Genesis: Roundhouse film (1970) screening

Film shown for the first time after 43 years

Roundhouse gig 1970: First public screening of the film

Video footage of Genesis, Hawkwind, David Bowie shown for the first time after 43 years

It has been known now for several years that Genesis and other bands were filmed during their performances at the Roundhouse in 1970, but nobody actually knew much about what had been filmed, what quality it was, whether it had sound or anything else. The only thing that is certain is: This is the only video footage of the Genesis line-up with Anthony Phillips and John Mayhew.

A couple of days ago a number of fans were given the opportunity to actually watch an edited version of the film in the Roundhouse - exactly 43 years after the very day the bands had been recorded in that same venue.

These notes have reached us from someone in the audience of the first screening:

Atomic Sunrise The venue was roughly three-quarters full, with a capacity of 100. A lady did a brief introduction, mostly aimed at refuting some of the standard internet claims derogatory to the owners of the film, and explaining that a big motiviation for the screenings came from the death of some of the contributore, notably John Mayhew.

The film that was shown lasted about an hour. The flyer described it as the first "rough cut" shown to the artists/management. Contents were something like this:

Genesis - Knife

Hawkwind

Bowie

Third Theatre Living Ear Band (short, silent)

Genesis - Looking For someone

Hawkwind - Be Yourself

Bowie - Memory of a free festival

Noel Reading - Fat Matress (short, silent)

Quality was as one might expect from the youtube clips: remarkable for the age of the footage though varying from good clarity to medium pixellation.

The soundtrack was dubbed, as per the youtube samples. It was disappointing that only the two Genesis songs from the youtube clips were there, yet of course interesting to see the greatly extended edits.

Clearly a great deal of editing was involved. It looked as though footage from at least three cameras contributed: one without timecode (but largely dancers on the floor of the roundhouse, possibly no Genesis footage from this cam) and two with timecodes of differing values, one being somewhat darker.

For once, it was an advantage having timecodes as it could be seen how the makers had shuffled clips from both main cams backwards and forwards to fit the chosen audio. The same applied to the Bowie and Hawkwind edits. The audio was the same as for the samples, i.e. Nightride 70 providing Looking For Someone and the studio version providing Knife.

The last minute or so was HD to show how good the material might look with more work. Says our source: "To be perfectly honest I forgot that this had been announced and did not notice the difference."

The producers of this film version said they had received mixed reponses from the artists and the management, with some keen to have this see the light of day, some unresponsive, not to mention the question of funding. They took pains to stress that they were not in it just to make money.

Our source feels that "the soundtrack is the real key, since there is surely more material, probably some of which will be embryonic versions and therefore with no alternative audio source." Questions about the

soundtrack produced two unsatisfactory and not very consistent answers: The makers know who has the soundtrack, and/or as the video gets more exposure, the soundtrack will surface at some point.

published on 12.03.13 17:48 by martinus @ Genesis