|
The love affair with Genesis began with Trick of the Tail,
moved on to Wind and Wuthering and then backwards to
pick up the old anthology of albums (ancient word for CDs).
God knows how many hours were spent listening to the group.
Watching Genesis Songbook on DVD brought the memories
flooding back. The early days with Peter Gabriel and his theatrical
poetic style, moving on to the Phil Collins era, then post
Steve Hackett, then post Phil Collins.
The 100-minute documentary is a really good mixture of old
footage from concerts and recent interviews with the main
band members, management and fans.
Despite being a very close group of musicians who would usually
write their songs together, or incorporate small pieces of
each others' music into long lyrical album tracks, Genesis
did have the occasional internal flare up.
Genesis Songbook doesn't avoid the issues - like Peter
Gabriel wanting to be the only lyrics writer - and the interviews
with both he and the band members are matter of fact and without
rancour.
Lead guitar man Steve Hackett also left the band after a
couple of excellent albums without Gabriel, because he felt
the group was moving away from it romantic music style into
a more commercial vein.
The rise of Phil Collins, the drummer with the band, into
its lead singer is covered well as are the most recent albums,
which provided the group with a succession of big hits in
America.
Collins is good to hear interviewed, as are Mike Rutherford
and Tony Banks. Both of the latter have delightful public-school
accents.
If there is a moan it would be about the fact you are tantalised
with small offerings of their songs, but you don't get to
see the full thing. All I can do is hope that somewhere over
the horizon a Genesis concert will get the DVD treatment.
"I Know What I Like and I Like What I Know....."
While Songbook is a must for Genesis fans, it will
interest anyone with a serious taste for rock music.
Rating: 85%
Continued:
DVD details at a glance >
|
