Live (1973)
1.Watcher of the Skies
2.Get 'Em Out by Friday
3.The Return of the Giant Hogweed
4.Musical Box
5.The Knife
The early seventies were fertile ground for progressive rock, and few bands captured the theatrical eccentricity of the genre quite like Genesis. This first live album, recorded just as the group were settling into their classic form, offers a vivid snapshot of a band both musically adept and visually absurd. Genesis were not, in the strictest sense, a “rock” act in the conventional manner. The music, with its baroque twists and arch lyrical content, appealed largely to the tweedy university set. The band’s stage presence was equally unconventional—instrumentalists sitting in a prim row, seemingly absorbed in their own internal clocks, while vocalist Peter Gabriel countered his introverted nature by donning a sequence of outlandish costumes and indulging in a barrage of surrealist spoken word between numbers.
Genesis Live is drawn from material performed during their 1973 tour, just as the group’s musicianship had solidified into something distinctly assured. For those wary of live recordings, it is worth noting that some studio polishing is almost certainly at work here. Yet if some doctoring has occurred, it serves the music rather than undermining it. The performances sound tight, measured, and—in the case of a band known for elaborate studio constructions—refreshingly direct.
The album includes only five tracks, though this is less a failing than a logistical inevitability. The length of the material—these are sprawling, multi-part compositions after all—means that the selections had to be judicious. The absence of Supper’s Ready is perhaps lamentable, but understandable: its inclusion would have reduced the LP to a scant three tracks. What remains is arguably a strong representation of the band’s repertoire at the time.
Most notable is the live rendition of The Return of the Giant Hogweed, which gains significant energy and clarity in this context. Though structurally identical to its studio predecessor, the live version bristles with a new confidence and force. The playing is assertive, and the ensemble’s unity is evident. The remaining cuts—each solid, each unmistakably Genesis—reaffirm the group’s standing at the vanguard of progressive rock’s first wave.
Genesis, to their credit, were never stingy with live documentation. Though much of their early concert material remained unreleased for decades, later archival collections—particularly the box set chronicling the Gabriel years—finally filled in the gaps for devotees. For listeners left wanting by the brevity of Genesis Live, solace was eventually to be found in those more expansive retrospectives.
The audience, it must be said, sound rather subdued by modern standards. Still, there is little doubt they were witnessing something singular, if occasionally mystifying.
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