ready." Other rarities are "In Too Deep" and
(for this tour anyway) "Follow You Follow Me." Unfortunately
the tape cuts off right in the middle of the drum duet, so
it's missing "Los Endos" and the encore of "Turn
It on Again."
Another unfortunate thing about the video, other than the
obvious fact that, being amateur-shot and handheld, the quality
is not perfect and the picture is sometimes quite shaky, is
that the person taping was clearly in a main thoroughfare
of the stadium; people are walking in front of him off and
on through the whole concert, and quite often their big black
shapes block out a good portion of the stage. The taper is
able to avoid a good deal of this by zooming in on Phil or
other band members (mostly Phil), but it is still a problem.
The taper is sitting a bit to the band's left in the arena,
so he only really sees the back of Tony, but he can see the
whole stage and gets many close shots of Phil. The light show
is pretty visible--I was a bit surprised that I didn't see
the video screens that are seen on the Wembley Stadium footage;
perhaps the screens didn't fit in the Joe Louis Arena? Or
maybe they weren't using them yet.
Phil tells some OK intros, but messes up the opening lyrics
in HBTS. There is a break and slight cut in the instrumental
section of "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight." The band
seems to have a false start for "Brazilian" before
they get into the song. The video, by the way, begins with
a nice shot of the marquee at the front of the arena, so we
know what we're getting into. It's nice to have this nearly-complete
video example of an early IT show--especially for the "Supper"
medley!
Interestingly, Simon has a video of the first gig in this
tour (18 September), but not one of this one--and this is
definitely from the last night at Detroit, not the first,
since Phil mentions it is the last night there. Also Simon's
video from the 18th is cut in different places.
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Meldrum Tapes
Australian TV (1/1/87): Various interviews; some old
live footage (2 DVDs)
Comments: This 2-DVD set includes what appears to
be two episodes of an Australian TV programme with extensive
interviews with band members, produced no doubt to help celebrate
and promote the band's first trip to that continent at the
end of 1986. Each episode is introduced by an Australian man
with a colorful sweater and a big cowboy hat. The date I have
given was lifted from Simon and may be a broadcast date. The
quality is generally very good and there are very little picture
problems. The first episode and disc features some old live
footage of the band but I don't think it has anything from
the IT tour--just the basic stuff from the Shepperton and
In Concert '76 movies, etc. There are also a few complete
promo videos. The main focus is interviews. The interviewer
walks the band through their albums one by one, starting with
The Lamb. You get to hear some interesting stuff about
the recording process for the different albums and how the
band feels about the music (Tony for instance says that the
band were all sick of The Lamb when they were done
recording it). Phil and Tony were interviewed outside The
Farm recording studio on a sunny day; Mike was interviewed
separately in what may be a dressing room.
The second episode and disc focuses on all of the band members'
solo careers. Actually they seem to almost entirely ignore
Tony on this episode (with good reason, since they're trying
to prove everyone has incredibly successful solo careers),
and no one seems to have ever heard of Steve Hackett; but
they did manage to grab Peter Gabriel, who was in the middle
of his huge So tour (he has a big banner with the album
name hanging behind him for the interviews, and for some reason
wears sunglasses through the whole thing). Mike talks about
his Mechanics and Phil gives his opinions on how music videos
should look (his take on the medium is drastically different
than Peter's--not surprisingly); we get to see footage from
his "Easy Lover" video. It's always interesting
to hear the band and hear how interviewers talk to the band
at this stage in their career, which was basically the apex
in terms of chart success and popularity--it seems that they
can do no wrong and will never do wrong.
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Invisible Touch Tour
Wembley Stadium (1-4/7/87): Mama/Abacab/Domino/That's
All/The Brazilian/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/Do the
Neurotic (studio, closing credits)
Comments: The official IT tour video, transferred
to DVD (I also have the officially released DVD version of
this, released in late 2003, making this entry fairly redundant
and useless--see my Compilations/Misc.
page). Quality is great and there are no problems. For
comments you may consult the entry for my VHS
version. As an aside, it's actually possible given some
info I saw flashed by on the credits of this video that the
correct date range is actually 2-4 July, not 1-4. But according
to the official DVD, the range is 1-4 July. Who knows...
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Genesis Videos, Volumes 1 & 2
Genesis Videos, Volume 1: Mama/No Reply At All/Land
of Confusion/That's All/Tonight, Tonight, Tonight/Duchess/Anything
She Does/Robbery, Assault & Battery/In Too Deep/Abacab/Follow
You Follow Me
Comments: For my comments on this video, you can just
take a look at the video section of my compilations/misc.
page. Everything is the same, except that this version
has no picture roll in it.
Genesis Videos, Volume 2: Illegal Alien/Throwing It
All Away/Misunderstanding/Ripples/Keep It Dark/A Trick of
the Tail/Home by the Sea, Second Home by the Sea/Man on the
Corner (live)/Turn It on Again (live)/Many Too Many/Invisible
Touch
Comments: These two volumes on two DVDs were transferred
from the old official VHS tapes released around the late 80s.
Of course, you can now get (nearly) all the videos from these
two volumes, plus more recent ones, on the official DVD "The
Video Show"--which is much better than this! So owning
these DVDs is now pretty pointless. However there are some
things on here that don't quite match the DVD release; read
on for some comments/reviews of the videos featured herein.
There are some good videos on here; if you can look past
the stereotyping inherent in the "Illegal Alien"
video, it's actually very funny. "Throwing It All Away"
is kind of like a behind the scenes documentary of the IT
tour. "Keep It Dark" is an interesting video, kind
of cool, involving the trio wandering around a foreign city
in overcoats, but fading to a nice open field and the band
wearing all white for the chorus. In "A Trick of the
Tail" we can watch a tiny-sized Phil prance about while
Steve Hackett menaces him with a fake monster claw--weird.
"Home by the Sea" looks like the band playing the
song live during the album's tour, but the audio is just the
studio version of the song. "Man on the Corner"
most likely comes from the 28/11/81 Savoy performance, and
the ending minute or so of this very same song can be seen
on the Three Sides Live tour movie. Interestingly,
the DVD releases of this video replace the live audio track
with the studio version of the song--this one uses the original
live version. "Turn It on Again" is directly from
the 3SL video (which is again interesting, because the official
DVD release of the video, as well as my second Lyceum
VCD and my VHS tape Various
Bits, 2 feature an alternate promo video for the studio
version of this song, which I think may be from the British
"Top of the Pops" show).
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Genesis - A History
Comments: For my comments on this video, you can just
take a look at the video section of the compilation/misc.
page. I don't have that many comments there, though. This
is a good look at the history of the band, well edited and
with lots of good interviews. It was put together in 1990,
as the centerpiece of the video is the band's performance
at the Knebworth Festival of 1990 (I have this full performance
on bootleg, of course). This makes it rather
dated, so you don't get the full history of the band, but
for what it covers it does a good job. It also has lots of
short but tantalizing video clips from various moments in
the band's career (many of which I have in fuller form as
other entries on this page). As far as I know, this video
is out of print.
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TV Appearances
series
I'd just like to pause for a moment here to
introduce the next bunch of DVDs. They catalogue a wide array
of promotional television performances made by Genesis over
the period of the Invisible Touch and We Can't
Dance tours--and even, to a very small extent, Calling
All Stations. They're very well put together and have
nice DVD menus detailing and breaking up all the different
sections. They are in chronological order (barring a bit of
rearranging due to the time constraints of the medium), and
altogether they add up to something like six hours of viewing!
And this is with commercials cut out, and most music videos
removed. It's a lot of stuff and it makes for a very interesting
look at the band over this range of years--it gives a very
good idea of how they generally stood up to interviews and
ad campaigns. It also gives one a very different view of Genesis
than is currently had. In the late '80s and early '90s, if
you watch this stuff, it seemed the band could do no wrong.
They were at their height commercially (if not critically),
and Phil was an incredible superstar, respected throughout
the music community. It's almost amazing to look at it in
the light of their current status (whatever that may be).
Anyways, I digress. Let's get down to it...
TV Appearances, Volume 1 (1986)
From the Beginning (59:38): MTV Special, Fall 1986
Fast Copy (7:18): May 1986
MTV Interview (13:55): Aired 27/6/86
Friday Night Videos (12:34): 11/7/86
MTV Music Video Awards (4:11): 15/9/86 - Throwing
It All Away
Montreux Golden Rose Festival (20:23): Summer 1986
(exact date unknown) - Anything She Does/Invisible Touch/Tonight,
Tonight, Tonight
Comments: I'll just go through these one at a time--the
comment sections for these DVDs ended up being very long,
because there are so many different sections that they require
a lot of explanation and description--oh well! The first segment
is probably one of the first available video histories of
the band; it features a lot of the information that would
turn up on later more official releases like Genesis:
A History and the Songbook
video. However it makes use of some different graphics and
different interview clips. It has some interesting information
on the early days (including a bit of talk on the band's first
professional gig, which is not really talked about in other
video histories) and on the band's search for a new vocalist
after Pete left. There is footage of the band playing live,
though for the Pete era they rely almost entirely on the famous
Shepperton Studios video. The format
is basically a lot of interview clips from various different
recordings edited together; there's even some stuff with Chester
and Daryl. Most intriguing to me is the very fleeting glimpse
we are afforded of a video from Mike's long lost second album,
Acting Very Strange.
This is a nice little thing to have. There are a few looks
into solo member projects, a bit on Phil as a record producer
(for the likes of Eric Clapton), more than I've ever heard
before about Varilites (sp?), and some interesting choices
of live clips from Phil-era performances of "Keep It
Dark" and "Supper's Ready." The actual history
segment is followed by a special about the Invisible Touch
world tour, including a look at the crew set-up and the
show. Tony gives us a reason for why "Anything She Does"
was not played live (it's "difficult to do"). This
clip is I believe identical to the "Tour Documentary"
which is provided as bonus material on the official Live
at Wembley Stadium DVD. Still, this version is interesting
in the context of the other footage, and since it's been taken
from TV there are some small differences, if only in the commercial
breaks.
There's some tantalizing footage from early in the tour,
video shot not at the ending Wembley concert but--judging
from a passing comment made by Phil to the crowd and by a
passing shot of a marquee--22/9/86--my eighth birthday--at
the CNE Grandstand in Toronto. We even see a small bit from
the rarely-played "Cage" medley with "Supper's
Ready" at the end! Some of the live clips they use have
merely studio versions of the songs as the soundtrack, but
some clips use the actual live audio ("Turn It on Again,"
"Los Endos"). There are also some tiny clips from
a soundcheck. It's possible that there is video here from
several gigs from early on in the tour--but this seems odd,
considering the fact that I have not heard of any bootlegs
of this video material.
At the end of all this, which is still just the first segment
(and this part is not on the official DVD), there are some
ads for the Genesis programs, and also some footage about
Peter Gabriel's current work and Steve Hackett's project at
the time (GTR, a sort of supergroup formed with Yes guitarist
Steve Howe). There are some clips of Mike and the Mechanics
and a small bit from Peter Gabriel's performance of "Biko"
at an Amnesty International concert. Apparently to advertise
Genesis' world tour, MTV seemed to be running all-day programming
about the band and its various members, solo or otherwise.
This is merely a compilation of several spots. The quality
is very good.
The second clip, "Fast Copy," is a shorter byte
about the band. It features a general profile and focuses
on the members' longstanding friendship and their ability
to maintain both group and solo projects. The quality is not
as good as the first clip and has some rolling lines. There
are some interview clips which differ from the first segment's,
and some solo project stuff, including bits of a Mike and
the Mechanics video. It has a live performance of "Turn
It on Again," which is from the Mama tour video.
The third clip is from an interview with Martha Quinn (a
VJ who shows up in a couple more of the segments on these
DVDs--in the old days of MTV, the network actually kept its
VJs around for a while!). The setting is casual and the boys
as ever are pretty mellow--Phil ends up doing most of the
talking. This particular clip comes from before the start
of the IT tour, and thus to be perfectly correct from a chronological
standpoint, it should actually come before the first clip--but
I like the band profile coming first. It's interesting how
well you can date this program, because it is stated quite
clearly that Phil is right in the middle of working on an
Eric Clapton album, and Mike is just about to go on a tour
with his Mechanics. Also at this point only one video, the
title track, had been released from the IT album (although
it is almost entirely cut out of this recording--I have the
full video elsewhere--they did play it, and at the end when
it fades back to the studio the band are carrying on with
the harmony singing from the end of the video; cute!), and
there were no tour dates set yet. Martha ends up talking over
one of Tony's answers to a question, and gets very embarrassed
about it. "It's the only time you've said anything all
night, and I talked over you!" she berates herself. Pretty
funny. There are frequent commercial breaks, but all the ads
have been taken out.
The fourth clip is one of MTV's "Friday Night Videos"
shows, with Genesis as the hosts. All of the videos and commercials
have been removed, so basically what you get is just the band
talking to each other and reminiscing between videos. There
are one or two interesting stories about the fights Tony and
Mike used to have (the famous chair-throwing incident; and
apparently a time when the rest of the band showed their fighting
spirit by quickly leaving the stage and letting Mike deal
with a gang of rowdy bikers), and some background for Phil's
recent appearance on the show "Miami Vice." The
picture isn't perfect--there are some rolling lines. The boys
talk about Pete, about Phil's success, and about their relationship
as a band and as friends. All very off-the-cuff and quite
nice; probably they're more open than they would be if they
were being directly interviewed (though Phil ends up doing
a majority of the talking). Amazingly enough, they actually
played a GTR video that night! Some of it is still on this
recording. I now have another version of this clip, and the
last two clips from this DVD, on another DVD
later in this section; the guy who made these for me re-sent
a bunch of the footage because he got a new recorder that
was able to transfer the footage with fewer errors. I don't
recall there being any errors even in the original version
of this clip, but some of the other clips on these TV Appearances
discs did have some small cuts and speed drops in them, and
the new discs correct those problems.
The fifth clip is a performance given by the band for the
MTV Music Video Awards. They were at this point currently
prepping for their world tour (which would begin in a matter
of days), but apparently they weren't quite ready enough to
actually play a live song, because "Throwing It All Away"
is entirely lip-synched and the studio track is played. Phil
appears to be reading his lyrics off of a sheet! The band
played in London though the actual awards ceremony was held
in New York. There is a DVD skip which results in a small
cut near the beginning of the song--this will happen at other
times throughout these volumes, albeit not too often (and
every clip in which a cut appears is reproduced, without a
cut, in the "supplemental discs" described after
these volumes).
The last clip is a rather strange artifact. The most famous
thing about Montreux is probably its Jazz Festival, and while
this performance seems to be related to that, it is not the
actual jazz part (obviously Genesis don't really qualify for
that anyway). Probably this takes place in Switzerland, and
probably it was taped some time from June to September of
1986. The ending part of the performance calls it a Christmas
special, but probably it was filmed earlier. It seems to have
been a European meeting place for rock and pop groups to congregate
and basically sell themselves to European audiences. All of
the Genesis numbers are lip-synched to studio versions of
the songs--ironically enough, they seem to have chosen to
begin the performance by "playing" the one song
from the IT album which was never ever actually performed
live: "Anything She Does." They also play two songs
which actually faded out in the studio versions, and the fade-outs
have to be rather crudely cut short. There is a pretty humorous
interview which comes after the second song, which seems very
casual (like many of the interviews on here, actually), and
features Phil making some dangerous comments about his wife
(as to the lack of time he spends with her: "See you
in the divorce courts!" And so he did...) and the band
performing some aborted introductions ("Hi, we're Genesis...We're
Genesis, hi!"). They claim they have to get used to doing
interviews again, as they are out of practice. There's a skip
near the end of "Anything She Does." Also the audio
seems a bit wavery at first, but it soon smooths out. I'm
not sure in what order these songs were actually played; the
way this recording was edited, it seems possible that these
songs all came from different television airings.
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TV Appearances, Volume 2 ('87-'92)
American Music Awards (7:36): Live from Richfield
Coliseum, Cleveland Ohio, 26/1/87 - Invisible Touch (also
features news spot)
Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary (27:42): At the
Madison Square Garden, New York, 15/5/88 - In the Air Tonight
(Phil)/Turn It on Again (unique 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)(Genesis)
Much Music Spotlight (3:29): Aired circa 1988
Knebworth '90 interview (11:19): 29/6/90
Knebworth '90 performance (30:38): Complete performance
broadcast, MTV, aired 14/7/90, played 30/6/90 - Mama/That's
All/Turn It on Again (medley)/Throwing It All Away
Good Morning America (7:16): 25/11/91
Live on 5 (4:55): Aired 5/12/91
MTV News (2:50): 6/12/91
Billboard Music Awards (7:58): 9/12/91
The Real Story (5:47): CNBC, aired 30/1/92
Real Life (6:46): CNBC, aired 14/5/92
Comments: A pile of segments here, featuring a few
clips I'm very happy to have in video form. The first clip
is an interesting satellite performance. It starts out a bit
wavery but gets better. The band had quite a few gigs at the
Richfield Coliseum, but it seems that only this one number
was broadcast on TV over to the American Music Awards--Phil
lets the crowd know they're on TV. Earlier in the night the
band had a short talk via satellite with Diana Ross, the same
woman who would announce their performance later that night.
You see a little of the behind the scenes technology in a
news spot following the performance; apparently the local
news channel was pretty thrilled that their local arena had
gotten onto the awards show.
The second clip also starts out just a bit wavery, and suffers
from cable interference in the form of a sliding ghost of
another channel which floats in the background--a bit distracting,
but not awful. I also have the Genesis portion of this performance
on audio CD, but this
video also shows Phil's performance of "In the Air Tonight"
earlier in the program--amazingly, he flubs the lyrics to
his own song! In an interview afterwards he points this out
with a sort of incredulous frustration. He then went on to
mess up the lyrics to Tony Banks' song in the giant "Turn
It" medley. This footage also has some of Phil's chatter
from other parts of the ceremony--he was actually the host
that night.
The third segment is just a compilation of various
interviews from '82-'86 (they are all nicely dated in the
upper right corner). It originally seems to have had lots
of Genesis videos mixed in as well, but all of these have
been removed in the assumption that the viewer will already
be familiar with them (they are all officially
available now anyway). This clip is reproduced on one of my
later "Supplemental Discs," in order to get me a
version free of perceived errors (though I don't remember
there being any noticeable cuts or hang-ups in this clip).
The fourth segment seems like a real treasure,
and I don't know how it got broadcast on MTV--it's very raw
footage, and has not been edited in any way. Kurt Loder is
interviewing the band before their performance at Knebworth
1990--they're right near the stage where a somewhat distracting
soundcheck is going on--and the band also records some rather
sub-par announcements which may have been used during the
broadcast of the festival. The beginning of the clip is very
funny, because the network seems to have started broadcasting
the feed before the camerman, the band or the interviewer
were really ready; there are lots of cuts and zooms and the
band sort of sit around uncomfortably until Kurt wakes up
and says, "Oh, are we rolling?" The audio is a bit
hard to hear, because of the soundcheck and because the microphones
just aren't as good as they could be, but Kurt asks them questions
about their participation in the festival, some other groups
that are there, and about their memories of the 1978 Knebworth
performance (which was interesting).
The fifth segment is the actual full Genesis
performance at Knebworth '90 as broadcast on MTV and as later
released on an official video (though the video was missing
"That's All"--this broadcast has it). The "Turn
It" medley was the standard one from the last tour, except
that during this particular performance Genesis were backed
up by Phil's solo band. Great to have this one.
The sixth segment is a somewhat short interview
from "Good Morning America," which I already have
bits of on one of my compilation
discs. This is one of the first promotional TV appearances
from Genesis in support of the We Can't Dance album.
Next we have "Live on 5," a local
Cleveland news show where the interviewer talks via a video
screen with the band. He's smart enough to ask particular
band members questions, so they don't have to fight over who
answers what. Pretty basic questions, pretty basic answers.
The next clip, a short MTV interview clip, was
at a period when the second single ("I Can't Dance")
had been chosen, but no video had yet been made (they try
to bypass this problem by compiling various footage of the
band playing past videos and putting it in slow motion while
playing the song). The audio for this interview was used on
my compilation disc
for WCD. The interview also mentions what the solo projects
are, and talks a bit about Phil's dubious movie career.
Then the famous Billboard Music Awards performance,
introduced by the annoying Paul Shaffer, which features Phil
singing "No Son of Mine" live to a backing studio
track. I have this performance in various other places; the
best video version of this (and the last two clips) is on
a later supplemental disc, as this one
has errors.
The last two clips are little spots about Genesis
and their new album which were broadcast on CNBC, of all places.
Both feature various clips from recent band videos, from WCD
and IT, and also some live footage of the band from official
sources. They also both feature clips from the same interview.
Unfortunately both are plagued by speed drops (all fixed on
the supplemental disc mentioned earlier). The speed of the
recording is generally normal, but often it will suddenly
get slower before recovering to normal speed again. Also the
first clip towards the end starts fluctuating its level of
brightness. The picture is not perfect for the second clip
either. At the end of the last clip the two hosts agree that
there is "no difference" between Phil Collins and
Genesis. Arrrrggggghhh!!!
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TV Appearances, Volume 3 ('91-'92)
MTV Rockline (40:18): Call-in show, aired 12/11/91;
includes video for "No Son of Mine"
No Admittance (40:50): ABC broadcast of WCD documentary;
aired 6/12/91
In Concert (21:38): Aired 15/5/92; includes video
for "I Can't Dance" and some clips of tour rehearsals
Hold on My Heart video (4:46)
Comments: This volume is unfortunately particularly
heavy in the speed drops and cuts department. All of the clips
from this disc except this version of "No Admittance,"
which did not seem to have errors, are reproduced without
speed drops on my two supplemental discs,
below. Usually when I copy these volumes for people I omit
this disc entirely, as the more complete Disney version of
"No Admittance" is on another disc, making all of
this footage redundant.
The first segment, Rockline, is almost unwatchable due to
the number of cuts and speed drops--I was provided with an
audio CD of the show which does not seem to have any cuts.
It still has some sound problems, but they may have been in
the original broadcast, as MTV seemed to have some trouble
getting the satellite feed (Genesis were in Spain at the time).
The audio CD does not include the audio part of the "No
Son of Mine" video which was played, but the DVD does
have it (albeit with lots of speed problems). I usually don't
really like call-in things, because the people can ask some
pretty dumb questions. Also in this case the moderator (our
old friend Martha Quinn) cuts off several people before they
have a chance to ask the second parts of their questions--which,
even if they were dumb questions, is still kind of rude. However,
there are some really good questions--for instance, one fan
asks each member of the band to name his favorite album by
one of the other members. Also the band is asked which singles
they were surprised did well (and which they were surprised
didn't do well), which is a good question and has an
interesting answer.
The second section is the documentary of the recording of
the WCD album, as aired on ABC; I already have the Disney
and the ABC airings of this one on two different
VHS entries, and you
can read my reviews of it there. The quality is much better
than the first clip on here. Interestingly enough, the next
volume in this series of DVDs features the Disney channel
broadcast of the show, which has a lot more footage in it
(the errorless version of the full Disney version is here).
The In Concert clip following it is different than the In
Concert show I have on VHS tape; it has some black and white
interview footage of the band, answers only, and some behind
the scenes footage on the videos for the WCD album. It has
some speed changes, but not that many. Here you can see the
full video for "I Can't Dance." There are some rare
clips of not one but two Tony Banks videos, and also some
footage of the tour rehearsals, played at a big blimp hangar
in Texas. There was originally some footage of REM playing
live, introduced by Tony Banks (why?! one asks), but it has
been removed. The program also flashes up some tour dates
while playing the "Turn It" medley from the IT tour
video in the background.
The last bit is an attempt to manufacture the video for "Hold
on My Heart" by synching the album song with the video.
It has some problems. There are a few speed fluctuations,
and the sound seems to be rather off-synch with the picture
at first. Both the beginning and ending of the video picture
are not there, and are filled in with a freeze frame. This
is an interesting artifact but has been made redundant by
the release of the official Video
Show DVD.
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TV Appearances, Volume 4 ('92-'97)
No Admittance (53:13): Disney Channel broadcast of
WCD documentary; aired 22/3/92
Genesis: Opening Night (48:36): aired 13/6/92, featuring
clips from 8/5/92 performance at Texas Stadium in Irving,
Texas--the first night of the WCD tour; includes video for
"Jesus He Knows Me"
Congo video (4:53): Aired 11/9/97 on VH1's "Crossroads"
The Web (2:06): Aired 21/12/97 on the Sci-Fi Channel
Comments: The first clip here is the same "No
Admittance" show as seen on one of my VHS tapes and on
the previous volume--except this version has more footage.
Unfortunately it also has more speed drops (again, fixed on
a supplemental disc below). The first 15
minutes of the show are fine, but after that the speed problems
get worse and worse. They never become really awful, but they
are distracting, especially during music sections. However,
this version of the show features more information about the
studio crew that help Genesis on The Farm. It also features
more of the questions which Genesis seem to pull out of a
hat and then flip a coin to decide who has to answer it. There's
a question about which band they would have liked to have
been in if they were not in Genesis (Phil: The Beatles or
Cream). There's more footage of Nick Davis, the engineer for
WCD, and a clip about the eventual b-side "Hearts on
Fire," which was also included on my WCD compilation
audio CD. There's more
about Mike's guitar playing skills (or lack thereof), and
a nice in-depth explanation of the origin of "Driving
the Last Spike." There's a section about the band's children
and whether or not they are considering music careers as well;
and finally a bit about Tony's fear of flying.
The second bit I already have some of on VHS, coming after
the ABC version of the "No Admittance" special.
This has some nice and valuable footage of the opening night
of the WCD tour, including clips from a live version of "Mama,"
a song which was not played much on this tour. You also get
to see some of the drum duet from that night, as well as tiny
bits from several other songs. More rehearsal footage and
planning of the stage show is shown, with dates leading up
to the first performance; there's stuff from 16 April, 5 May
and 7 May. A brief history of the band is constructed using
clips from various songs. There's some info about solo career
stuff, with some nice footage of some of Phil's live performances.
You also get the full video for "Jesus He Knows Me"--which
is really very funny, and probably the best video made from
this album. There's some behind the scenes footage, and also
even an ad Genesis did for Virgin Airlines, which is pretty
funny. This section of the DVD has no problems and is in great
quality.
Next we have the video for "Congo," which has a
short introduction talking about the change in lead singer
and showing some footage of the band playing live from their
Cape Canaveral set of 26/8/97. It also has some very short,
edited interviews from what looks like a NASA control room,
perhaps on the same day as the album launch performance. I'd
like to say that, while it's nice having the video in this
form, I think its style is utterly at odds with the band and
that it was a big mistake for them to drop Jim Yukich as their
video director--why change not only your lead singer, but
also your back-up live band (Daryl and Chester) and your steadfast
video crew? The video for "Congo" is freakish, curiously
water-obsessed, rather overtly homoerotic (IMO; I don't have
anything against homosexuality, it's just another thing that
seems at odds with the band's image), and has seemingly no
connection with the subject of the song--not an uncommon trait
of music videos, really, but Genesis used to do better.
Finally we have a clip from an old Sci-Fi Channel news show
called "The Web," which details advancements in
the internet. It talks about how the Cape Canaveral set of
August '97 was broadcast over the web. When this segment was
taped it's possible that the US tour wasn't even cancelled
yet.
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TV Appearances, Supplemental Disc 1 ('91-'92)
MTV Rockline (43:00): Call-in show, aired 12/11/91;
includes video for "No Son of Mine"
No Admittance (53:13): Disney Channel broadcast of
WCD documentary; aired 22/3/92
Comments: This is the first of two DVDs recapitulating
footage from the previous five volumes of TV appearances which,
in their initial versions, had speed drop or clipping errors.
These versions, transferred and recorded by a different recorder,
are without those errors. These two clips are particularly
nice to have, as the first (Rockline) was basically unwatchable
in its original version and needed to be backed up by a separate
CD-R just to give me an idea of what the correct audio sounded
like. This one, though the picture is not absolutely perfect
and though the satellite feed by which the band in Madrid
are linked with MTV studios creates some audio difficulties
(including a delay between when the VJ asks a question and
when the band actually hear it, a repeated and annoying beeping
noise, and some crackly sound when the band talk), is very
watchable and listenable and also includes a fairly good copy
of the video for "No Son of Mine"--with no speed
problems.
The second clip is the longer of the two versions of the
making-of documentary for We Can't Dance. While I have
previously complained about the fact that it doesn't really
show the band creating their songs (even though that is exactly
what it claims to be doing), this still remains a very good
depiction of the band's recording style and has some nice
outtakes and interviews, as well as some interesting answers
to questions taken out of a hat. I'm glad to have this longer
version of the footage in good quality on DVD.
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TV Appearances, Supplemental Disc 2 ('86-'92; '99)
Friday Night Videos (12:34): 11/7/86
MTV Music Video Awards (4:11): 15/9/86 - Throwing
It All Away
Montreux Golden Rose Festival (20:23): Summer 1986
(exact date unknown) - Anything She Does/Invisible Touch/Tonight,
Tonight, Tonight
Much Music Spotlight (3:29): Aired circa 1988
Billboard Music Awards (12:00): 9/12/91
The Real Story (5:47): CNBC, aired 30/1/92
Real Life (6:46): CNBC, aired 14/5/92
In Concert (21:38): Aired 15/5/92; includes video
for "I Can't Dance" and some clips of tour rehearsals
Hold on My Heart video (4:46)
Bonus: The Carpet Crawlers 1999 video (4:00)
Comments: This is a smattering of clips taken from
the previous TV Appearances volumes. We have the last three
clips from volume 1, four clips from volume 2 (including the
last three), and the last two from volume 3 (volume 4's only
clip with errors is on the first supplemental disc). These
versions are cleaner, without speed drops or cuts, and in
at least one case actually have more footage. There's also
a bonus clip at the end: the promo video for the "Carpet
Crawlers '99" song, which was really a shameless promotional
gimmick to try to get more fans to buy the darkly prophetic
best of CD (Turn It on Again: The Hits). Heh. Still
a good song, though.
Even though I have described all this footage in my comments
for the original volumes, I think I can still manage to drone
on about them a little more. Friday Night Videos still has
some rolling horizontal lines in it. MTV Music Video Awards
features an intro of the band from Downtown Julie Brown (remember
her?! No, me neither ;). The Montreux footage has a nice picture
and probably beats all the other clips for sheer weirdness
(it's hard for me to understand the purpose of Genesis fake-playing
to an audience of fans who are screaming about dubbed-over
studio songs--or why they were at Montreux at all!). Much
Music has some interesting interview bits from the '80s.
The Billboard show is the one that is actually quite a bit
longer than my other version (in fact, it is longer by about
four minutes). Unfortunately this extra footage does not feature
more of Genesis. But you do get to see the opening titles
of the awards show, which feature a montage of songs and video
clips of bands from throughout the history of rock. You also
get the full ending credits, accompanied by an instrumental
version of a Phil song ("Only You Know and I Know").
There's also the tiniest fragment of something about Peter
Gabriel in there. Otherwise, this is still mainly the band
pretending to perform "No Son of Mine" while Phil
sings live over the studio track (introduced by the "irrepressible"
Paul Shaffer).
"The Real Story" and "Real Life" are
both shows on CNBC, and both feature interview footage from
the same interview (in fact, the shows are so similar that
even the CNBC announcer back in the studio has trouble remembering
which show he's on when he makes his final comments on the
end of "Real Life"). I think there's one interview
question that is repeated on both segements, but mainly they
manage to use different footage for each one. The picture
for the first bit is still jittery and seems to kind of flicker,
but as I say it lacks the speed problems of the other clip
and as a document of interview footage is just fine. The second
segment has a better picture; CNBC makes use of various bits
of stock footage of the band, including what was probably
the band's most recent live performance at the Knebworth '90
festival.
In Concert has a nice picture here, with the promo video
for "I Can't Dance." I described this clip just
fine in my previous comments for volume 3. Nice to have it
without the speed drops. The lack of speed drops also makes
the "Hold on My Heart" video slightly better, though
it still has problems with synching and is bookended by some
ugly freeze-framing.
The bonus clip is fairly exciting for me, since I had never
seen the video for CC99 before watching this. (Of course it
is officially available on the video DVD now.) The videomakers
had to deal with the fact that they had no actual footage
of the band playing this new version, nor did they even have
any current video footage of the vocalists singing it. Instead
they have one actor who seems to have been designated as "Rael"
and who, along with some other unfortunate extras, crawls
through a grimy tunnel which I assume is their idea of a carpeted
corridor. Meanwhile, vintage video footage of the band from
the '70s is projected onto people's backs and faces. The very
beginning of the video features an infant dressed in a wooly
outfit; the ending suggests that our hero, Rael, has escaped
the imprisonment of the tunnel and is blissfully walking the
beach of spiritual enlightenment, a la Shawshank Redemption
(in the context of the album-story, of course, Rael was
less than halfway through his painful journey at this point,
and his escape from the corridor and staircase only led him
to another chamber--with 32 doors). Really, though the video
gets full marks for actually trying to a certain extent to
be faithful to the surreal subject matter of the song's lyrics,
it could have done a more accurate job. It's still nice to
see anyone trying to create a visual depiction of the Lamb
album, however, and I really do think this is a nice version
of the song--though be warned, the last verse of the song
has actually been cut for this '99 remix, and the video may
actually cut some additional seconds from this version of
it.
Many, many thanks go to Dennis for getting all of this great
footage to me, and most especially for keeping track of the
segments with errors on them from the first batch and resending
me errorless copies in these two supplemental discs. Cool
stuff! I love anything that gives me a chance to fill up screen
after screen of web page with criticisms.
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