Monday 28th January

Rarely do we see a band whose members almost eclipse and at least equal the achievements of the band themselves.  Even the Beatles were far less than the sum of their parts, but with Genesis a different story emerges.  And in retrospect what an apposite name they chose.  My favourite Genesis period was with classic line up of Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett, Mike Rutherford, Tony Banks and of course Phil Collins.  They recorded a series of brilliant progressive albums in the early seventies where you never knew from one record to the next just what to expect, ‘Selling England by the Pound’,’ A Tick of the Tail’ and my favourite ‘The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway’.

Then Steve Hackett and Peter Gabriel left and both have had incredible solo careers, Steve a bit quieter but still recording great stuff and Peter whose innovations and submersion in World Music and lately into Orchestral works are simply overwhelming.  Tony Banks has created music for films and even had his own band for a while ‘Bank Statement’.   Mike Rutherford, not content to be a member of a still successful Genesis also formed his own band Mike and the Mechanics which were highly successful too.  And of course we must not forget Phil Collins, who not only steered the band on to a really successful career when Pete and Steve left taking over vocals and quite a chunk of the song-writing, but also had an enormously successful solo career too.

There have been constant rumours that the band would re-join and do a World Tour, but so far no real sign of it.  Still we do have the great records, and even after those two giants left albums like ‘Duke’ and ‘Abacab’ were still brilliant.

I saw them once too, on a bill supporting Lindisfarne back in the early seventies; I hadn’t heard of Genesis at the time but loved their set and went out the next day and bought ‘Foxtrot’ I think.  Since then they have always been and will always remain on my favourites list.  And of course, it ‘aint over yet; I wouldn’t be surprised if they still have an album or two in there somewhere.