By Mel Huang
It started on November 20th in Chicago (2 nights). It moved through the midwest then a little dab south of the Mason-Dixon. Then it moved to the metro areas of the NE and New England with 2 dates in Canada only (Montreal on the 10th and Toronto on the 16th). The tour stopped until January 10th at West Palm Beach (most of the show is on "The Lamb Lives"). Then traveled through the south through places like Atlanta, New Orleans, Houston, Dallas, Tulsa, then moving to Denver, California cities, Phoenix, then up to Vancouver. Finally, they return and end the US tour in the midwest with a few more dates in February. They begin the Euro tour in Oslo on the 19th (the famous explosion show). Then they moved through Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, and France then moved to Spain and Portugal. They played 1 show in Italy (Torino) which is a shame, then started the German tour. They played Belgium and the Netherlands and returned to the UK for a 2 week tour. After that, they returned to the continent and played shows in Spain, Germany, and ended the tour in France.
In most of the shows, the set list was all of the Lamb, then Musical Box and Watcher of the Skies.
Watcher was not played in several UK shows and Brussels, as The Knife was subsituted. Watcher was left off in in other places where it didn't deem a 2nd encore. And also, due to a roadie error, they did not play it in West Palm.
The vari-lights were first used on the Lamb tour. The stage was complex, with 3 slide-screes with great slides through the show. A beautiful shot of a raven coming down enhances Pete's acts on stage. Also during Counting Out Time it was VERY explicit...
The stories changed a bit through the tour. The US tour was somewhat bland and explanatory. But in Europe, he jazzed up the stories quite a lot, sometimes switching languages and actually toying with the crowd a la late Phil Collins.
The Waiting Room developed into quite a spectacle. By Germany, there was a keyboard solo, with a little flute/keys duet and also Pete's oboe segment. There was a drum solo in some shows, as well as a vibes solo. Peter got on his little percussion set behind Phil's kit during this thing while Phil played the vibes solo. Pete plays that kit more than people think.
The costumes were simple and complex. It was just Pete and a leather jacket, with or without a shirt, or a hat which was used for Back In NYC, In the Rapids, etc. Lamia featured a spinning cone coming down. Sometimes it didn't spin (Paris), sometimes it came down late (Montreal), or sometimes it nearly choked Pete to death when the wire got caught (Wembley). Slipperman was the big costume....the beginning saw Pete come out of a genitalia-shaped thing and he inflates his genitalia then. It is deflated later....
There was lots of strobe used, especially on Waiting Room and It.
Parts of the tour featured Mike on bass for Supernatural Anaesthetist and parts of the tour had him on 12-string.
He was on his knees for Carpet Crawlers, and layed down on the stage like a kid on Cuckoo Cocoon. He also went down for It sometimes. He played a tambourine often through the show.
The shows sold quite well in most places, especially Europe. This was Genesis' move to bigger venues, such as Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto and Wembley Pool. They played to large rowdy crowds in Europe, and lack of tickets and transportation problems caused near-riots in France and Italy. It was a BIG tour. It was ShowCo's first association with the band.
The stories were in English for the US and Canada. In Montreal he used very little French until the encore. English was used for the UK, Norway, the Netherlands, and Denmark. He spoke French, Spanish, and German in the other countries.
There are many video clips on 8mm from many locations (LA, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Chicago, Torino, Hamburg, etc.). Parts of the Los Angeles show was recorded by RAI TV with a multi-camera crew. It's possible that Lisboa, Portugal had a small bit of pro footage. This is very controversial. The clips in the documentary video is from LA.
Audio recordings are everywhere. The best are West Palm Beach (Lamb lives) 1/10/75, Providence 12/8/74, NYC 12/6/74 and 12/7/74, Torino (Real LAst Time) 3/24/75, Lakeland 1/11/75, and others.
Oklahoma City 1/19/75 is not all that real. Side 1 is actually real, and side 2 is a bad Los Angeles recording. Also, this show was actually in Tulsa. Only side A is valid.
There are some early versions of "The Real LAst Time" that had the Dijon 5/25/75 show on it instead. Most copies have Torino.
"The Lamb Lives' is a great work of editing. It is mostly from West Palm, but it's full of fillers from Providence (part of The Lamb, Musical Box, etc.). You can barely hear the difference. Those guys did a great job.