Solsbury Hill performance
Gabriel performs Solsbury Hill during The Late Show with David Letterman to promote his self titled album.
Supper’s Ready performance
The band performs Supper’s Ready from their album Foxtrot at Shepperton Studios. The filming covers two days (30- 31 October). Gabriel’s intro to the song:
Old Michael, walked past the pet shop – which was never open – into the park – which was never closed. And in the park was a very smooth, clean green grass. So Michael, took off all his clothes, and began rubbing his flesh into the wet, clean green grass. He accompanies himself with a little tune… It went like this… Beneath the ground, the dirty brown writhing things, called worms, interpreted the pitter patter from above as rainfall. Rainfall in worm-world means two things: Mating and Bathtime. Both of these experiences were found thoroughly enjoyable to the worm colony… simultaneously. And within seconds, the entire surface of the park was a mass of dirty, brown, soggy, writhing forms. He was still pleased – Old Michael, and he began whistling a tune this time, to accompany himself. It went like this:…Jerusalem Boogie to us perhaps, but to the birds it meant THE SUPPER IS READY!
Bataclan concert
The band are filmed before and during their performance at the Bataclan theater in Paris. The film shows excerpts of The Return of The Giant Hogweed, The Knife, Supper’s Ready. On The Musical Box Gabriel wears a fox head and red dress (in later tours he will use an old-man mask).
Int: When did you start to develop the theatrical side of your music?
PG: I think it came naturally… I had started to do a bit of mime and it increased with the music…and this last year it became more exaggerated than it was before…
Int: Who do you think you imitate the best ?
PG: Alice Cooper, I spent six months in the US to imitate him… and I watched 17 films of him on stage, just to copy his movements almost exactly… and David Bowie, I’ve been living with him for the last three years, which allowed me to understand a lot of his technique…
Int: But you’re the only one (in the band) to be theatrical…
PG: Of course, they’re all busy with their instruments…
TB: He’s singing, but there are a lot of moments where he doesn’t and so he must do something to get paid as much as the others…
Int: And you’ve never been tempted to act like him ? … it seems to me that Peter is the pop star, as if the others only play as a support band…
PG: No, Tony is having tap dancing lessons and next time we play in France he will do five minutes of tap dancing… and Steve does some numbers by Maurice Chevalier…
MR: The point to remember is that the theatrical side always enhances the music rather than the music…
https://youtu.be/b5l5H369gxg
Nursery Cryme
The band release their third studio album, Nursery Cryme. The album includes The Musical Box, The Fountain of Salmacis, and Return of The Giant Hogweed. This is the first album with Collins and Hackett. Gabriel sings all songs except For Absent Friends, which is written by Hackett, and sung by Collins. The album is produced by John Anthony and engineered by David Hentschel. The sleeve is designed by Anthony Whitehead, based on the characters in the songs. Banks:
Nursery Cryme was the album that incorporated Phil and Steve into the band, so we became, for that reason, a better playing unit than we’d benn in the past. And we’d also by this time, played quite a liot on stage, so the development from Trespass was quite a big one. And we had the Mellotron was a new instrument, and a certain quality of the early-Genesis sound was started with this album.
Hackett:
I was thrilled with it. The rough edges at that time I refused to hear. I just wanted to bask in the glory. I’d done an album with what was destined to become a great band, and occasionally the sound was wonderful.
Collins:
It was a real great five-piece working uni. We all got together for the meetings for the cover, we were there all the time for the mixing. Pretty much we were all involved in the writing, apart from the lyrics. Certain songs would have pairs going off to write lyrics. I have very fond memories of the period.
Gabriel:
A step into the shade, if you like. There’s more sunshining in Trespass, more folky feels, and outside stuff. And we’d gone indoors in Nursery Cryme.
Rutherford:
It’s a good example of how we were moving on…I like the cover Quite a strong image of the girl and the croquet lawn., and the head. We were starting to create an atmosphere about the band. Slightly quirky. I felt we were starting to become something that was a little bit unique in the music business.