Ain't Nuthin' Like the Rael Thing

Genesis - The Lamia

I'm gonna keep it Rael as the underbelly of Manhattan Island with some uncooked Lamb, celebrating its 50th anniversary today as part of one of Rock's most legendary albums and tours.

The Best Concept Albums debate thread is as long as the internet is worldwide, and everyone has their preferences like with anything else.

You can rank the Top 10 any way you like, but most if not all I have seen always contain this one, with more than half lamenting why the tour -- surely one of the most theatrically and visually advanced ever seen up to then -- was never filmed professionally.

It's a weird story -- somewhere between David Lynch (we'll get to him in a few days, worry not) and The Pilgrim's Progress -- but The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway does what it does as unapologetically as any LP of the Rock epoch, and against all sanity manages to put across the most abstract drug-dream of a tale in an almost straightforward, linear way.

And that, as they say, is no easy feat.

I recently watched an interview with Mike Rutherford from now, where he was describing the experience of filming Genesis' first US TV appearance, on The Midnight Special at the end of 1973.

He was saying how only the lighting guys got what they were trying to do, and were eager to pull all the UV makeup, costumes and lighting and so forth off for TV.

As for the other artists, when they came offstage Steve Miller -- who was hosting the episode and had introduced them as "a new kind of rock: Theater Rock!" -- had a look on his face that Mike described as "9 kinds of what the fuck?!?!?"

Of course The Lamb -- my personal favorite concept record of ever, Prog Rock or otherwise -- is definitely in the realm of that reaction for some -- but it really dates pretty well if you ask me and stands the proverbial timetest with room to spare.

As for the tour and this concert, well.... I'd need three more posts to explain what happened when the G Men decided to issue the professional, mobile unit recording of it -- the only one of the tour taped to multitrack -- and proceeded to overdub a whole bunch of Peter Gabriel's vocals and Steve Hackett's guitars 20 years after the event.

Needless to say, they should have left it like it happened and not -- ok, this pun sucks gratuitously so I apologize in advance -- um, grandfathered in singing that sounded like Rael went looking for The Lamia and instead found Grampa Rael floating, face down, in the pool. And someone tell Steve Hackett (he'll be 75, as will Gabes, in February, so now they are legit grandfathers) he's allowed to make a guitar-flubbing, superclamalicious mistake once in a while, there's no need to cook The Lamb once it's done and on the table.

So yeah, they are issuing a big box set (in March I think) to celebrate the album in all its newly-remastered glory, and it will have the overdubbed-to-oblivion version of this show. But not the original, unaltered King Biscuit Flower Hour mix of it... you'll have to keep reading this to turn over that card, and luckily no one will force you to carpet crawl to The Chamber of 32 Doors to get there.

Genesis

Shrine Auditorium

Los Angeles, CA

1.24.1975

01 introduction to The Story of Rael

02 The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway

03 Fly On a Windshield

04 Broadway Melody of 1974

05 Cuckoo Cocoon

06 In the Cage

07 The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging

08 The Story of Rael continued

09 Back In N.Y.C.

10 Hairless Heart

11 Counting Out Time

12 The Carpet Crawlers

13 The Chamber of 32 Doors

14 The Story of Rael continued

15 Lilywhite Lilith

16 The Waiting Room

17 Anyway

18 The Story of Rael continued

19 The Supernatural Anaesthetist

20 The Lamia

21 Silent Sorrow In Empty Boats

22 The Colony of Slippermen

23 Ravine

24 The Light Dies Down On Broadway

25 Riding the Scree

26 In the Rapids

27 IT

28 Watcher of the Skies

29 The Musical Box

Total time: 2:07:33

disc break goes after Track 13

Peter Gabriel - vocals, flute & percussion

Phil Collins - drums, percussion & vocals

Tony Banks - keyboards & vocals 

Steve Hackett - guitars 

Mike Rutherford - bass, bass pedals, guitars & vocals

320/48K audio of the King Biscuit Flower Hour unoverdubbed mix, streamed from Wolfgang's Vault

spectral analysis goes lossless to 20 kHz, making this essentially equivalent to a preFM source

the beginning of the introductory announcement is patched from the first "Genesis Archive" box set from the 1990s

stream converted to 16/44 CD Audio, edited, repaired, tracked & remastered by EN, January 2025
790 MB FLAC/direct link

I shouldn't have to say that this show is deeply flawed and they nearly go off the rails a number of times, with Phil Collins in particular occasionally seeming like he visited the wrong Weed Guy in LA before soundcheck that day 50 years ago. But overall it doesn't deserve the less-than-stellar reputation it has from being redone in the studio two decades on, and there are firebreathing moments from all five dudes as they play an album probably less than half of the packed Shrine has heard in its total, 95-minute entirety before hitting a few chestnuts the crowd can feel more familiarly.

I'm battling this eye shit and trying to move into a new space, but I have one more I am brewing up for the end of the month so stay tuned. And enjoy today's anniversary special, a delectable cut of Lamb to tickle the palate with a stickleback if ever there was one.--J.