 Genesis I frequently find myself passionately advocating for things that, were I to take a step back and really think about it, I don't actually care about very much. These usually turn out to be arbitrarily chosen "pet favorites" from a given subculture that I don't actually follow. Like, I don't care a bit about "Dr. Who," but I can't count the number of times I've insisted someone watch "The Five Doctors" – it's the episode with all the actors who played Dr. Who, all in one show! Or, despite not being anything of a "Star Trek" fan, I will recommend Star Trek: Generations – it has Kirk and Picard, together! You see, I don't want to wade through hours of DVDs and absorb every little nuance that these cults have to offer. Just give me the easiest way to appreciate the basic idea in one digestible dose. Do I want to watch a season's worth of baseball? No, but I might watch a MLB All-Star Game (I said might). Fans may see these things as distasteful gimmicks catering to non-fans, but if we let the fans have their way all the time, virtually everything with any audience whatsoever would quickly become impenetrable, like Fangorn Forest or a Kevin Smith movie. And so it is that I often find myself speaking reverently of the Genesis bootleg Six of the Best. This 1982 show saw Peter Gabriel reunite with his former band for the first (and the way I tell it, only) time ever – so it's early Genesis and later Genesis at the same time! And they do "Solsbury Hill"!!!! Clearly, much of my admiration for this set is based entirely on its existence. Though the show is a Genesis fan favorite, it's not necessarily a great show, nor is it a good-sounding disc. The "Fan Approved Definitive Edition" is compiled from various sources – all of them audience recordings, from the sound of it – for the best possible unofficial document. "Best possible," though, still means that you hear drunken Brits singing along and/or talking throughout the disc, with the sounds from the stage much more muffled. It's not quite the "Rerun eating popcorn"-type bootleg as depicted on "What's Happening?," but neither is it a shimmering example of a fan-taped live album. The performance is good – Gabriel (who did the show expressly for the money) is in good humour, even telling some jokes (!), and seeming to enjoy himself. It's a refreshing change of pace from the grandiose and "mysterious" artiness that he usually employs. The vibe is decidedly nostalgic … which is interesting given that the band always prided itself on reinvention and surprise. It was an outdoor show plagued by torrential rain, so the band seemed in tune with the fact that it was playing for an audience of hardcore fans. The vibe is therefore somewhat "fan club"-esque, with everyone involved (artist and audeince alike) simply dropping all the pretense and just having a good time. The setlist is terrific, centering almost entirely on Gabriel-era Genesis classics ("The Carpet Crawlers," "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway," "Firth of Fifth," "The Musical Box," "Selling England By the Pound"), with "Solsbury Hill" and "Turn it On Again" sitting side by side as a special treat, acknowledging the subsequent history. High points are hit on "In the Cage" (in which Gabriel wittily interpolates "Raindrops keep falling on my head"), a marvellous thirty-minute "Supper's Ready" (with which no fan could argue), and the menacing "I Know What It's Like." Even with the inherent edge of these songs, everything sounds joyful, capturing a sense of fun that you don't associate with Peter Gabriel (especially Security-era) or Genesis prior to their hammier MTV hits, like "Illegal Alien"). Steve Hackett even springs on stage for "I Know What It's Like," making this very much a "Five Doctors" for fans of the old Genesis. Ironically, although I like to think of my "pet favorite" cult items as easy points of entry into an intimidating subculture, they inevitably turn out to be rather more esoteric "connoisseur's choices." In the case of Six of the Best, it does have the "Five Doctors" gimmick going for it, but the sound quality is shoddy enough that no real poseur would sit through more than five minutes of it – perhaps skipping ahead and straining through "Solsbury Hill" only once. But for me, this disc captures some kind of magic … not the magic of Genesis reuniting, or the magic of time-traveling back to sit on the muddy grounds of Milton Keynes in the pouring rain for this rare event, but rather, the magic of being a hardcore Genesis fan who would be excited about having such a CD. It's something I'd love to be in theory, but could never actually be in practice … for one thing, I'd have to gain 150 pounds and acquire an unfathomably offensive B.O. But if I'm going to have one Genesis boot, it's this one, gimmicky and sonically shitty though it may be. Because it's Peter Gabriel reuniting with Genesis, in 1982, when they were both becoming superstars! Isn't that cool?! Besides, if I'm going to be a poseur, I'll always be an extremely diligent one.
Review by Timothy Hay |