10 Songs Genesis Haven’t Played on Their Latest Reunion Tour

For any commemorated band with 15 albums, creating a established list is like assembling a jigsaw puzzle. 

It is even trickier when the band has utilized many singers and recorded almost everything from prog epics to synth-pop hits. It is almost not possible when the band is reuniting for its 1st tour in 14 years, with the complete line probable in sight — how do you summarize a five-decade occupation in a two-hour live performance?

Genesis faced that unenviable problem with their 2021-22 run. But even the grumpiest enthusiast would come across it difficult to complain about their balanced established list, which has remained practically fully unchanged since the Sept. 20 kick-off exhibit in Birmingham, England. (The 1 alteration: temporarily swapping out 1980’s “Duchess” for a fellow Duke typical, “Misunderstanding.”)

The exhibits have featured all the evident ’80s hits (“Throwing It All Away,” “Invisible Contact,” “That is All,” “Land of Confusion”) and requisite supporter favorites (“The Carpet Crawlers,” “Change It On All over again”). But they’ve also been extra nuanced than envisioned, that includes a handful of super-deep cuts (“Fading Lights”) and an acoustic mini-set with 3 reworked tunes (like a significantly softer variation of “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway”).  However, it is pleasurable to enjoy the “what if” activity. In this article are 10 deserving Genesis songs not performed in the course of the hottest reunion tour. 

“Supper’s Ready”

It’s no secret why Genesis haven’t performed their supreme prog epic: Blame the mammoth, 23-minute run time. It’s astonishing, genuinely, with its 7-component structure, triple-12-string opening and jarring dynamic shifts, that they ever attempted it dwell at all. But the Foxtrot closer did highlight established lists from the early to late ’70s, soon after which place they pruned sections to accommodate extra substance. (The trio lineup past executed the full monitor in September 1982, also tackling it the next thirty day period all through their one particular-off reunion with Gabriel, dubbed 6 of the Finest.) Given that then it is been snippets, mainly weaved into cleverly arranged prog medleys: They played the “Apocalypse in 9/8” portion for the duration of the Invisible Touch tour and, more than a ten years later on, “Lover’s Leap” as component of their Contacting All Stations run. Though most ’70s Genesis nerds would savor even a crumb of “Supper,” it is been fun to hear them dig further for their “Cinema Show” medley, adding in bits of “Riding the Scree” and “In That Silent Earth.” 

“The Musical Box” 

It is a staple of the band’s early prog days, solidifying the sonic melting pot of the Phil Collins/Steve Hackett lineup. And “The Musical Box” turned a stay staple around the many years, showing semi-regularly through 1992. As Nic Collins a short while ago verified to Relix, Genesis rehearsed the music for the 2021 tour ahead of slicing it altogether: “[It’s] pretty early prog with plenty of fills close to the drum kit, and I remember carrying out people [during rehearsals] simply because I listened to the record,” he mentioned. “[Keyboardist] Tony Banking institutions appeared at me and stated, ‘Nic, that sounds wonderful, but could you not make it audio so 1970? Could you just modernize it a little little bit?’” Potentially they produced the appropriate connect with: Prog fans are not always eager on “modernizing.”

“No Reply At All”

Genesis never bought funkier than “No Reply At All,” driven by the Earth, Wind & Fire horn part and one particular of Mike Rutherford’s most melodic bass strains. But the tune, played dwell a measly 67 periods, never ever survived over and above the Abacab era — last appearing in August 1982. (This inspite of the solitary earning modest chart achievements, reaching No. 29 on the Billboard Hot 100.) In some ways, phasing it out was understandable: Without having individuals very important horns, the track just does not really feel the exact same. But with a even bigger live band and superior keyboard know-how, it would have been significantly a lot easier to sidestep that issue.

“Dodo/Lurker”

Genesis have also handed on each individual other Abacab tune, like the thumping title observe and drum-machine belter “Male on the Corner.” Both equally of people would have been sensible picks — substantially much more than two-component deep slash “Dodo/Lurker,” a person of the band’s quirkiest moments of the total ’80s. It’s also one particular of the most cinematic Genesis music, time period, complete of wild synthesizers and funky digressions. They’ve played it dwell only 181 periods — and it seems that number will continue to be static.

“Los Endos”

The greatest established-listing shock could possibly be disregarding all of A Trick of the Tail, the band’s initially album with Collins as direct singer. Quite a few of people music grew to become dwell staples — including the fusion-y instrumental “Los Endos,” which they’ve performed 662 overall situations (the most of any monitor in their catalog, excluding Collins’ recurrent drum duets with former touring member Chester Thompson). It’s a distressing omission, specially, as Nic Collins explained to Rolling Stone, they rehearsed it. But with Genesis focusing principally on vocal-oriented tunes, supplied the elder Collins’ incapability to enjoy drums, it would make perception that an instrumental would get the axe. 

“Dance on a Volcano” 

It is also a bummer not to hear this grand Tail epic, but was any one expecting it? Genesis last performed it as aspect of their “previous medley” on Nov. 17, 1992, together with several other prog items. Continue to, it is their 10th-most-played music, showing in 499 whole shows — far more than at present performed tunes like “Observe You Comply with Me,” “Residence by the Sea” and “Mama.” The fantastic news: Former guitarist Hackett carries on to perform the music on his solo excursions. “I normally felt this a person worked spectacularly well reside,” he said in a 2020 online video breakdown. “It was always effective.”

“Again in N.Y.C.”

A snarling rocker established in 7/8, “Back in N.Y.C.” did not survive prolonged past The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway tour — appearing in only a handful of shows in 1980 and the infamous “Six of the Best” reunion gig with Peter Gabriel in 1982. (Exciting point: It can be a person of the several Genesis songs Gabriel has done as a solo artist, highlighting his early reside reveals in 1977.) Supplied its onstage scarcity, no one’s almost certainly stunned “N.Y.C.” lay dormant in 2021. But we’re dreaming here!

“In the Cage” 

“Back again in N.Y.C.” may possibly have been a extend for this tour, but it truly is a lot more curious Genesis still left out “In the Cage,” yet another Lamb Lies Down traditional they have performed a great deal additional usually. (It ranks fourth in their total count, trailing only the drum duet, “Los Endos” and psychedelic sing-along staple “I Know What I Like [In Your Wardrobe].”) “Cage” was even element of the band’s 2007 reunion, kicking off a prog medley that also wove in “The Cinema Demonstrate,” “Duke’s Travels” and “Afterglow.” Given The Lamb‘s surreal lyrical idea, some items don’t keep up far too very well out of context. But as Financial institutions observed in that album’s DVD reissue job interview, “Cage” is an exception: “[It] sort of nearly will work, though the ‘brother John’ little bit in the middle lyrically would not make a lot feeling, but I assume it really is a truly sturdy piece of audio, so it all stands up.”

“Watcher of the Skies”

Foxtrot‘s opener kicks off with Banks’ eerie chord development — a seem Hackett described as “1 of the, to my head, terrific mellotron times of the 20th century — and into the 21st, of training course.” And the toughness of that sequence alone created “Watcher of the Skies” an early live beloved, highlighting a lot of of their excursions by 1982. But not everyone in the band is rather so fond of the tune: Even though singling out the “amazing” intro, Rutherford argued in the Foxtrot reissue DVD that “the text are a little bit suspect” and the arrangement “a bit chaotic.”

“Driving the Very last Spike”

Genesis last performed “Driving the Final Spike,” one of their last prog epics, during the We Won’t be able to Dance tour. Again, it is a logical shift: No one’s expecting them to devote 10 minutes to a ’90s deep slash. But it truly is a single of the band’s most underrated moments: a very long-variety tale about a 19th-century railway employee, offering a throat-ripping Collins vocal that stays a profession emphasize.