From: Mel Huang
[ Here is the main text of the Lamb tourbook. Enjoy. -Mel ]
Back in the late 60's progressive music seemed all but dead, barely kept
alive by the faint spark of a lingering mellotron. Rock audiences had
overdosed on loud psychedelic riffs and gentle acoustic flower-power
tunes, wondering all the time if there was anything more to progressive
music than strobe lights, incense and the odd synthesizer. Just when
adventurous rock seemed forever moving backwards, Genesis began flirting
with multi-media concepts. The 60's had taken rock music through a
natural evolution where technical equipment and musical proficiency had
been developed to its sophisticated best. The obvious goal for forward
moving 70's rock bands then, was to fuse the two together in a working
relationship where music, words, lights, and visuals would ideally come
together forming a unified whole.
Respected today for albums of surreal musical tales and a striking stage
act Genesis began strictly as songwriters determined to sell their pop
masterpieces to open ears. While at school Peter Gabriel, Michael
Rutherford and Tony Banks began a song writing relationship that to this
day forms the bulk of the Genesis fantasy. Confident that these early
tunes were ideal top 40 material, success eluded them. Left with no
other alternative, performing the songs themselves became the only
solution.
Enter the bubblegum guru Jonathan King who bestowed upon them a name
Genesis, and an album, From Genesis to Revelation, which sounded more
like a Moody Blues/Procol Harum synthesis than the usual Top of the Pops
one hit wonders. Despite the early recording effort, the group's
surrealistic feel comes through the vinyl.
After securing a record deal with Charisma in 1970, Genesis recorded
Trespass, and album that spurned the stage favourite The Knife one of
the few Genesis compositions to resemble anything remotely similar to
rock 'n roll. Trespass is a frustrating album to listen to in
retrospect, for one can easily see and feel the direction the band were
moving towards, and the difficulty they were having getting there. The
bands present strength in both popular acceptance and artistic
accomplishment is no accident for the group have evolved gradually.
From their earliest concerts and records, the group stubbornly insisted
on doing everything their own way, an individuality that today seperates
them from other 'progressive' groups. Genesis were the naive rockers
who brought tea and toast to sleazy backstage concerts as Gabriel began
miming to some of the more story-book lyrics in a last ditch attempt to
reach the audience. Record companies demanded traditional single
releases that they refused to create. Genesis headlined before they
reached headlining status as a problem quickly evolved, what kind of
band could they possibly open for? The same problem was to plague them
during their first few American visits, where a relatively unknown group
found themselves in the unique position of headlining concerts. Whether
there were 400 or 4000 people in the audience, Genesis worked hard,
hypnotically pulling the listener into their own formless world. As the
lyrics began to take on a more animated form, as the music became a
soundtrack for a film that was happening onstage, a clear direction
evolved for the group, merging theatrical stage visuals with the music.
70's rock was at last moving forward.
After Trespass, drummer John Mayhew and guitarist/songwriter Anthony
Phillips left the group. Phil Collins arrived at a time when Genesis
badly needed a healthy injection of fresh blood and revitalized energy.
His musical adeptness and percussive proficiency on drums made it that
much easier for Genesis to create the time changes so integral to their
world. Enter also Steve Hackett, a guitarist capable of colouring
various passages and textures instead of only being able to play the
archetypal guitar solo. With Rutherford on bass and acoustic guitars,
Banks on keyboards, mellotrons and synthesizers and Gabriel onstage an
occasional flute, Genesis had gone through a necessary transformation,
emerging unscared as one of the few 70's bands moving towards tomorrow
instead of being merely content to recall what was once yesterday.
From this transitional 1971 period, Genesis began moving closer to
bridging the gap between theatre and music both onstage and record. Yet
the bands visual attempts at clearing up lyrical discrepancies, created
some dire misconceptions which followed the group like the plague, and
begged for clarification. The most common problems revolved around the
group's position in the rock 'n roll hierarch, for both fans and enemies
were confused about just where Genesis fitted in the rock family tree.
And it came to pass that people wrongly assumed that Genesis bore a
strong resemblence to bands like Yes, ELP musically and people like
Alice Cooper and David Bowie visually. Musically all that bound those
groups together was the keyboard based instruments used to colour
different sounds. Time changes, chord structures, song construction,
vocals and lyrics differ between them so much so that no obvious
similarities exist. Visually Genesis share no bonds with other popular
rock posers of our time. Unlike his contemporatirs, Gabriel's stage
movements bear a direct one to one relationship to the lyrics.
From the start Genesis have operated on the basic principle that the
visuals, while often entertaining are merely a vehicle to make the songs
themselves more easily understood and accessible. To this day the band
insist that they are primarily songwriters who play at being musicians
and then only later play at being presenters. The songs are most
important, the visuals only an aid in emphasizing the songs themselves.
While many of their contemporaries incorporate visuals in a purely
transitional nature, content to ellicit a round of oohs and aahs with
various images and stage antics that are totally divorced from the song,
Genesis strive to make the two one, to use the visuals to expand and
explain the song.
"We're closer to cartoons than the conventional rock band", Gabriel once
said. "As far as ther bands go, I think we're in a little puddle all by
ourselves". Genesis are working towards something closer to the Red
Buddha Theatre than the rock bands they are so often compared with.
Nursery Cryme was the first album created by the present line-up and
from the first disturbing notes of 'Musical Box' right throught the last
grandiose mellotron chords of 'The Fountain of Salmacis' a difference
between this and past albums is apparent. For the first time the band's
creative intentions had been captured on vinyl and it became easier to
understand exactly what the group was working towards. From the album
came stage classics 'Return of the Giant Hogweed and The Musical Box' a
definite attempt to fuse storybook fantasies with moddy accompaniment.
Both lyrics and music began to take on unique qualities; the stories
were slightly vague and subtly weird while the music added to the uneasy
eerieness of the tune. The group was progressing both as songwriters
and musicians.
Not content to remain stationary, the Foxtrot album made fanatics out of
fans and friends out of disbelievers. The album contained an impressive
20 minute futuristic opus entitled 'Supper's Ready' that quickly became
the centre of attention of their much talked about stage show. In the
beginning Gabriel would don the cover painting fox-head but that
caricature was only vaguely connected with the albums lyrical themes.
Eventually the band presented the whole piece onstage capturing the rock
star as the second coming musically and visually much to the delight of
the audience. With gentle, sweet voices, flashing strobe effects,
searing mellotron orchestration, and animated visuals the piece would
build to a spine-tingling crescendo, crashing to a surprise ending.
Genesis were becoming immensely popular, for 'Supper's Ready'
transcended the standard 4 minutes of decorated visuals, becoming a
definite theatre piece complete with recurring passages and themes.
The band's following quickly spread to the Continent and across the
Atlantic where Americans were particularly fascinated with their
peculiar English surrealism. A transitional perio followed, allowing
the group to catch their breath and further develop the technical side
of production and musical adeptness. Albums were months in the making,
as they were a product of not one mind but five, and group equality was
always stressed. 'Selling England By The Pound' confirmed suspicions
that Genesis were becoming a self-contained unit, capable of creating
and sustaining musical imagery both visually onstage and lyrically on
record with the musical accompaniment integrated into the proceedingsso
that the whole equalled a solid, animated fantasy. On this album the
stories took a back seat to the music while the group concentrated on
developing playing styles. Hackett's guitar weavings became an integral
part of the moody atmosphere, as Banks wisely kept his keyboard playing
melodic and lyrical instead of succumbing to the obvious desire to
create a Third World War like so many of his peers and contemporaries.
With the release of the album and the subsequent stage show that
followed, lighting and sound systems took a giant leap forward and one
excitedly wondered what futuristic delights lay ahead. While the
'Foxtrot' tour featured an all white stage backdrop that added to the
feel of the music, this tour injected backdrop projections and the use
of slides, again coming closer to merging various medias into one. In
the beginning the slide show occasionally resembled a faimly 'what we
did on our holidays' approach but quickly grew more sophisticated.
Which brings us presently up to autumn 1974 and a new Genesis stage show
based around their new double album 'Lamb lies down on Broadway'. Not a
terribly wealthy band, Genesis continually feed profits back into the
stage show. To convey the complex story line of the new album, visual
aids will be used on three backdrop screens, hinting at three
dimensional illusions, slowed down slides will also add to an animated
feel. As always, these new technical improvements will serve as painted
landscapes adding to the fantasy and clarifying the story line. While
the emphasis remains on the music and players the show will be
theatrical and exciting, the music and imagery will not be seperate, but
whole, working together to pull the listener into the Genesis fantasy
and out of everyday street realities. What Genesis are working towards
is the future and their present flirtation with multi-media concepts is
only the beginning of a whole new world. Welcome.
Date: 31 Aug 1995 00:23:56 GMT
Organization: JBANC
Newsgroups: alt.music.genesis