UMR/EMI
Five-CD or three-LP live radio rarities set shows the band’s complex evolution.
During a touching 1972 rendition of The Musical Box, the song in which a girl decapitates a boy with a croquet mallet, only for him to be resurrected for a short time during which he begs for sexual intercourse until his nurse kills him (again), Genesis, moving fluidly from restraint to explosions, play with the confidence of a veteran band, although they’d just entered their twenties.
What’s gratifying about this sumptuous set, a heartening addition to the group’s legacy, is how it honours and respects those early years as they sought identity, tangled up in vaguely kinky fables and fairy tales, and laid slabs of different genres side by side; late-career anthologies (and farewell tours) have tended to favour their subsequent stadium-appeasing, route-one music. BBC Broadcasts, curated by keyboard player Tony Banks, redresses the balance.
In the context of this sweeping collection of intimate BBC sessions and massive live shows, loads of it previously unreleased on vinyl, the earlier stuff is far more intriguing because much of it is relatively unfamiliar; the 1987 Wembley Stadium show was out on DVD, and other treasures (such as have popped upsessions.
