It’s amazing what difference a day makes. Yesterday, as I saw
\ndown to listen to this album for the first time, the prog-rock
\nstylings of Genesis nearly put me to sleep. However today, after
\ncompleting three final exams in one day, not only has my mood
\nconsiderably brightened, but so has my opinion of this album.<\/p>\n
Despite the progressive nature of early Genesis, I am
\ncontinuously surprised by how “tight” this group really was. At
\nthis point in time, the strongest incarnation of the band was set,
\nand honing their skills with each passing album. The hard, edgier
\nsound contained on
\nNursery Cryme<\/i> and
\nFoxtrot<\/i> are in full force; in fact most of the songs on
\nLive<\/i> better their studio counterparts.<\/p>\n
The opening to “The Return Of The Giant Hogweed” alone makes
\nLive<\/i> worth listening to. Tony Banks and Hackett just rip
\ninto the track with a stinging guitar and organ intro, before
\nCollins joins in and Mike Rutherford lays down an incredibly funky
\nbeat. It isn’t a stretch to think that a band like Zeppelin could
\nhave recorded this, it rocks that hard. The “The Knife” and ” The
\nMusical Box” reaffirm this as well. If you thought the version of
\n“The Knife” on
\nTrespass<\/i> was good,
\nLive<\/i>‘s take blows it away. Between the driving force of the
\nkeyboards that rein everything in as well as keep the beat, to the
\nabsolutely blistering guitar solo from Hackett, you are going to
\nwant to play this one over and over and over\u2026<\/p>\n
Each track featured on
\nLive<\/i> is invested with a great deal of energy and effort,
\nwhich is so important for prog rock, especially when we are talking
\nabout live album. It’s no secret the doldrums can set in during
\nsuch a performance; the weighty material of group such as Genesis,
\nYes, Floyd, etc allows for it. Walking hand in hand with the actual
\nmusicianship of the group is Peter Gabriel, owner of one of the
\nmore unique voices in rock history. It is his ability to shift
\nbetween characters, shade parts of his voice, and generally convey
\nthe often times abstract and sometimes absurd lyrics Genesis had a
\npenchant for. This he does with great aplomb, (see
\n“\u2026Hogweed”).<\/p>\n
There is one problem I have with
\nLive<\/i>: IT’S TOO SHORT!! A live album should rarely be shorter
\nthan an hour, i.e. at least half the normal running time for a
\nconcert!
\nLive<\/i> runs 46 minutes. This easily could have been a double
\nalbum, I imagine. While I have never been to a Genesis concert, I
\nbet they lasted more than 45 minutes, and
\nLive<\/i> should have followed suit. One could make the argument
\nthough that this album is much more effective with the shortened
\nlength, but from the way the band sounded this night, I could stand
\nto have heard another hour.<\/p>\n
Minor quibbles aside,
\nLive<\/i> is a one of those rare occurrences: a good live album.
\nThe musicians are on fire, Gabriel is in fine voice, and this is
\nsome of the better prog rock you are going to hear. The scary part
\nis, it could have been better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":27034,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5883],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-38359","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-genesis","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38359"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}