Saw it in person and it landed with a thud. Most of the audience didn't know the tunes. But more importantly, the songs did not flow into each other like the Cage medley. It felt like a Las Vegas "parade of hits."
The Shorts - I remember when 'The Shorts' came out. I wasn't impressed with it overall. It sounded clinical and at times I wasn't sure I was listening to a live album. The only highlight during the first listen, if I recall, was Phil dropping the 'f bomb' during 'Invisible Touch'. The Longs - If anyone asks where I had renewed interest in the band, it would be this album. I didn't buy this album until late '96. By that time I was getting into prog and was heavily into Yes, Rush and King Crimson, so why not rediscover Genesis? I saw the CD on sale, I think around $7 or so. I took it home and was satisfied on first listen. The biggest highlight was 'The Old Medley'. At this point in my Genesis history, was the 80s and early 90s output. Hearing these songs for the time, I was impressed, nah, beyond impressed. Those opening notes of 'Dance on a Volcano', that hypnotic guitar solo during Firth of Fifth, the audience joining in on 'I Know What I Like'. Suddenly I was fan again. I kept the CD in rotation for some time and then began buying the band's catalog during the next three years. In retrospect, find it strange that it was divided in half like that. I know it was done for marketing purposes, but the live concept is lost when the tracks are scattered about over two volumes in no particular order. To me, the definitive version of 'The Way We Walk' is the one that was packed with 'Live 1973-2007'. That's how it should of been released in the first place.
Ah, The Way We Walk, yeah that was a bit of headscratcher when it came out. Wait, what, they divided it up in two seperate releases. Terribly named The Longs and The Shorts, wow okay, some marketing team really went to town on this one. To me it could be the next Genesis live album after Three Sides Live, and contain what they've been playing the last 10 years live. What it became was this terribly sequenced packaged deal where the band apperently thought their fans where divided into two camps and they thought the only way to overcome this to release it seperate. Specially the longs feels incomplete, also because it ends with the drum duet, and makes no sense? For Genesis the drum duet was always the bridge between two songs, or to another song. So it really ends on a whimper. As lot of people are saying the version that was later released in the live boxset is the definitive version, and its .... pretty good actually. yeah, its a better concert then what I experienced, so thats a plus. If you can try get hold of the FM broadcast of the 16-11-92 Royal Albert Hall concert, wich is much more lively and the band plays with lot more conviction then on the official release.
I suppose it was an experimental way of satisfy separately old and new fans. I did buy Longs on vinyl, but for completness I eventualy also bought Shorts. I think I listened to Longs a couple of times, and never to Shorts. More recently I bought both very cheap on CD (never played any). I expect to do a few careful listenings now, because of this thread.
come to think of it The Drum Duet can be considered a short? with just 06:06 lenght, so why not include it before I cant Dance (where it was in the first place) on the Shorts? But the marketing team thought that people listening to drum duets are more listeners of the Longs, so....god I hate pigeonholing.
I think I found the reason, The Shorts cd was 63:05, so it prolly wouldnt fit anymore (or make it a double album, lol)
As there was a bit of a "lets get this over with" feel about this release, here are the first four songs ... If it's too much too soon, I can always pause tomorrow
I guess if you're trying to make it into basically a Greatest Hist album you don't necessarily want a 6 minute drum solo clogging up the track list
Just to beef up the CD a little, I guess. Also, it's an instrumental, nothing to do with the hits, really. First time I heard it I was like: where the **** is my ****ing Endos?
So; this version of LoC (though not this exact performance) is the first Genesis I ever heard, and it absolutely blew me away. The idea of having what was obviously a pop song, but with some interesting chords and a rock-y arrangement, was something quite new to my 14-year old mind.
I think that's fair enough - I don't think there are any songs from previous albums that don't sound better done there. Collins has pretty much admitted as much - his marriage was falling apart at the time - but he seems disconnected during big chunks of the tour and it lacks the excitement of the others. I do like the live versions of songs from We Can't Dance and in many cases they add to the studio versions, but other than that this tour is not one of their best, I'd argue that they sound far more up for it in 2007, although I have a feeling Collins was going through a pretty tough personal period at that time as well. I went to this tour at Earls Court, I bloody loved it at the time, but watching it back now on DVD it doesn't really have the magic of former tours, this thread has brought this home as I've watched it so close to the Wembley 87 gig,
Glad you mention that. I had gotten used to listening 'The Longs' versions from 'The Old Medley'. So when I got around to buying the PG era albums, namely 'Selling England..', I was in for a shock on how the songs were supposed to sound. So yeah, I agree with you on that. Also, really hate the way Phil sings the opening verse from 'I Know What I Like'. Talk about uninspired.
Here's a track that I like very much, and it seems to be an appropriate way to end the album, but I do have some reservations. The slow, quiet start to the song only highlights the overall mood established by the previous three tracks. I think it would have been a little better if there was a punchier lead-in before this, like "Living Forever" for example. Instead the somber feel that pervades the back end of the album drags on until the instrumental section kicks in. This part doesn't come across as cohesively as other instrumental pieces by the band, kind of a patchwork of ideas rather than a more focused theme, but it works enough to make it an enjoyable listen nonetheless. At least the album ends on a high note.
As for the Shorts and the Longs - like others, I can see why they did this, as “Shorts” then became the defacto “Greatest Hits” CD for the next 7 years until a real one came out. In fact I knew a couple of guys at school who bought it on that basis (one of which complained that the “Shorts” were all too long and he ended up hitting “skip” before most of the songs were done...) As for me, I dutifully bought the “Shorts” CD, as it was the first thing that came out new after I became a fan, but it never quite did it for me - and certainly didn’t replace my trusty cassette of the August 2nd 1992 gig from Knebworth that turned me on to all these tunes. “The Longs” was more successful to me, and definitely got played more, but having listened to the Knebworth versions of the songs so many times, I couldn’t help missing some of the specific bits of those performances (“Fading Lights” from Knebworth is still definitive, to me - some of Phil’s extra drum fills are just off the chart...)
Agreed the Knebworth and Royal Albert Hall gig from these tours which I had off the telly or the radio at the time were always my go to for this tour, definitely better performances overall and the band seem really engaged.
Well, here’s where I have to go against the tide - I *LOVE* this medley. Again, as LoC live was my first intro to “new Genesis”, this Old Medley half an hour later was my intro to “old Genesis” and it’s fair to say that it changed my life. To my ears, the transitions are fine because for months, that was just how that music was supposed to sound - and I must have listened to this thing hundreds of times. It was fun trying to piece together which songs they’d played and what albums they were on, without access to the internet, too
Yea, I just meant the whole thing, not really just the drum piece .... I suppose it was innovative (?) but I don't think it worked. I could never even build up the enthusiasm to buy the two individual albums... I ended up getting the sensible version in the box set
The problem with 2007 is that Phil's voice had aged and thus they dropped the keys even more than they previously had. It really makes a difference. He still sounds pretty good on The Way We Walk. And several of the songs are played super slow, notably the opener, dubbed "Duke's Intro". It's still an enjoyable release, but I think they sounded better on The Way We Walk, simply because they were 15 years younger.
