I agree I think it's a failed experiment. Collins was a 'hits machine' anyway, so Serious Hits live is basically a cut down gig, but this feels pretty weak as a concept.
I don't think it was meant to be "innovative". It was just a marketing trick. You can't do a Serious Hits with a band that has plenty of long songs. And a double album can discourage sales. So split it and you optimize the sales (at full prize). Some will buy vol. 1, some vol. 2, some (way less I think) both. Win-win!
It would be interesting to know who got the idea and which band members were most in favor or against.
It must be pointed out that with all the fades in / out that appear in their live records, Genesis were never that much into recreating the "live experience" on record. It seems to them it was more of a presentation of live performances, compared to the recreation of the event. With that in mind, the choice and the odd sequencing of The Longs are not coming totally out of the blue.
You know what's strange is that an excerpt of 'That's All' is played during that. I was puzzled why that was, since the song proper was on 'The Shorts'. I figured it was played during 'The Walk..' tour , but only to find out later it was from the IT tour. Since I don't have 'The Shorts' CD anymore, did the liner notes list venues and dates played for the tracks?
By that point the band was well aware that their fans were generally made up of two groups, those that were more familiar with their hit songs and mainstream material, and those who preferred the older and/or "proggier" stuff. The Shorts and Longs catered to each group, and if one was interested in all the material then they could pick up both releases. It wasn't more complicated than that. A live release was becoming more standard by that time as well, so as long as they were going to release live material from that tour, this was the way they decided to do it.
"That's All" and "In Too Deep" were from the previous tour. "That's All" was from the Wembley show, July 4/87.
I never purchased or even heard much from either of these live releases. I think most of us would agree that it was a mistake to release them separately a few months apart and that an integrated double disc set would have held up far better from a listening standpoint. At the time, however, they weren't alone in doing this: The Cure also released two live albums just a week or two apart, meant to represent two sides of their appeal (one focusing on the hits and another on deeper tracks). I was turned off by the entire concept of the "old medley"; I wanted to hear modern Genesis versions of complete older songs, not snippets stitched together awkwardly. That was the big reason I never bought The Longs release, and The Shorts just didn't appeal to me at all. I was pretty much done with Genesis by this point anyhow.
Just listened to the old medley. The problem is, if you are releasing a live album representative of the band, like was the Three Sides Live one, with such a long and evolved career it made sense to include the medley. You have to include the recent material, and have a lot of old material to choose, you have to leave something out. With the medley you can include more songs from all eras, and satisfy all fans old and new. Since most old hits are long epics, their presence in their integrity would have employed most available space. But, by separating the material for both distinct audiences, the medley has no longer much sense to me. It is very odd to listen to so shorts versions of long songs in an album called 'The Longs'. You are expecting something different. I have felt cheated, really. If they were recording concerts with the plan of releasing those twin albums, they should have had played those epics in their integrity, for instance each one in a different show, in order to collect them in the Longs album. This could have been double, whereas the Shorts would have been single. I think the old fan would have been more satisfied and, in the long run, it would have worked better in sales. Retrospectively, it would have resulted in a very appropriate farewell release.
You have a point but, in all likelihood, the decision to split the concert into "short" and "long" songs was made after the fact.
yeah I can see the point of the Old Medley, and it worked for me during the concert, and its one of my favorite tracks on the album. You have to imagine that before that we only way to hear early stuff was the In the Cage medley. So when they started with Dance on a Vulcano me and my mates went "WOAH!". stuff like Firth of Fifth I think were done pretty good, and especially I Know What I Like part was great that they included. It was a great nod to the old fans, but like I said it wasnt enough lol. I kinda wished they had dropped Home By The Sea/2nd HBTS and played some deeper cuts in that slot. Maybe Dodo/Lurker?
Land of Confusion has a sense of immediacy here that's absent on the studio version. I like it better in a live setting, it has more of the human touch in it. No Son Of Mine is a great tune no matter how you slice it, and the band does a fine job on it live. Driving The Last Spike is just about as good here as on WCD. Phil really puts a lot into his performance. I appreciate the Old Medley, and the fact that they put a long 20 minute piece of music together to appease the prog fans, but no thought went into the transitions into each song. With the previous medleys, they expertly wove the pieces together so they became something new unto themselves. This one is more like they just slapped together parts of songs together (especially the quick head nods during I Know What I Like). And dammit, The Musical Box should END the medley. Darryl's solo during Firth of Fifth is nowhere near as brilliant as Steve's and doesn't really fit, but those double drums, wow! Nice to hear them break out the old bass pedals again.
Dug out my copy of 'The Way We Walk' DVD. If I remember correctly, I imported a region-free DVD, which ran about $45-50 at the time. I wanted it early and had money to burn... Anyway, I was playing around with the camera angles and I decided enable the band audio commentary during the performance. It was a pretty entertaining, especially the commentary.
I remember the commentary being pretty funny, at one point they seem to forget it’s happening and answer the phone! But it’s definitely worth a listen a shame it was missing from the box set version
Fading Lights I think this works very well here. I actually enjoy this dvd, perhaps not as much as the others, but I still think it is very good.
