Celebrating England By the Pound

I took another nap, but the death that occurred when I was out had nothing to do with music for a change, so let's party in a Proggy pattern -- now, now... no Progging out with your cogs out -- with a double birthday love post, shall we?

I have posted on these cats separately before, but today we will cobble them together. They were born less than 24 hours apart anyway, and 20 years later they each ended up in the same group thanks to the elder having answered an ad in the Melody Maker placed by the younger.

Fast forward to 2016 and they are both universally beloved figures of the music of our lifetimes, having found their greatest and most representative career outputs after their departure, two years apart, from that band, itself one of only two Progressive Rock acts enshrined in the R'n'R Hall of Fame.

Of all the classic groups of the mythical backwhen times, this is perhaps the one the most people would pay the most money to see reunite in the classic five-piece configuration. It will likely never happen -- owing as much to the fragile physical state of the drummer as much as to any discord between them -- but there's a whole lotta folks whom I know would give their last dollar to see it happen. The visual element present in this group has become so mythological and influential, even the Prog haters wanna see it reanimated.

So yeah, two of this group's main men were born not that far apart and on almost the same day 66 years ago, and the thing I am gonna share was taped 42 years ago yesterday, so try and keep up with the vast quantities of dates and you'll be amply rewarded with a half hour of prime and pristine French TV footage of the mighty Genesis, in action in February of 1974. This footage was included in the bonus material of the Live Archive box set released in 2009, but was sourced from a more generated tape and had annoying time code at the bottom. This is the ORTF master tape, straight from the French TV archives.

Genesis
"Melody"
ORTF-TV studios
Paris, France
2.12.1974

01 intro
02 I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)
03 Supper's Ready
04 outro

Total time: 30:17

Peter Gabriel - vocals, percussion, flute
Tony Banks - keyboards, 12-string guitar, vocals
Mike Rutherford - bass, 12-string guitar, guitar, Moog Taurus bass pedals, vocals
Steve Hackett - guitar, sitar guitar
Phil Collins - drums, percussion, vocals

PAL DVD of the original pre-broadcast ORTF master tape, without the timecode and at least a generation down from what was released in the "Live Archive" box set bonus material in 2009

2.2 GB/February 2016 archive link

There you have it! Peter Gabriel on the left and Steve Hackett on the right, each still going strong and out on the blocks this Spring with their various live ensembles, and each born within a 24-hour period in February of 1950. I'd say that chilly February day in the UK was a pretty good one, agreed? Enjoy and two very HBDs to these two marvelous musos!--J.